The truth about Colosimo, Kisel

Disjointed Sydney crashed 3-1 to Adelaide United at the weekend in one of its worst home performances since the start of the A-League.

The club’s smallest crowd of just over 7000 watched Vitezslav Lavicka's team be hopelessly outclassed by the rampant Reds.

Many fans have voiced their disapproval at Sydney's dismal form and have laid the blame on the club for not doing enough to keep Colosimo and Kisel, who both played a key role in Sydney’s double-winning season.

Lugt said he wanted to clear a few misconceptions regarding the controversial departure of the two players, with defender Colosimo now captain of the A-League’s newest club Melbourne Heart.

“First of all, why the team is not winning or having such a terrible start is not an administrative issue but a technical one,” Lugt told The World Game.

“Our view is if you choose a coach to run the club from a technical perspective you have to give that coach the responsibility and not interfere in what he wants to achieve and how he does it.

“If the coach wants to play a system X, management should allow him to follow his strategy by retaining or signing players of his choice.

“Regarding Simon, he said last year he wanted to go to Asia and made it very clear to the coach on several occasions.

“We supported Simon in his ambition and we released him of his contract even though we wanted to retain him.

“When his proposed deal in Korea fell through he came back but we had already filled the position. That’s why he ended up with Melbourne Heart. So it was not a case of us not doing enough to retain him."

Midfielder Kisel joined Slavia Prague in the Czech Republic - where he has already scored four goals this season.

“As to Karol, he turned out to be an important player for us after not having the best start to the season," Lugt explained.

“We would have liked to retain him as well but it was the coach’s decision (to let him go).

“It was a financial issue because in this country with the salary cap you can only spend your dollar once and the coach was keen on getting Nicky Carle as a replacement for Steve Corica.

“We did everything possible to get Carle on board and we succeeded. Consequently Kisel had to go.”

Lugt said that spending tens of thousands of dollars was not essential for success, especially if you look at the form being shown by Adelaide and Brisbane Roar.

“Look at Adelaide and Brisbane, did they buy players? No,” he said.

“We invested more money than them but they are playing exciting football and they are doing it without spending that much money.”

Lugt refuted suggestions that the squad lacked depth in a season in which it will be engaged on two major fronts: the A-League and the AFC Champions League.

“I don’t know about lack of depth,” he said. “If you look at the pre-season match with Everton we played well and in the first hour against Melbourne we outplayed them.

“Players do not just lose their ability to play. But we will keep giving our younger players a chance.

“They are good players otherwise we would not have signed them but they need time.”

Lugt also commented on the club's falling home crowds at Sydney Football Stadium.

“We have had three home games now and I agree if the situation does not improve in the next four or five games then we will be very concerned,” he said.

“Turnstiles don’t lie which means fans don’t lie. And seven thousand is a very, very disappointing crowd although it is wrong to equate our crowds with the size of our city.

“I can tell you it can be more difficult to get a 20,000 crowd in a city of four and a half million than in a city of 400,000.

“It is much easier to engage with the community in a smaller city because it is easier to identify your market. I’m 100 percent convinced of this.

“Of course, if you don’t win it never helps. We want to play the dominant, attacking style of football but we are not doing it at the moment. And that has got to change. And a lot will change with a win, I’m sure of that.”