Adelaide United reap the rewards of hanging tough

ADELAIDE defender Michael Marrone believes the secret to the Reds’ revival this season came from players staying close to one another, meeting socially, and gradually getting used to coach Guillermo Amor.

27/1/16 United players Dylan McGowan, Michael Marrone and Bruce Kamau at Adelaide United training centre, Ridley Reserve in Elizabeth. Picture by Matt Turner.

ADELAIDE defender Michael Marrone believes the secret to the Reds’ revival this season came from players staying close to one another, meeting socially, and gradually getting used to the workings of first-year coach Guillermo Amor.

The club has had an eye-catching turn of form this year, but for the first eight matches of the season it was scratching for a win. Now, the Reds are the in-form team of the competition and haven’t lost for a couple of months.

The skilful Marrone said the players were never swept up in the doomsday talk while they were going through their early season slump.

He was confident back then that if they kept working to the same script there was enough time to turn around the season. It turns out he was right.

“I think I heard Bruce (Djite) say last week that if we knew what the problem was, we would have fixed it,” Marrone said. “But we really have been doing the same sort of thing.

“The same sort of things at training, the same sort of focus preparing for games.

“Nothing has changed in terms of preparation.

“It’s just been that the results have started to come our way, which is good and hopefully we can keep up that form.

“But it was hard. We went eight games at the start of the season without a win, which was difficult.

“Looking at our position on the table now, if we had have picked up a couple of more points we could have been near the top of the table.”

Marrone was uncertain whether it was about getting used to a new coach and a new system — which was suggested by Melbourne City and Olyroo recruit Stefan Mauk this week — or whether it was a new team taking the time to gel.

“It’s slightly different but I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was,” Marrone said. “Just getting to know the coach, and how he wants to play, I guess the players you’re playing with together ... after a certain amount of games everything starts to gel really well.

“We probably saw that start coming together when we had our first game and it sort of flowed on from there.

“There were moments in those eight games at the start of the season where we could have picked up points — we were playing decent football in patches.

“But now we’re getting the results. Even last week, we only had about five shots on target and got four goals. It was the other way around (before).

“It’s a long season where you can pick yourself up. We still would catch up, do things as a group, even in the tough times.

“I remember we had a barbecue together coming off a couple of losses, just trying to keep the mood up.

“Because we knew the wins were coming.”

Originally published as Adelaide United reap the rewards of hanging tough