Sydney FC coach John Kosmina is adamant Adelaide United’s recent heavy workload will prove more of a help than a hindrance for his former club at the SFS on Saturday.
The round-five Hyundai A-League clash will be the Reds’ third hit-out in nine days after their mid-week Asian Champions League encounter with Kashima Antlers in Japan.
But the former Adelaide mentor believes the visitor’s hectic schedule won’t make his own side’s task any easier.
“I think it’ll help them to be honest,” Kosmina said.
“They’ve had a trip but when you’re playing a lot of games the training component gets taken out of the equation and that’s the thing that can sometimes wear you out or it can it affect you psychologically.”
“Adelaide had a great result on Wednesday night, and as much as it might have been a bit physically draining with the heat, they’ll be psychologically on a high.”
He added: “They’re comfortable with each other, they’ve played a lot of games … so their preparation’s good and I’m not even going to take that into consideration that they might be fatigued – we’ve got to battle with them, they’ll put up a fight.”
Kosmina does not believe Aurelio Vidmar will rest key players for the clash and also rejected suggestions the visitors would take a defensive mindset into the clash.
“Adelaide play a counter-attacking game … they do play that way anyway, and they’ll work hard to get their numbers behind the ball.”
“They did on Wednesday night and they did against Melbourne last week so we’ve just got to be aware of it.”
But while Kosmina is wary of his well travelled opponents, he challenged his own players to lift their level after a disappointing scoreless draw against the Jets last start.
“We need to be more aggressive in and around the box or on the edge of the box and we need to get numbers in the box,” he said.
“At the moment we’ve been too concerned about getting to the box and playing well to get there … but we’re not producing the end result.’
“We scored five against Perth because we got into good positions and we scored three against Central Coast the week before.”
“So we can do it but we just need to get people in the box who are prepared to take risks around the edge of the box and sometimes you’ve just got to have a lash.”
