Sydney FC coach John Kosmina has strongly rejected suggestions Adelaide United’s decision to rest several key players for Saturday’s Round 5 Hyundai A-League clash made his side’s task any easier.
Sasa Ognenovski, Paul Reid and Eugene Galekovic were the only Reds players to back up from Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Kashima Antlers in the Asian Champions League.
But Kosmina believes his side deserves all the credit for taking the game to his former club from the outset.
“I think the way that we played took all the sting out of Adelaide,” Kosmina said.
“When you cop a smack in the jaw like we gave Adelaide in the first couple of minutes (courtesy of Terry McFlynn’s early goal) it’s pretty hard to pick yourself up.”
While full of praise for his men, Kosmina did question the motives of his opposite number Aurelio Vidmar, who must now turn his attention to Wednesday’s return clash with Kashima in Adelaide.
“The things is you put a team out on the park, there was 11 guys out there with Adelaide United badges on, I don’t care who was in the team,” Kosmina said.
“The A-League’s about having a squad of players and all of the people in that squad have got to be able to stand up.”
Vidmar defended his makeshift line-up, but conceded the heavy schedule has taken it’s toll.
“We had to make a couple of changes, a couple were forced on us and a few (players) we decided to rest,” Vidmar said.
“So probably in one game and one week it was far too many changes.”
He added: “It’s been pretty tough on everyone, that’s 10 or 11 days away, sometimes living in each others pockets gets a little bit too much.”
“So we’ll go home tomorrow and bounce back on Monday and we’ll see how everyone is and get ready for the game on Wednesday.”
The Reds mentor concedes a heavy defeat four days out from the crucial ACL clash is far from ideal, but could not fault the effort of his players under difficult circumstances.
“Of all those players that came in tonight they’ve had hardly any game time so obviously in terms of match rhythm they’re going to be well behind the eight ball,” he said.
“I knew that and one good thing is that they came out of it unscathed, so that’s a positive, and it was really positive the way the bounced back in that second half and started to really push.”
