By Luke Sheehan
SUNSHINE George Cross has moved to replace Andy O’Dell after his resignation last week by promoting former assistant coach Theo Constantinou as head coach for the remaining nine games of the Premier League season.
However the changes are coming thick and fast at George Cross with front man Stuart Nicholson leaving the club for Northcote City, adding to the already gaping hole in front of goal courtesy of the departures of Kyle Joryeff and George Papadopoulos.
Nicholson and Joryeff scored half of Sunshine’s goals this season (seven of 14), and while the boys in red and white sit in the Premier League’s top five, they remain just five points from the relegation zone with a shocking goal difference of -10 following the 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Altona Magic last Saturday.
The Georgies went down on Sunday night in the Sunshine derby, losing to Melbourne Knights 2-1.
Constantinou said realistically it would take Sunshine a week or two to adapt to the influx of new players to the Georgies formation.
“It’s going to be the most difficult week ever to prepare a team for a game, but we need to be positive and do our best,” he said.
“The team’s had three losses in a row, the last one a fairly hectic one at 6-0 so if we analyse the big picture, it’s not going to be an easy job to just plug in a few holes and stabilise the team within a week.”
Constantinou said the transfer window shut on Wednesday night, and said the preceding 48 hours had seen many players shuffled around the Premier League circles.
Sunshine was able to secure a couple of offshore recruits to make up for their recent vacancies.
South Korean-born and New Zealand under-23 representative Leo Shin has joined George Cross, along with Gavin Hurren, a former team-mate of Nicholson’s, is coming to the club from England.
Constantinou said despite the new signings, the three forwards (Joryeff, Papadopoulos and Nicholson) will be hard to cover on a short-term basis.
“They’re not going to be easy to replace, and there’s a number of different circumstances as to why the players have left.
“But I’ve added a couple of good young talent to the team that haven’t been exposed a lot to the Premier League, or first team football on a regular basis, and my job would be to motivate and nurture them over the next nine weeks and hopefully the future.”
