Western Sydney Wanderers boss Mark Rudan is delighted with the progress of starlet Phil Cancar but says it is important he keeps his feet on the ground.
The Wanderers are priced at 3/1 to finish in the top six of A-League in the 2021/22 A-League campaign and Cancar has been one of the stand-outs of the season so far.
Cancar impressing
The central defender grabbed the winning goal in the 2-1 win over Adelaide United on Wednesday night and will start when the two sides clash again on Sunday.
Rudan is delighted to have a quality youngster like Cancar in his side, but says it is important not to build him up too much as there is still a lot of development to be done.
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"I gave him his debut and he dealt with that and players always have challenges and go through ups and downs," Rudan told reporters.
"It's about making sure they do things well and not getting carried away with what people say about them because I see it so often in this country that a player plays two or three games and they're the next big superstar."
New mentality
Meanwhile Rudan was delighted with the way his side fought back from 1-0 down to beat the Reds in midweek and believes that would not have happened when he first took charge.
Rudan thinks there has been a definite change in mentality since he replaced Carl Robinson and says they now react in a positive way if they do go a goal behind.
"It was impressive; we were away from home and a goal down and finding a way to win having not played well," added. "It wasn't our best performance in the first half but you can't take away that grit and determination to get back into it and then find the winner.
"Adelaide score more goals after 80 minutes than any other team and we held them out. The key is to stay grounded and do what we did in the second half from the outset."
