Adelaide United striker Bruce Djite is keen to repay the club where it all began for him in the Hyundai A-League following his return to the South Australian capital.
Adelaide United striker Bruce Djite is keen to repay the club where it all began for him in the Hyundai A-League following his return to the South Australian capital.
The Reds have changed owners in the off-season and also overhauled their squad, making for some big changes both on and off the field.
And speaking on the eve of the new season, which kicks off for Adelaide United with a trip to play Perth Glory on Sunday afternoon, Djite said he hasn’t missed a beat since moving back.
“I’m thrilled to be back in Adelaide to be honest,” Djite said.
“(It’s a) fantastic football city, it’s a place I hold dear to myself.”
“It’s always been close to my heart, they kind of gave me my start so to come back and be a part of a brand-new club pretty much, they’ve got new owners and pretty much a new team and new staff.”
“(I’m) very, very happy to be a part of the club and hopefully I can give back some of what Adelaide’s given me in the last few years.”
While he’s happy to be finally preparing for matches again after an off-season that lasted nearly seven months, Djite said it had its benefits for coach Rini Coolen.
“It was a bit too long, but the one good thing (is) there’s a lot of turnover in A-League squads and the one good thing it has done is allowed teams maybe to get their structure right, get the tactics right (and) get their personnel 100 percent right,” he added.
“Everyone should have no excuses when the league starts, they should all be starting on fire and in sync with each other so that should bode well for the standard of football, it should be at a high level and I’ve got no doubt about that.”
Much is again expected of Coolen’s men, who last season knocked off Wellington early in the finals before being themselves eliminated by Gold Coast United.
And Djite said the expectations are not unreasonable given what Coolen and his players are aiming for themselves.
“I think the expectations are quite high,” Djite said.
“To have high expectations and to have people talking about you is a positive thing and it just shows that the club recruited well and we’ve got a strong team.”
“It’s one thing to have a strong team on paper but to put it on the field and to get the result is something else.”
“That’s something we’ve worked on in pre-season and something we have discussed before.”
“We’ll be going out there every game giving 110 percent and with the quality we have we should get the results.”
“But we’ll put the hard work in first and then hopefully with a bit of luck, no injuries and stuff like that, we should be there or thereabouts come the end of the season.”
