Adelaide United coach Michael Valkanis has described the Central Coast Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers as the benchmark teams of the competition after witnessing his side fall 2-0 to the boys from Gosford last weekend.
“The Mariners and Western Sydney are the fittest and strongest teams in the A-League,” Valkanis said.
“They’re the most physical and they play very similar in regards to the way they organize themselves.
“[They] get numbers behind the ball and they make it very hard for teams to break them down,” he said.
Mariners coach Graham Arnold was pleased with the victory but maintained his team’s siege mentality by taking a swipe at the critics of his side’s consistent performance at the highest level.
“It’s always when we play well the opposition plays poorly,” Arnold said.
“That’s the way the critics in the studios look at us.
“You get disappointed at times when we don’t get the recognition we deserve as a team,” he said.
“It motivates the players and it motivates me enormously because I’m a fighter and I like being put down because I like to fight back,” said.
While Valkanis described Central Coast and Western Sydney as the teams to beat, he says he’s not worried heading into finals as he saw his side match the Mariners for much of the second half in their 2-0 loss at Hindmarsh Stadium.
“I’m not too concerned about there being too much of a gulf between us and the Mariners because we proved today that we could play,” Valkanis said.
“We just have to stop making sloppy mistakes and conceding easy goals.”
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