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Rini Coolen, you are the weakest link

27th November, 2011
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27th November, 2011
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So Harry Kewell has his first A-League goal and Mehmet Durakovic retains his job for another week. Good news for Melbourne Victory fans but what’s going on at the A-League’s real problem club?

“A quick review because you don’t need so many words with a game like this ” was how Adelaide United coach Rini Coolen summed up his team’s disappointing 0-0 draw with Newcastle Jets on Friday night.

At least the post-match press conference was quicker and arguably less painful than the 90-minute stalemate the 8,403 fans who turned up at Hindmarsh Stadium were forced to endure.

It was Adelaide’s smallest home crowd of the season – excluding the ‘home’ fixture Gold Coast United played at the compact venue – with the Reds shedding fans at the rate of about 2,000 per match.

That’s not surprising given the sort of football they’ve played this season and much of the blame lies squarely at the feet of Rini Coolen.

It was he who instigated a major clear-out of playing personnel, including the departures of playmaker Marcos Flores and former skipper Travis Dodd.

Flores left United because the club couldn’t match the wages offered by Chinese side Henan Jianye – but might they have come close without another reputed big earner in Andy Slory on the books?

The Slory story has become a personal nightmare for Coolen, who signed the Dutch winger because Coolen remembered him as “one of the best wingers in Holland.”

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Sadly for Adelaide fans Slory will be remembered as one of the worst wingers in the A-League, with the former Feyenoord flyer seemingly more interested in his business affairs than anything happening on the pitch.

And given his recent pedigree, should that honestly have come as a surprise?

Slory was let go by Feyenoord after numerous disciplinary problems, was released by English Championship side West Brom after just five months at club and subsequently failed to crack the first team at Bulgarian outfit Levski Sofia.

Yet after signing Slory, Coolen told reporters “(i)n a normal situation he would probably sign for a bigger club.”

Really? Andy Slory too good for the A-League?

In 2006 at De Kuip Stadion in Rotterdam, I overheard something which shaped the way I think about the Dutch approach to Australian football.

I was standing next to some Dutch supporters when Luke Wilkshire was sent off in Australia’s 1-1 draw with the Netherlands, at which point one of the Dutch fans leaned over and said to me in English, “that’s not how you play football.”

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And while I’m far from fluent in Dutch, I speak enough German to get the gist of what his friend said to him next.

“Forget it, he probably thinks this is rugby,” said his mate, before the pair broke into uproarious laughter.

But they weren’t laughing at full-time – in fact the Dutch fans were furious – and some of them weren’t shy in letting it be known they thought their team had been held by a vastly inferior opponent.

I just wonder if Rini Coolen hasn’t brought a similarly dismissive attitude to Australia.

He seems a nice enough fellow but after releasing Adam Hughes, Paul Reid and Dario Bodrusic during the off-season, how can he turn around and claim United are now in desperate need of replacement players?

The club is going backwards and not only do they appear to lack the backroom staff to change things, they’ve also managed to get offside with an increasingly hostile local media.

And all this under the auspices of Coolen, who at the start of the season signed a new four-year deal which locks him at the club until 2015.

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Good luck to him and Adelaide United but at the rate they’re going, it’s hard to escape the feeling Rini Coolen is the weakest link at the struggling South Australian side.

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