Adelaide United have returned to the winners list with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Perth Glory at Hindmarsh Stadium on Wednesday night.
After a dour and less than entertaining first half, the Reds found the back of the net through Iain Fyfe just after the hour before Sergio van Dijk sealed the win in injury time.
The contest was hard and sometimes heated with nine yellow cards and one red dished out, with the Glory collecting seven and having Naum Sekalovski sent off on 63 minutes for a deliberate handball.
From the resulting free kick Fyfe opened the scoring for United with well placed header converting a pin point delivery from Lucas Pantelis.
Reds coach Rini Coolen admitted United’s first half was poor but he was please with the response after the break.
“There were two different halves of course, I was not happy with the first half,” he said.
“We showed in the second half we can play football, play like a man. We spoke about it at half time. And to be honest I’m real happy with how they picked it up in the second half. It’s also a kind of mentality thing.”
With Perth now stretching their winless run to 10, coach Ian Ferguson said he was pleased with his side’s effort despite the defeat.
“We’ve had another defeat which is not great,” he said.
“But I think the effort and the commitment the boys showed tonight was fantastic.”
After breaking the deadlock, United claimed a stranglehold on the contest although the 10-men of the visitors worried the Reds when they went forward.
Travis Dodd’s impact had been almost immediate when he was brought on at half-time injecting pace into the game that lacked plenty of life.
Dodd had a wonderful chance to kill off the contest and add a second when he skipped in ahead of Glory keeper Tando Velhapi who raced off his line to meet the captain.
The pair tussled for the ball on the edge of the area and Dodd won out but put his shot into the side netting with an open goal begging.
Pantelis also missed a guilt edged chance in the dying stages before van Dijk finally got United’s second goal in injury time.
Cassio found substitute Iain Ramsay on the left and the winger whipped in a cross first time for the burly forward who made no mistake with his header from six metres.
The opening half brought little excitement with Perth squeezing the Reds allowing them little time on the ball.
Chances were few and far between and mistakes were aplenty with the best chance of the first half falling to United in the 38 minute after some clever work on the left from Pantelis.
The winger’s cross was cleared out of the box by the Glory but Paul Reid volleyed from 20 metres only for his rocket to take a slight deflection and skim the bar.
