Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar remains reluctant to start with a duel-striker set-up despite the cameo partnership of Lloyd Owusu and Cristiano pushing the Reds towards an unlikely victory against the Jets at Hindmarsh Stadium on Monday.
Trailing 1-0 at half-time, the Reds got busy when Mathew Leckie took to the pitch while the introduction of substitute Cristiano at the 70th minute applied even greater pressure to Newcastle’s defence.
The changes yielded a positive result with an unattended Cassio cracking the equaliser a few minutes later.
Vidmar admitted the changes played a part in the team fighting back for a draw.
“To be honest there wasn’t much happening in terms of penetrating and that’s why we had to make the changes and we could’ve probably made them at half time,” Vidmar said.
“The changes made it a little bit more dynamic and certainly the last 20 minutes is how we expect to play.”
But Vidmar gave a guarded response when asked about the possibility of using Owusu and Cristiano on a more permanent basis.
“We’ll wait and see I’m not sure. You are all going to harp on about the 4-4-2 (formation) forever aren’t you,” he said to a journalist in a post-match media conference.
Vidmar said conceding early goals and a lack of initiative going forward, more than attacking formations, was playing a part in the team’s up and down form this season.
“We’ve been trying over the last couple of weeks of keeping better possession, and we certainly did that last week, and certainly we did it this week but it’s about moving forward then,” he said.
“We can’t just keep playing the ball across the back, we made it easy for them without really penetrating.”
Adelaide has only four days to recover before its Round 10 clash against the Glory in Perth this Friday.
Paul Reid (thigh) and Alemao (nose) have overcome their injuries and will come under consideration for that clash.
