Melbourne Heart coach John Aloisi is not losing any sleep following his side’s pre-season loss to Adelaide United, despite seeing Heart fail to win against A-League opposition yet again.
“There’s no emphasis [on results] at all, everyone wants to win and we’re no different. We want to win pre-season games but there’s no three points up for grabs,” Aloisi said.
“It was mainly about letting players try to get games into their legs, players that won’t normally play during the season, giving them opportunities [against] a top side like Adelaide.”
In a half filled Epping Stadium on Friday afternoon, Heart were downed 2-1 thanks to a pair of Marcelo Carrusco strikes before a David Williams’s second half consolation.
It was a team that was missing several first choice players, as Aloisi elected to rest club captain Harry Kewell as well as foreign signings Robbie Wielaert and Michael Mifsud.
“They’re ready, we’re just resting them,” he said.
“We’ve been unlucky in our preseason games, we seem to get some injuries. I don’t want to risk certain players in these games.”
The weakened lineup initially failed to offer much resistance against a swashbuckling Adelaide side assembled by new Spanish coach Josep Gombau, but gradually started finding their feet in a second half as Aloisi introduced off-season signings Andrea Migliorini and Iain Ramsay.
“We were going in a bit blind, we didn’t know the way they play and what kind of football. We knew they were going to be a possession based side but we didn’t know what kind of areas they were going to hurt us in and we picked that up at half time.”
Makeshift right back Jason Hoffman was culpable for the first goal as he fouled Cirio in the box for a penalty, before Carrusco curled a quickfire second past Andrew Redmayne.
“We’ve used Hoffy all preseason as a right back and we think he’s picked it up well defensively. Today he probably shouldn’t have challenged in the box there but he’ll learn from it and overall I think he did quite well,” Aloisi remarked with a wry smile.
There was also words of encouragement for some of Heart’s young starters, despite the battering they received in the first half of the game.
“It was a good opportunity for the likes of Pauley Retre and Marcus Schroen to have a game and just try a few different things and I thought all in all, it was quite good,” Aloisi said.
“I learnt that the players we’ve had training with us in the youth team can still do a job when they come in. We know that we’re gonna have five or six players back into the squad very soon and we’ll be ready for game one.
“I also learnt that we’re dangerous going forward, we could keep the ball a lot better of course but that will be a bit different when we’ve got our full squad in.”