A season is a long time in football; just ask Sunday afternoon’s combatants Adelaide United and Newcastle Jets.
The last time Newcastle headed to Adelaide they were in complete turmoil. Whispers of training ground disagreements and a total loss of faith in then coach Phil Stubbins led to what was the lowest ebb in Jets history.
A 7-0 shellacking in the city of churches, which featured a half time bust-up between Stubbins and a senior Jets player, culminated in the now infamous sackings of five players and the beginning of the end of the Tinkler era in Newcastle.
Fast forward 10 months and the Jets seem to be back on track. New coach Scott Miller has set about reinvigorating the season three A-League champions. Gone are the internal rumblings and in their place is a new-found belief and confidence that the Jets will be more than just competitive this season.
For Adelaide, it is a completely different story.
They sit last on the ladder with a measly two points after an offseason of disruption has led to the team starting the season almost shambolically.
It is well known that influential and much loved former coach Josep Gombau has left United but this is just the start of the story in South Australia. Fellow Spaniard and Catalan Guillermo Amor moved from being football manager to the top job and it seemed as if the deck was stacked against him from the start. His chief executive Michael Petrillo pulled the pin in early September and was not replaced until three weeks into the start of the new campaign.
Ante Kovacevic, his new football manager, only arrived just prior to the new season and it is no wonder why the team has been slow to get going this season. What has not helped Amor is the pressure he has been under to maintain his job, with stories coming out of Adelaide last weekend that he had two weeks to save his job.
The Reds were rolled last week 4-2 in Wellington by an impressive Phoenix outfit, so if these reports are to be believed, then it all comes down to Sunday afternoon against the Jets.
The pressure coming out of Adelaide by ex-club legends surely cannot be helping the Spaniard’s situation.
Premier’s plate winning manager and former Socceroo John Kosmina has been highly critical of what the Reds have offered up on the pitch this season.
“You have got to look at why the club hasn’t stabilised and how they can be so good one year and so bad the next,” he told the Australian Associated Press.
“I think they need to have a look at a whole lot of things.”
The numbers simply do not lie when you look at where Adelaide is sitting this season in comparison to last season. United are at the base of the ladder with a measly two points, thanks to draws against Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers. They have managed to score only six goals this season and conceded 15.
[interaction id=”564d1bec41f2d0122b81b939″]
Last season, the Reds, under Gombau, were in a much better position. They had already hit the net 11 times for the season and had only conceded on four occasions. Several things will have to click and start clicking immediately for the Reds to turn their season around and ultimately make something of edition 11 of the A-League. They are already eight points adrift of the top six and that could extend further if they drop points against the Jets this weekend.
Scott Miller will bring his men to town with the same system and style that they have shown this season in their encouraging rebirth. Newcastle will be disciplined and well organised defensively with enough weapons going forward to hurt United on the counter-attack. This matchup almost suits the Jets, given their struggles last week to break down a 10-man Mariners outfit when they enjoyed the bulk of possession. It is almost as if the Jets had no idea what they were doing when they were expected to dictate the flow and pace of the game and, in truth, were probably lucky to get anything from the match.
It will be up to Amor to get his team playing the way we all know it is capable of playing. If the fluidity and fast moving style of the Reds cannot be found soon, then it may become someone else’s problem and the deck may just fall all around the under pressure Amor.
What are your thoughts? Let us know by dropping a comment below via our Facebook comment box. Make sure you follow us on Twitter @Outside90 and like us on Facebook.
