Kosmina pleased with defence

Adelaide United coach John Kosmina believes his side’s defensive resolve has been key to their bright start to the season.

The Reds’ transformation this season has been stunning, and they stretched their lead on top of the A-League with a 1-0 win at home over Melbourne Heart on Saturday.

Last season, second-bottom Adelaide leaked the most goals and had the worst goal difference in the competition, a stark contrast to this season’s first seven rounds in which United have yielded just four goals and produced four clean sheets.

“Our defence is really, really solid,” Kosmina said. “How many clean sheets have we had – Newcastle, today (Heart), Western Sydney, Brisbane …we’ve had four clean sheets out of seven games.

“Clean sheets win games. Defensively we’ve been good.

“As much as we’ve turned the ball over at times in front of that defence, those guys (defenders) have pretty much done their job.

“I don’t think (goalkeeper) Eugene (Galekovic) had to make a save today.”

Adelaide’s goal was rarely threatened by a Heart outfit that showed plenty of spirit in the first half, but wilted noticeably after an own goal from Simon Colosimo in the 58th minute.

What the final scoreline did not show was that the Reds were by far the better side in the second half.

“I think we should have won by more,” Kosmina said. “I’m not being arrogant about that.

“We played well enough to score a few more goals.

“We let them in on occasions but it (allowing Melbourne chances) was more about the mistakes that we made.

“We scored a strange one (goal) today but I think on balance we probably deserved it.

“When we were tuned in and doing the things we talked about during the week I thought we played some pretty good football.”