Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar says teenager Matthew Leckie won’t necessarily be rushed into the Reds’ starting 11 despite scoring a memorable goal against Townsville on Sunday.
Leckie, who was plucked from the Bulleen Lions earlier this month, has delivered impressive second-half cameos during United’s past two games. Against the Fury he was a match winner, scoring the team’s second goal after an evasive run through the midfield.
Adelaide has struggled to score goals this season but Vidmar said there wouldn’t be too much expectation on the Victorian to deliver.
“No pressure at all. He’s still learning the game, he’s only 18, he’s only been here four or five weeks, but I’m more than happy at this point of time to continually throw him on,” Vidmar said.
“I think he can give us something different in the last 15 or 20 minutes so it’ll probably come to a point that we might give him a start.”
“We’re always willing to give the kids a go and we’ve done that for a number of years. Some will take the opportunity and some won’t.”
While Leckie is in the infancy of his Hyundai A-League career, Vidmar did admit he was already impressed by the right midfielder.
“The way he took his goal was first-class so he’ll continue to get some more game time and hopefully he can develop and flourish into a very good player,” he said.
“The goal he took on Sunday night, players play four or five years before they can do something like that.”
“He just had one thing on his mind, which was the goal, and Lloydy (Owusu) made a fantastic run for him to take away another defender and he cut back and he was really composed.”
Vidmar, who was asked whether Leckie was the club’s next Nathan Burns, felt a comparison with the Reds’ skipper was more appropriate.
“Someone described him as a mini Travis (Dodd) and I’d probably agree with that and that’s the position he likes to play either high right or high left and with his pace he’s really direct and really courageous as well,” he said.
The season isn’t looking as promising for one of Adelaide’s other youngsters with Joe Costa set to miss six months of football after undergoing a knee reconstruction.
Costa, who played in United’s Round 1 clash against Perth, hurt his knee in the National Youth League earlier this month.
While disappointed to be injured Costa is pleased his recovery time will be shorter than expected.
The tear in his ACL allowed him to have a synthetic graft inserted, meaning a quicker than normal recovery time for a knee reconstruction.
“He had a full knee reconstruction but they used a synthetic fibre instead of an actual graft which can shorten the rehab time. So depending on how his rehab goes, he could be back sooner,” Adelaide United Director of Football Michael Petrillo said.
