Jacob Stevens 
Adelaide United manager Carl Veart (left) and assistant coach Mark Milligan (right). Photo: Texi Smith
Carl Veart has shared his frustration at previously poor recruitment ahead of Adelaide United’s opening A-League Men clash against the Central Coast Mariners on Saturday.
The Reds will be heading into the game with a very depleted defensive unit, with Dutch import Bart Vriends being joined by fellow new signing Jordan Elsey on the injured list.
Carl Veart said that the injury is unfortunate, but that it is not as major as the ACL recovery Elsey has been through over the last 12 months.
“Jordan [Elsey] picked up a small injury this week so he won’t be available [for Saturday], which is unfortunate,” he said.
“He’s worked extremely hard coming back from that ACL and this is the risk when you come back from ACL injuries that generally you will pick up a smaller injury.
“He’ll be out for a couple of weeks most probably.”
With talented prospects aplenty, Veart stressed the fact that Adelaide will again be looking towards their youth to do a lot of work this season, but that it is a burden he is willing to bear for the development of these players.
“You’re just a couple of injuries away from being in with a lot of our younger players, which we showed in the Australia Cup,” Veart said.
“So we’re the same as a lot of teams: your first 11 is very strong, and then we’re relying on our younger players to fill those roles when our main 11 aren’t playing.
“I’m happy to play and give opportunities to young South Australian players.
“I’ve done that since my first day in charge of the club and I’ll do that the whole time that I’m here.”
However, a reliance on youth can be problematic for a team, and only last season Veart was calling for more help from the club in bringing in experienced players to help the development of some of the younger talent.
Now, with the club’s two defensive signings out via injury, and last season’s import Ryan Tunnicliffe not included in the matchday squad, Veart said that the Reds have not always met the necessary standard for new signings.
“I’ve made my thoughts very clear to the club that the players that we do bring in have to be high quality,” he said.
“And at times, we haven’t got that right, and we’ll see this year.”
Fans can expect to see a continuation of Veart’s fundamentally attacking approach to football. Zach Clough will look to carry on his good form from last season, Austin Ayoubi has been tremendous in the Cup, and there has been strong competition between Archie Goodwin and Luka Jovanovic for the starting striker role.
But while defending has taken a back seat to scoring goals in past seasons, Veart has learnt from previous mistakes and said that the side will look to get their shape and principles right to avoid being so open in transition.
“We still want to attack, we still want to score goals – that’s our main threat,” he said.
“But we won’t be so open in those transition moments, because the A-League is a high transition league.
“It’s important we get our shape right and our principles right in stopping those big transition moments that you would’ve seen in a lot of our games last year when we were quite open and there was lots of end-to-end stuff.
“So hopefully we can limit those opportunities for the opposition to transition against us.”