Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United fought out a 2-2 draw yesterday in Hindmarsh Stadium. With both teams missing a key striker (Adelaide are without Bruce Djite due to injury), the scoreline will provide encouragement for both coaches.
Adrian Caceres, who moved into a striker’s role alongside Danny Allsopp, opened the scoring in the 5th minute. A Lucas Pantelis goal brought Adelaide back on level terms, but Danny Allsopp made sure that Melbourne went into the break a goal up. In the second half, Adelaide had the better of play, but failed to capitalise on chances. Both Travis Dodd and Dez Giraldi missed penalties, though Young Socceroo Matthew Mullen managed to put one in the back of the net to ensure a draw.
With Carlos Hernandez and Archie Thompson expected to be out for the remainder of the ACL group stage, Ernie Merrick shifted Caceres up front and brought Nick Ward forward to act as an attacking midfielder just behind the strikers. While it’s encouraging to see this formula work (to an extent), the club must be looking to recruit a fresh, first-11 striker. With Caceres on his way to the Central Coast Mariners, and neither Nathan Elasi nor Leandro Love looking like first team material, Merrick’s options are starting to look rather thin.
6 comments ↓
I hope that the Herald Sun is wrong saying Carlos is out of the entire group stage. My understanding was that he would return for the away game at Gamba. He must not have recovered quickly enough. Bad loss.
i thought the same, they said like 4 or 5 weks to begin with and its been that long now, it be a massive boost if we could get him back for next week.
i havent seen elasi play but i thought he was an option for us up front if given a go, and what about kaz….ohhh thats right….merrick wont play him….
why is elasi not first team material? coz he is not getting a chance? or he is just not much chop?
If Troisi is having problems (game time @ nufc) maybe he should be loaned out to us like Kaz, as long as Merrick WOULD use him.
feel sorry for little Kaz, so much potential but no creativity from the Boss to play him
My hesitation regarding Elasi is based primarily on reports of him after the friendly against Whittlesea in February. Most people were pretty unimpressed with him. But I’m happy to be proven wrong.
Interesting, looks like we might sign a Costa Rican striker. This could be good as long as he can play and he has pace. Hopefully it will put some pressure on our rostered on strikers.
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