Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar has either begun some clever mind games or given an honest admission by agreeing the Gold Coast is a chance to go through the Hyundai A-League season undefeated.
Vidmar said ‘it’d be great’ to beat GCU at Hindmarsh Stadium on Friday night but didn’t scoff at claims by the Coast’s owner Clive Palmer his side wouldn’t lose this year.
“A pretty strong statement and when you have a look at the team they’ve assembled they’ve probably got all the possibilities of achieving that,” Vidmar said.
“We’re confident in our own ability. Our preparation up to this point has been spot on.”
Gold Coast has definitely started the season like a championship frontrunner with a 3-1 victory over Queensland Roar in Round 1 followed up by a 5-0 drubbing of North Queensland Fury at the weekend.
Striker Shane Smeltz played a big part in the second win by netting four of the five goals.
Vidmar says it’ll be tougher to stop Smeltz than in previous years because of Gold Coast’s quality across the pitch.
It’s not the first time Smeltz has been a goal-scoring sensation, having scored 21 times in 39 games for his old club Wellington Phoenix as he claimed the Golden Boot last year.
But it’s his new allies on the pitch which has opposition teams worried.
“With all due respect to Wellington in the last couple of years there wasn’t a lot of match winners around him and a lot of his goals he had to create himself, and his goal of the year was done like that,” Vidmar said.
“Now he’s got a lot of match winners around him so it’s not just about shutting down Shane Smeltz, it’s about shutting down Porter, Culina, whoever else plays in the midfield, they’ve just got a lot of weapons in the front third.”
“He’s in great form and certainly last year showed with Wellington that he’s an excellent player, an excellent goal scorer, knows where the goals are, can link up with other players in the team and he’s just got a great knack of scoring goals.”
“We saw with the four goals he scored, just real clinical finishing.”
Vidmar said marquee player Jason Culina was looming as just as big a threat as Smeltz.
“He wants to get on the ball and seems to have a free roll everywhere and players like that are always going to be hard to contain so we’ll have to keep an eye on him but they’ve got another eight or nine players that can do some damage,” he said.
While Vidmar is talking up the Coast, Reds midfielder Adam Hughes said his team-mates were confident of bouncing back this week – especially if they make more of their opportunities in attack.
“There’s different ways we can close them down. It’s going to be Viddie’s call at the end of the day, what structure and game plan we take out there but I’ve got full confidence in this team,” he said.
“I think we can take it to them and get the three points this weekend.”
“We have been a bit off target, I have to put my hand up there, I’ve missed a couple of chances and the boys have as well. It’s one of those ones where you have to get back on the training paddock and keep working at it.”
