Soccer: Adshead sticks by Knights

On a day John Adshead handed Jeremy Brockie his first ticket to Australia, the rumour mill again wound up at NZ Knights headquarters with suggestions the coach had resigned only to have the move rejected by chairman Anthony Lee.

Adshead quickly denied the rumour yesterday, saying he had not given his resignation to the chairman or the board.

"I haven't spoken to anyone about any resignation," Adshead said.

"Given our position in the A-League, you have to look at things in the long and short term. At this stage we are four games out of the lead and two out of a place in the middle of the table.

"There are a few questions that we need to look at over the next four or five weeks. If we are still bottom of the table, then we will obviously have to consider a number of things.

"We must remember we are not in a relegation situation this year so there would be no point in waiting for the Fifa transfer window in January and making changes. At that stage of the season you only have four or five games to play.

"If the players prove us wrong in the next five or six weeks we will obviously take a long hard look at the make up of the squad," said Adshead. "There are a lot of issues at the moment. The standard [of the league] is up a couple of notches from what I expected.

"But, having said that, we have a lot to play for and have to act accordingly. There is no quick fix for the situation we find ourselves in. There has been a lot of hard-talking this week. We have all put our hands up. There is a lot of honesty running through the squad."

On the field it will never be easy.

"Take this week as an example, we are away to a Sydney side coming off a 5-0 loss and we have only a five-day turnaround. People are entitled to their opinions but I can assure you, my resolve to see this club succeed has never been higher."

As well as including Brockie for the first time, Adshead has welcomed back captain Danny Hay from injury. Ronnie Bull and Naoki Imaya also return after missing the game against Queensland Roar.

Missing on the trip to Sydney will be Xiaobin Zhang and Steve Fitzsimmons and injured players Josh Rose, Neil Emblen and Frank van Eijs.

Knights squad

* To play Sydney FC, Friday night, 11pm.

Danny Milosevic, Darren Bazeley, Ronnie Bull, John Tambouras, Danny Hay, Ben Collett, Simon Yeo, Sean Devine, Zenon Caravella, Cole Tinkler, Jeremy Brockie, Josh Maguire, Noah Hickey, Naoki Imaya, Glen Moss.