Melbourne Victory head coach Dave Edmondson is wary of his former club ahead of their visit on Saturday, as Adelaide United have proven to be a stubborn outfit this season.
Adelaide beat Brisbane Roar last weekend, a landmark result despite their numerical disadvantage after Roar defender Laura Alleway was sent off.
It was a result that didn’t surprise Edmondson, who knows that Adelaide will be raring to go come Saturday afternoon.
“It was a typical Adelaide performance and nothing really that I didn’t expect,” Edmondson said.
“They’ve been well organised, they’ve been difficult to break down with one or two key players, Kristy Moore is always a real good attacking threat.
“They obviously did well to get the result against the ten players with 84 minutes but Brisbane will still be disappointed that they didn’t get at the very least a draw out of the game regardless of the sending off.
“But it’s going to give Adelaide a lot of confidence coming into this week.”
Adelaide’s squad has changed a bit under new coach Ross Aloisi, and he has delivered some good results this season so far, with two wins and a draw against Western Sydney Wanderers.
Edmondson was pleased to see his old side have a run of good results, something which has not been associated with the club in the past.
“Before I went in they were on something like a three year losing streak that they were on, or 37 games without a win, or something along those lines,” he said.
“Even when we got our first win there, it was against Perth towards the end of the first season – then the following year first game up we got a win against Western Sydney and that changes things.
“With a number of new players that Ross has brought in this year, [they’ve achieved] consecutive good results.
“That’s the issue we had over the last couple of years – we’d have one great result and then you’d have two or three poor results and then you’d have a close result and then two or three poor ones again.
“They’ve been able to back up a lot this year and they’ve got a lot of new bodies in there, not so many local players who are used to that losers tag if you want.”
In order to make sure Adelaide’s good run doesn’t continue, and do the double over his former club, Edmondson knows his side need to show a more clinical edge up front.
“We just need to make sure that we do what know we can do and finish better than we did on the weekend,” he said.
“The week before Newcastle emphasis [in training] was in the final third, last week the emphasis was more middle and back third so it depends on who we’re playing and where we think we need to improve from the week before, so that varies during the season.
“There is still plenty for us to work on but I think the basic framework is there now and we just need to get a little bit more consistent in the way that we deliver the way that we want to play and be able to do it for longer periods against the best teams when we’re under pressure.”
Apart from all the things that still need work on, when it comes time for kick off on Saturday Edmondson will only have one objective on his mind.
“It’s obviously a game I want to win, that no different to whether we’re playing Western Sydney or Perth or whether we’re playing a group of thrown together players from here that I want to win every game we play. I don’t think it makes too much difference.”