Adelaide United FC Coach John Kosmina is not complaining about his team’s start to the season after yesterday’s 1-1 draw with Perth Glory.
Adelaide United FC Coach John Kosmina is not complaining about his team-s start to the season, after yesterday-s 1-1 draw with Perth Glory gave the Reds thirteen points from the first six games to have them equal top of the table, second only behind the Central Coast Mariners on goal difference.
At the same stage last season, the Reds sat in seventh with three losses and just one clean sheet, telling a different tale of where the squad is situated now.
In the inaugural year of the Hyundai A-League, a Kosmina led Adelaide United outfit had 14 points after the first six matches, planting a foundation for the club-s most successful season as they claimed the Premier-s Plate.
It is dangerous to make comparisons, but Kosmina has been around football circles long enough to know what expectations he has of his charges at this point of a campaign.
Pleasingly for Kosmina, he knows that there is still a lot of improvement and progress in his team, a view which would undoubtedly be shared by all of the other coaches in the league when speaking about their own squads. The positive for Kosmina is that the Reds have points in the bank early on.
“I watched the first half last night and I was happy with the way we knocked the ball around,” Kosmina said.
“It-s work in progress. That we conceded – we can fix that up, and you-re not going to go through a season without conceding goals, and the fact is we came back and played well in the second half.”
The most testing thing confronting Kosmina at the moment is finding the right balance with the players at his disposal, while also keeping everyone in what is a fit and healthy Reds squad happy.
The experienced coach is renowned for his ‘if it ain-t broke, don-t fix it- philosophy, but with a host of new faces in the squad every year, Kosmina knows there is a need to experiment before it all starts to click properly.
“I don-t like to chop and change but we-re still trying to find ways to play with people, especially the new guys Marcelo and Jeronimo,” Kosmina said.
“They haven-t been here for a very long time, they missed most of pre season which is when most of the work was done and it was more about the Champions League.”
“You-ve got to try and fit players in or work around different players and their personality types and their footballing types, so chopping and changing isn-t really my normal cup of tea but at the moment it-s what we-ve got to do.”
As it is in team sport, it-s a fact of life that there are always going to be players who miss out. The impressive depth in United-s playing list this season means there are going to be tough decisions when it comes to selection, but Kosmina would much prefer to be faced that dilemma than the alternative.
“It-s always hard to keep them (the players) happy but that-s a fact of life – it-s professional sport,” Kosmina said.
“If you want a competitive squad, you sign good players. You get good players in the squad and then it becomes competitive.”
Preparing for the visit of Melbourne Heart on Saturday, Kosmina maintained the view that he has had all season that he and United-s coaching staff would look at what line-up and combination will give the team the best chance of winning the game.
“I like to keep things as stable as possible but we-ll just have a look at what we might need to do on Saturday to get a result,” Kosmina said.
