Adelaide United right back, Tarek Elrich believes the Reds can bounce back from consecutive last minute losses and cause an upset away to Melbourne City on Friday.
Elrichâs brilliant individual goal had seemingly earnt the reigning champions a hard fought draw but Victory scored a late winner and the match ended in a bitter sweet 2-1 loss for the 29-year old.
But after suffering two late heartbreaking losses in a row, Elrich believes Adelaide can turn their luck around.
âItâs a tough pill to swallow losing both those games but this game against Melbourne City is massive,â he said to FourFourTwo. âHopefully the FFA Cup semi-final tonight (between City and Victory) plays a bit of a roll and helps us out.
 âI thought we deserved more and we can sit here and dwell on it and imagine what couldâve happened, but we are better than that. Iâm glad that I got that one goal but in saying that it got cancelled out pretty quick.
âHopefully with a few more games and few more positive results things will change for us. We know that weâve got the quality in the squad to bounce back.â
For the third season in a row Adelaide have made a slow start to their A-League campaign, but Elrich said United was determined not to give opposition teams another head start.
âLast season was great and everyone keeps talking about last season, but this is a new season for us," he said.
"We donât want to be the team that goes âweâll be all right eight rounds in,â we donât want to give teams too much of a lead or let that gap be too big. We are wary of that.
"The good thing is that we are playing some decent stuff and itâs just a matter of time before it sticks for us.â
Not helping the Redâs slow start is that last seasonâs champion squad has undergone some big changes.
While Elrich believes the new recruits can help emulate last yearâs Grand Final success, the one time Socceroo admits the road to get there will be much tougher this season.
âWith the Asian Champions League coming up itâs a completely different year compared to last season,â he said.
âItâs definitely going to be harder. We are going to face different obstacles and different challenges and we know that every team is out there playing against the champions so itâs extra motivation for them.
âWe lost a lot of great players in Craig Goodwin, Pablo Sanchez, Bruce Kamau and Stephan Mauk, just to name a few. Bruce Djite is also a massive loss from our team last season and in terms of our success those players had a massive role.
Elrich added: âBut look the guys that we picked up in James Holland, Sergi Guardiola and Henrique (even though he is injured at the moment) have shown that theyâre quality players, and it's only a matter of weeks before they start gelling.
âHopefully we will reap the rewards again.â
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