Valkanis to make changes at Adelaide

Adelaide United interim coach Michael Valkanis has earmarked the Reds’ defence as his main area of concern.

The Reds slumped to a 4-2 loss to the Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League on Sunday, with Youssouf Hersi grabbing a brace for the winners.

Valkanis, who was only ushered in as caretaker on Monday following the shock resignation of John Kosmina, was left to rue United’s defensive errors.

“We have to look at how we are going to fix our defence and how we are going to fix keeping the ball,” Valkanis said.

“It’s been eight weeks now where performances haven’t been the best and we are conceding far too many goals, which at the start of the season we weren’t doing.

“Conceding goals is a big problem at the moment. We needed to go into half-time at 0-0 then we could have made the changes we were planning to make (in the second half).

“There were also far too many cheap turnovers in the first half which is unacceptable at this level.

“I know we didn’t penetrate or get forward as much in the first half, but up until they scored the first goal there wasn’t much in it. You could say it was a dull game … neither team were really taking risks.

“In the second half we believed we could change and turn things around, but then we conceded another quick goal.”

Valkanis would not disclose the exact adjustments he would make to Adelaide’s defence, but the 38-year-old said there would be some personnel changes.

“Looking forward to this week there will certainly be some changes,” Valkanis said.

“There were some players who didn’t have a good game … there were a lot of average performances.”

After a disruptive and distracting week brought upon by Kosmina’s departure, Valkanis was confident the worst was behind the club and that the players would ‘find their feet’ again.

“There was enough doom and gloom this week with what’s gone on in the background – OK, we lost the game, we lost the battle, but not the war. There’s still plenty to fight for,” Valkanis said.

“Looking at the reaction after the game, in the players, it hurt what happened … but we’ll keep at it and I know they are going to fix the problems.

“We’ve got another eight games. We’ll change things around.”