Adelaide United will enter its clash against Central Coast minus Cassio after the Brazilian was ruled out with a back injury.
Reds coach Aurelio Vidmar said the left midfielder had taken the injury into the team’s clash against the Victory last Saturday.
“He hurt his back last week and he’s only got about 20 per cent rotation … and it was probably due to the hard pitches, he did that I think last Tuesday or Wednesday,” Vidmar said.
“He went into last week sort of gingerly.”
Vidmar said the condition of Hindmarsh Stadium may have played a part in the team’s poor run with injuries.
“We haven’t been able to use Hindmarsh at all this week because they are fixing it up a little bit for us and the pitches we are using at the moment are a little bit hard,” he said.
“With hard pitches, you are going to get some sort of discomfort whether it’s heels, Achilles, all those sorts of things.”
Meanwhile Adelaide is using a sports psychologist in a hope of overcoming its inconsistency as the Reds have failed to win consecutive games this season.
Vidmar said the team had the potential and the fitness to be a championship contender.
“We can match it with anyone in the competition, there’s no question about that I have absolutely no doubt about that,” he said.
“It’s not physical, we’ve run out games over the last five or six weeks without a problem. It doesn’t matter what formations you play, doesn’t matter which players are playing, doesn’t matter what changes you make, we continually run out games.”
“We play an opponent tomorrow night who are in probably very good physical shape so that’s going to be a test for us.”
“What we’ve got to use is our mind a little bit more and be a little bit mindful of the situation and mindful of what everyone is doing.”
“It’s about everyone actually being aware of the things we need to change and it’s about everyone driving those objectives every day.”
