Adelaide United Coach John Kosmina has labelled his side a ‘good team, out of luck’ after falling 2-0 to Perth at Hindmarsh Stadium last night.
The match was shrouded in controversy with a number of decisions going against the Reds including a disallowed goal to Nigel Boogaard and a straight red card to substitute Fabian Barbiero.
Perth’s opening goal came in the sixth minute when former Adelaide captain Travis Dodd found Billy Mehmet at the back post, however replays showed the Irishman was in an offside position.
“It was a clear offside,” Kosmina said.
“Decisions like that are game changers. It wasn’t like it was line ball it was really obvious,” he said.
Glory Coach Ian Ferguson sympathised with Kosmina but said that refereeing decisions would come in swings and roundabouts.
“Tonight we probably did get a little bit of luck and he’s got every right to be annoyed,” Ferguson said.
“At the end of the day we came here hoping to get three points and we’ve got three points”.
In the 76th minute the Reds were denied a lifeline after referee Matt Gillett disallowed a Nigel Boogaard strike for a foul on Danny Vukovic. The Glory ‘keeper failed to grasp Dario Vidosic’s corner as it spilled to Boogaard who promptly powered the ball into the roof of the net.
Kosmina was baffled by the call and felt that the disallowed goal summed up United’s season.
“I didn’t know goalkeepers could earn free-kicks for dropping the ball, because that’s all that happened; no-one touched him,” Kosmina said.
“It was a legitimate goal and at that time it would have changed the game. The momentum was with us and it would have given us that bit of confidence.
“It went against us and it’s just one of the cuts, one of the thousands that we’ve been dying by lately.”
The performance capped off a season low for the Reds who played in front of their smallest home crowd of the year with only 5898 attending the match.
Adelaide now face the mammoth task of playing their first Asian Champions League match against Bunyodkor in Uzbekistan before playing both Brisbane and Central Coast away from home.
Perth meanwhile return home to play the top-of-the-table Mariners on Sunday and Glory ‘keeper Danny Vukovic said the side can’t wait to get back in front of their fans.
“It was important for us to bounce back after last week which we did,” Vukovic said.
“We’ve got a few home games coming up as well, we’re always confident playing in front of our home fans and it’s a big game next week against the Central Coast Mariners.
“We had a bit of an off day last week against Brisbane but we’re confident that we can push on through to the finals”.
The Football Sack‘s ‘Player of the Year’ points:
3 Billy Mehmet
2 Jacob Burns
1 Osama Malik
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