Kosmina rues missed opportunities
February 20, 2012 17:30:22 UK
Adelaide United coach John Kosmina believes that his team's Sunday night defeat to Sydney was a 'highway robbery' after the Reds conceded a late winner to go down 2-1 against the Sky Blues.
The first half was a fairly even affair but Sydney's opening goal just before the half-time break edged the balance in their favour. However, Adelaide came out of the interval in inspired form and they dominated their opponents for the remainder of the match.
I think we deserved all three points and I don't think anyone at the ground including the Sydney people thought we didn't.
John Kosmina
Adelaide United are 3.20 to defeat Newcastle Jets, who themselves are 2.20 to get the win. A draw between the two sides can be backed at 3.40.
Soon after the restart, the Reds' midfielder Fabian Barbiero cancelled out Joel Chianese's earlier strike. Kosmina's men then kept on knocking at Sydney's door for the winner but their goalkeeper Ivan Necevski refused to let anything go past him.
Adelaide were then made to rue their missed chances after Sydney's Mitchell Mallia scored his team's second of the game and that goal eventually proved to be the winner.
Kosmina admitted that his team were sloppy in the first period but he still couldn't believe that the Reds came out empty-handed after putting in such a dominant performance in the second half.
"I think we deserved all three points and I don't think anyone at the ground including the Sydney people thought we didn't ... even (Sydney FC Football Director) Gary Cole felt it was highway robbery. We changed the shape and didn't really have a lot of time to practice it this week, but I thought we did really well for the first 20 minutes ... we had some great opportunities to create goal scoring chances," Kosmina said in the post-match interview.
"But then we dropped off a little bit too much and let them back in the game so we talked about engaging them and getting a little bit higher up in the second half. Our finishing was better this week but we can't buy a goal at the moment. I can't complain about the performance. The performance in the second half was unbelievable."
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