Sydney FC coach John Kosmina has declared season 2008-09 over after the Sky Blues suffered their fourth loss in a row on Saturday night.
Sydney was beaten by Adelaide United 2-0 at Adelaide Oval and remains six points behind fourth-placed Queensland Roar with three games to go.
While there may be a slim mathematical chance of Sydney FC moving up the ladder, Kosmina said his team was coming from too far behind.
“We need a lot of luck with other results but the best we can get is 29 points so you could basically say we are history,” Kosmina said.
The former Reds coach said he didn’t have a lot to say to his team after the Round 18 clash with the players realising their season had slipped away.
“I think everybody knows … what can you say, shook their hands and that’s it, it’s over and done with, game over,” he said.
It’s been a dramatic fall from grace for the competition’s ‘Bling’ team which was a frontrunner in the early rounds of the competition.
Kosmina said the second half of the season exposed a lack of depth in his squad.
“There was a lot of changes, a lot of new faces, and then within that there was a lot of changes anyway because of the problems we’ve had with injuries, so it was always going to be difficult – too many changes too often,” he said.
“Look at the first part of the season when nothing changed very much at all. We created a bit of flow we had some momentum.”
Kosmina said transfer talk surrounding a handful of his players had also disrupted the team mid-season.
“It doesn’t help because at the time it was unsettling because we probably got hit harder than any other team in the competition.”
With the team’s plans ruined, Kosmina said the team would look to give its younger players more opportunities and possibly continue resting players like John Aloisi.
He said it was important to finish the year off with some victories.
“There is pride to play for which is a horrible cliche to be perfectly honest because you don’t want to be in a position to play for pride,” he said.
Sydney FC captain Steve Corica also conceded the team’s finals aspirations had been dashed.
“This is the only season we haven’t made the top four so it’s been a disappointing one to say the least really,” he said.
“But that’s football, we’ve got to get on with it. We’ve got three games to play still, have a bit of pride in what we are doing and hopefully we get a couple of results.”
