Brazilian recruit Cristiano could be set for more bench time despite the deficiencies Adelaide United displayed in attack against the Jets last week.
The confident striker was the go-to man earlier this season but more recently has been on the outer, having played just 27 minutes in the past fortnight.
A lighter program immediately after the ACL campaign was understandable but now he’s refreshed, the 27-year-old has made it public he wants more of a go.
United coach Aurelio Vidmar was non-committal about the striker’s role against Wellington on Friday.
“We’ll wait and see,” Vidmar said.
“Whether it’s him or somebody else it doesn’t matter. I’ve spoken to him on a number of occasions about what we require in terms of once you go on the pitch.”
“If he gets that opportunity, whether it’s tomorrow or the week after, he’s under pressure to deliver.”
Vidmar said all the players’ hunger for more game time was a positive for the team.
“They are all itching to get back on the starting line-up which is good so when the opportunity arises we hope they take their chance,” he said.
“I’d expect every player to be upset about not playing in the team.”
Regardless of selection decisions, Adelaide needs to find a way of becoming more lethal in attack. Last Sunday, United had plenty of the ball, but spent most of the second half trailing a struggling Newcastle line-up.
“We had some really good numbers in terms of possession in the opposition half last week, I think at one stage it was 61 per cent in the opposition half and that’s a massive number,” Vidmar said.
“And the question was what did we do with the 61 per cent and the answer was absolutely nothing.”
“We had hardly any crosses, hardly any shots so that’s something we started working on yesterday.”
Vidmar said the team also needed to keep its defensive action simple if it’s to beat the Phoenix at Hindmarsh Stadium.
The Phoenix won just two of their first 10 games but have now recorded three victories in a row.
Vidmar said the New Zealand side provided a real challenge for his players.
“They are probably the form team of the competition at this point of time, they’ve taken a couple of big scalps in Sydney and Melbourne over the last couple of weeks,” he said.
“Smeltzy (Shane Smeltz) is probably the best striker in the competition – I think he’s scored maybe 80-85 per cent of their goals so that’s a magnificent achievement.”
“With Fred coming into the line-up that adds a little bit of flare going forward.”
