While sitting first and with the FFA Cup safely in the trophy cabinet, Sydney FC Head Coach Graham Arnold has said he expects even more from his Sky Blues’ squad ahead of Friday’s away clash against Adelaide (kick off 7:50pm AEDT).
Arnold has called for his squad to execute their chances with more precision and to finish teams off as he prepares to travel to Coopers Stadium to face the Reds, 10 days after defeating the South Australians in the 2017 Westfield FFA Cup Final.
“I expect so much more out of these players and I know they’ve got so much more to give,” Arnold said.
“For me the holiday has finished, it’s time now that we become ruthless. When we get chances to bury teams we need to bury them and that can only happen with a siege mentality.
“We’ve got a great group of boys with belief, but until we put our foot on the pedal and grab a team by the throat that’s when I’ll be happy.
“I told them on Tuesday that I wasn’t happy with our performance against Brisbane. You can say that it was our third game in a week but I expect so much more out of these boys. Their performance against Brisbane is not up to expectations, expectations are much higher here.
“If I wanted to reflect on that game [the FFA Cup Final] we probably should have had the game over by halftime,” he continued.
“One thing I know is that it’s time for us to be much more ruthless, we’ve started the season quite well but nowhere near good enough
“There’s a huge amount of belief in this squad that we’re only functioning at half of our capacity or less.”
Reflecting on his most recent encounter against the Reds, Arnold said he learnt a lot about the mental strength of his squad and said he expects nothing less than three points on Friday night.
“What I learnt from the FFA Cup is how resilient and strong that we are, the character in the team that we’ve got and the way that we ran over the top of them,” Arnold said.
“Going into extra time and the experience we’ve had of being in extra time before and they haven’t, that type of experience helps so much.
“We go to Adelaide tomorrow expecting to win the game and nothing changes for us. We analysed them but we know if we get our performance and game plan right that we expect to win the game.
“We know Hindmarsh is a beautiful football pitch that’ll get the best out of us, the boys love playing down there, so we’re looking forward to the game.”
Sydney FC travel to face Adelaide United at Coopers Stadium on Friday night (kick off 7:50pm AEDT). Catch the match live on Fox Sports 501 or follow @SydneyFC on Twitter for updates.
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