Adelaide United coach Rini Coolen has admitted he is a keen admirer of embattled club North Queensland Fury and is expecting a tough game on Friday night at Hindmarsh Stadium.
Coolen acknowledged the Fury play great attacking football and are loaded with individual talent but said luck has not been on the side of the Townsville-based club, particularly in the latter stages of matches, only losing once by more than a goal – their last outing a 2-0 home defeat to the Newcastle Jets.
The Fury have only won three games this season and are rock bottom of the Hyundai A-League with 15 points, one less than Perth Glory.
“I think if you look at the whole season, they are one of the teams I prefer how they play,” he said.
“They play great football, they have a lot of good individual players but they have problems sometimes at the end of the game, unlucky sometimes. The way they prefer to play the game, they are a tough team. It will be a real tough game for us.”
The club is not permitted to re-sign players and have this week lost star forward Chris Payne to the Jets and Osama Malik who will return to Adelaide next season.
Malik looked good in an impressive 13-minute cameo against J-League super club Gamba Osaka in the Reds’ 2008 FIFA World Club Cup campaign.
The 20 year-old enjoyed a spell in the 2008-09 National Youth League season before being eventually snapped up by the Fury and Coolen doesn’t expected the talented midfielder-turned-defender to pull any punches against the Reds on Friday night.
“Probably after the game we will have some chats,” he said.
“I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago, to talk about the situation and in the end he had to take a decision.”
“We were happy when he took the decision, I think it’s a good decision that he is coming back to play for us but tomorrow he’s a player from the Fury and he has to do his job and he’s a professional who has to do his job.”
Before United’s clash with Gold Coast United, Coolen named his former prodigy at FC Twente, Jason Culina, as the best player in the Hyundai A-League.
The Dutchman placed Fury gun David Williams in the same category as Culina, as one of the league’s best and a player every coach would love to have in their squad.
With the Fury unable to retain their players for next season, Coolen denied Williams has been a potential target but highlighted the speedster as a definite danger player for Friday night’s match.
“I think one of the best players in the league is David Williams,” he said.
“He is that kind of player, the same when we asked the question about Jason Culina the other week, every coach wants to work with them. That kind of player every coach wants in their team.”
“He can play on all sides of the pitch, right wing, left wing, as a striker. He’s real mobile, he’s a good player and he can score goals.”
“He’s still a contracted player. That’s the reason I haven’t mentioned his name before. In my mind he’s still with the Fury so we didn’t talk about him in the last couple of weeks.”
