Soccer: Sloppy Knights get Adshead earful

An explosive John Adshead could not contain himself as he let rip at his New Zealand Knights players yesterday.

The normally mild-mannered Adshead did not hold back as he berated his team early in their stuttering 4-0 win over the Solomon Islands at North Harbour Stadium.

Later he admitted it was a rare outburst but one aimed at getting some urgency and shape from the team four days out from their opening A-League match against the Queensland Roar in Brisbane.

"They were inept, too casual," said Adshead later. "Today was an important part of our preparation. They did okay for 10 minutes in the first half but 35 minutes is a long time not to play.

"Yesterday [Tuesday] morning they were brilliant in a training game we had. I said to them before the start today I wanted them to give me 25 minutes and I'll start subbing. They never managed that. The heads went down.

"Basically it was a shape thing. [Zenon] Caravella and [Josh] Maguire were pushing too far forward and getting caught up with the strikers."

That might have contributed to the problem but there were other issues. After conceding a sloppy first-half goal, the visitors held the Knights to that until late in the game when the home side capitalised on a goalkeeping error and then a penalty to give their effort some respectability.

"I'm absolutely delighted with the result," said Adshead. "But I'm certainly not happy with the performance. When you have the sort of possession we had, you expect something better."

Adshead, just as quickly, promised "we will turn it around. We are very much up and down at the moment. It will be back to the drawing board tonight. We played like we were 10-0 up."

Captain Danny Hay said the team were disappointed with their effort.

"The passing was sloppy and crosses were not of the highest quality," he conceded.

"The good thing was that we did not concede [a goal]. Possibly we are a little underdone but there are no excuses."

Given the performance against a team who are preparing for the biggest date in their careers - World Cup qualifiers against Australia - it was little surprise Adshead did not come up with a starting XI for Sunday's game. Or even a formation.

"If you had asked me at 9am if I was considering a change in our formation, the answer would have been no. At 1pm, yes," he said. "I think there is a damn good football side here. But you might not see it on Sunday."

With Simon Yeo, Frank van Eijs, Jeremy Brockie and Imaya Naoki not considered for a variety of reasons and Noah Hickey injured (again) yesterday, Adshead had few options in naming his 15 to travel tomorrow.

Knights squad v Queensland Roar

Danny Milosevic, Darren Bazeley, Danny Hay, Neil Emblen, Ronnie Bull, Zenon Caravella, Ben Collett, Josh Maguire, Steve Fitzsimmons, Xiaobin Imaya, Steve Devine, Jeremy Christie, Glen Moss, Josh Rose, John Tambouras.