Adelaide United boss Rini Coolen admitted his star play maker, Marcos Flores, could be facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines after injuring his hamstring in Monday’s 2-1 win over Sydney FC at Sydney Football Stadium.
Just before the hour mark, Flores was tackled from behind by former Red Scott Jamieson and went down, immediately clutching his hamstring, signalling to the bench to be replaced.
Coolen admitted he had been preparing to substitute striker Sergio van Dijk who had taken a knock in the first half and was struggling to continue, before the Argentine picked up an injury, but said the Dutch-born marksmen wouldn-t miss too much action.
“We don-t know exactly, it-s a hamstring,” he said.
“It-s a muscle problem so it could be long term, but we don-t know for sure. In the next couple of days we will find out with an MRI scan how bad it is and maybe it-s not as bad as we think.”
“Sergio is just a knock and we knew already at half time we would have problems in the second half, which was the reason I was preparing already another substitute. It will take a couple of days and normally he will be ready for the next game and I don-t see that as a problem.”
Matthew Leckie missed the clash through national team duty with the Young Socceroos and when Flores was replaced just before the hour and van Dijk followed five minutes later, the Reds- hopes of a comeback from a goal down appeared dashed.
Ex Sydney FC gun Iain Ramsay was brought on at half time in a bid to revive United and it was the Blues former National Youth League Player of the Year who scored the eventual winner against his old side.
While Coolen expressed his delight with the speedster sealing the three points for the Reds, he also praised towering central defender Robert Cornthwaite who was thrust into the lone striker-s role, not for the first time, in a bid to salvage a result for United.
The 197cm stopper proved a menace in the dying stages and it was his assist after a nimble run that provided Ramsay with the winning goal.
“I knew that he already did it a few times last year,” he said
“He can hold the ball, he even gave the assist. I didn-t expect he would do that but also for defensive moments, free kicks and corner kicks, he has a real big jump and I think it was a good decision to play up front.”
“I had a feeling that one of the teams would score a goal. They had more chances than we had, but I thought we could also score on the day and that-s what we did.”
Coolen acknowledged the Reds were lucky to escape with all three points, conceding the defending champions were better on the day.
“We won, but we were not so good as Sydney,” he said.
“They were much better than we were yesterday so I feel sorry for them. Normally they should have won the game but they didn-t. For us it was a real good win.”
“It was a good team result even though they were much better than us. Sometimes you don-t get everything you need in the game so we were a little bit lucky yesterday but it was a good performance for the team.”
“I think late in the game you have to be happy with a point. If you don-t play well and they had a few chances to score and you can take a point in an away game especially.”
