Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar has put the blowtorch on some of his key players ahead of its match against the Gold Coast at Hindmarsh Stadium on Friday.
Left-back Scott Jamieson is treading on thin ice after some indifferent form this year while Lloyd Owusu, who didn’t have a major impact playing for the youth league side last weekend, and captain Travis Dodd need to score some goals quickly to earn their keep.
The Reds have also lost faith in Paul Reid’s fitness and have already told him he won’t be playing at any level this weekend despite recovering from a left calf strain.
Vidmar said at this stage Reid was too much of a risk to play.
“We are not going to make the mistake three times (of playing Reid too soon after injuries),” Vidmar said.
“He joined the group at the beginning of this week. So he needs to complete a whole week and there won’t be any game for Paul this week, complete a second week with the group and then he’ll be considered for a game with the National Youth League.”
Vidmar was optimistic Jamieson would turn his season around but did admit he was under pressure to maintain his spot in the line-up.
“By his own admission he’s not the player that he was last year. He’s a good kid, a very good professional, he’s got a very good outlook on training and his career on where he wants to go and where he wants to be,” he said.
“He’s having a tough time at the moment absolutely but I have all the faith in him that he’ll get back to the sort of form that he showed last year.”
“It’s always difficult, you hear it so many times that after a good first year you get the second-year blues.”
Meanwhile, United has worked hard to try and rectify Owusu and Dodd’s goal-scoring yips.
“They know it hasn’t been good enough in front of goal and people have said it – we’ve played some good football but we haven’t finished,” Vidmar said.
“We’ve worked quite hard last week and again this week on a few occasions about finishing and making sure we’re doing that under pressure and it has worked quite well.”
“Now it’s about making sure that we translate what we did at training on the pitch.”
In better news for the Reds, exciting young midfielder Mathew Leckie has recovered from a hamstring injury and will take to the pitch on Friday.
“If it was a grand final, that game against Brisbane, he would’ve played absolutely. It was a real slight strain and he’s trained for just over a week and is looking very good,” Vidmar added.
