Is Adelaide United imploding under Rini Coolen?

Has Rini Coolen kicked a black cat or smashed a few mirrors in the past six months, because Adelaide United seems to be lurching from crisis to crisis.

After a stellar 2010-2011 season where the Reds played some amazing football and finished third, inspired by the best player in the competition Marcos Flores, Adelaide has been on the slide this term.

The rot set in before a ball was kicked for 2011-2012. Flores, the brilliant Argentinian, decamped to China – a loss not only for the Reds but for the whole of the A-League.

Then there was the departure of Adelaide’s captain and local boy, Travis Dodd. His exit was a messy one, with claims and counter claims, and Dodd stating that he believed the club was ageist in its player recruitment policies. There was also the Paul Reid saga, with the long-time Red also leaving the club amid a public-slanging match.

All up 11 players left Adelaide from the end of last season, with the likes of Matthew Leckie and Iain Fyfe heading overseas, and others exiting such as Robbie Cornthwaite, Lucas Pantelis and Adam Hughes.

Any new manager has the right to shape his own squad, and Coolen has done just that. Fellow Dutchman Andwele Slory was one of his signings, but the winger with the somewhat chequered past hasn’t really turned it on in South Australia. And today it has been revealed that Slory is leaving the club and retiring from football.

It looks like a nice bit of spin, considering other reports from FourFourTwo earlier today that Slory was set to leave the Reds after a big bust up with Coolen.

According to Adelaide’s PR today, Slory has decided to depart to go home to the Netherlands to start a new business venture.

In the release Slory says: “I want to thank Rini (Coolen), the club and particularly the football department because I have developed a really good relationship with them. I owe a lot to Rini for getting me to Australia because he wanted me to come here and help me to get my love of the game back.

“Now I just want to go a different way and I want to thank everyone at the club for giving me such a wonderful time and I look forward to coming back here one day to watch the team play. But nobody can change my mind and I’ve thought about it and it’s been playing on my mind for a very long time, and I’ve made a decision to go back to my family and friends in Holland.”

Tellingly, neither Slory or the club will be commenting on the matter further.

Let’s not forget the Anthony Golec Twitter homophobia drama a couple of weeks ago, and several tepid displays Adelaide have produced this season on the field.

At the moment they sit in eighth position on eight points, just three above last-placed Gold Coast. The Reds have won just two games this year, drawing two and losing three.

So where has it all gone wrong? Is this just all bad luck, or are there severe problems afoot at Hindmarsh Stadium? Coolen is known as a bit of a hardcase, and from the outside it seems like the Adelaide squad is hardly harmonious right now.

They have struggled to adequately replace Flores and Leckie, which was always going to be a tough assignment. However, while things may have not clicked on the park or off it, the support of the club in Adelaide has been solid.

So far this year United are averaging 10,867 fans a game, a decent attendance which is almost in line with their season averages, and in their first home game they drew 14,753.

You look through the Adelaide squad and you note the ability of players like Sergio van Dijk, Bruce Djite, Dario Vidosic, Jon McKain, Cassio and Eugene Galekovic. There is too much quality there for the Reds to wallow at the bottom of the table and not be a contender.

Time will tell if this is just early season blues for Adelaide or if the club is slowly falling apart.