Adelaide skipper Travis Dodd says attack will be as important as defence in Saturday night’s Hyundai A-League Grand Final.
While much of the focus has been on Adelaide’s need to prevent Melbourne’s deadly attacking trio of Carlos Hernandez, Danny Allsopp and Archie Thompson from scoring, Dodd said Adelaide can not afford to forget its attacking responsibilities in the Grand Final and that defence alone won’t win them the championship.
“I think it’s a fine balance. We don’t want to go into the game tomorrow and sit back and play for a 0-0 draw and try to win it on penalties. That’s not going to benefit anybody,” he said.
“We will be going out to attack. We just have to be smart about it. We can’t go out there all guns blazing because they are a great side and they will pick you apart if you do that.”
The title decider pits the A-League’s best defence against its most potent attack, which may lead to the assumption that the battle between the Melbourne attack and Adelaide defence will be decisive. Dodd said it would be foolish to go out there and expect Melbourne not to score given it has done so in its past 14 matches.
“Trying to keep them scoreless will be difficult. They’ve got such a potent attacking front third and I’m sure they’ll be brimming with confidence. I think it will be tough to keep them in check, they are going to have opportunities, no doubt, but we need to make sure that we can keep them out as best we can,” he said.
Adelaide goes into the game as the underdog with Melbourne having won all five encounters between the teams this year. But Dodd is adamant that he and his team-mates must maintain a positive attitude heading into the match.
“I think if we didn’t have that belief then as Archie’s been saying all week, we might as well not show up. We’ve got the confidence there and we’re happy to go in as underdogs, that’s no problem for us. We just need to go out there worry about our own football, do the things that we do well and we can get a good result,” he said.
Dodd believes that the weight of expectation going into the game on Melbourne, which hosts the game in front of a 50,000-strong crowd, might actually work against the Victory.
“The pressure is certainly on them. And they are talking up a big game, they’ll be expected to do good things, so if they can’t, then I would expect the crowd to get on top of them,” he said.
