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  • Nix Played Off The Park

    mack

    By mack

    A smashing victory for the Western Sydney Wanderers tonight as they played a hapless Wellington Phoenix off the park in a 4-0 win.

    Not even the final scoreline of 4-0 fully described the total exposure of the Wellington team. Chris Ikonomidis marked his starting debut with a man of the match performance and he was the catalyst for the opening goal after just 5 minutes. Ikonomidis weaved into the penalty area, was forced to ground but fought his way back up, the ball fell to Josh Risdon and his cross found Oriol Riera at the far post. Despite having to jump backward to get his head to the ball, Riera connected well enough that Wellington keeper Lewis Italiano couldn't tip it over the bar. Riera had another chance 5 minutes before the break but his attempt at glancing wasn't acute enough and it flashed past the near post.

    Wellington's best chance arguably in the entire game came from a very late free kick in first half stoppage time, they got it over the wall but without the direction. Ikonomidis nearly had a well deserved goal in the 55th minute, after Bridge played him through on goal, the young winger chipped past Italiano only to have the ball cleared off the line by a Wellington defender.

    In previous weeks the Wanderers had been fading out on the hour mark, but tonight 60 minutes saw them double their lead. Marcelo Carrusca fired a curling wicked corner into the 6 yard box, and up rose central defender Michael Thwaite to score his first goal for the Wanderers and just his 10th career goal.

    If the second goal dampened the Wellington spirit the third goal for the home side broke it, and Ikonomidis finally had the goal to cap his performance. Running down the right wing he bamboozled Liberato Cacace the Wellington left sided defender, he cut inside and played a neat one two pass with Bridge sending it back via back heel, and his outside of the foot shot blasted past Italiano at the near post.

    The humiliation was complete when Jaushua Sotirio picked up his second goal in as many games. Reira combined with Santalab playing back to goal he turned on the Wellington defence and fired at goal. Italiano palmed the ball away but only into the path of Sotirio, his return shot was weakly handled by the keeper who was perhaps slightly tricked by the curve of the shot and the ball trickled into the far corner.

    The win puts the Wanderers back into the top 6, three points clear of the 7th placed Roar with upcoming games against the top 2 of Newcastle then Sydney FC being likely arbiters of the potential impact Josep Gombau's side can have in the final series.

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    WSWJACK

    Nothing but good to say about yesterday, really enjoyed, but the pace of Iko charging down the right made me think that Santa should have come on 10 mins earlier, he has a great knack of finding space in the middle, that's my only gripe I reckon more Santa time would have transpired to 6-0.

    Bring on the Jets, can't wait :-)

    Link to comment
    Paul01
    1 hour ago, Spotty said:

    I have been to all games but the last 2 Central coast and ANZ I gotta say I have been impressed with Hamill  and I have been one of his criticizers , very safe in defense and distribution has been good also.

    Friday night will be the test , I hope game time is making him a better player and centre back is where he  is better, I hope he makes a go of it  

    His shooting is woeful.

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    StringerBellend
    2 hours ago, thefairy said:

    Time for Lederer and his crew to open up the war chest and try to keep him for another year with us.

    With low crowds, VAR debacle, FFA ruining football in OZ. It's time for meat merchants to step up and deliver what they have promised, to be a top football club in Australia.

    Be great if he was here next year, but we can worry about that in the ridiculously long offseason. 

    Link to comment
    echidna

    Ikonomidis was very good and he is also a charming and personable character. For me, Roly had his best game in our colours, tackling, mopping up and distributing superbly, with an energy and vigour I cannot recall seeing before.

    Agree that the Nix were surprisingly poor, but when we control a game so comprehensively with barely a Baccus in sight, we have to be heading in a reasonable direction.

    ...Now if only a certain central defender could bring a smile to my face by demonstrating he can regularly pass a ball accurately, I would surely have nix about which to complain!...

     

     

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    StringerBellend
    6 hours ago, Spotty said:

    I have been to all games but the last 2 Central coast and ANZ I gotta say I have been impressed with Hamill  and I have been one of his criticizers , very safe in defense and distribution has been good also.

    Friday night will be the test , I hope game time is making him a better player and centre back is where he  is better, I hope he makes a go of it  

    Hammil has been good last two weeks (I have also been critical of him). Hope it continues as we are totally stuffed if it doesn’t! 

    As somebody else commented his ahot though was terrible, he could have just played the ball wide for us to reset instead he wacked it Into the back row of the stand.

    Talking of poor shots was it Lustica who had a shot that was so wide it went out for a throw in 

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    WSWJACK

    "Talking of poor shots was it Lustica who had a shot that was so wide it went out for a throw in ", yep on top of that pass back he did in the first half to their keeper, did not cover himself in glory with his shooting last night.

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    StringerBellend
    15 minutes ago, WSWJACK said:

    "Talking of poor shots was it Lustica who had a shot that was so wide it went out for a throw in ", yep on top of that pass back he did in the first half to their keeper, did not cover himself in glory with his shooting last night.

    I remember that one too, my old man yelled just put your f***ing foot thru it

    The children sitting behind us were most impressed 

    Link to comment
    smp
    9 hours ago, thefairy said:

    Maybe. We will know by the end of the season if Iko is the one.

    If he plays consistently like he did last night. Yes.

    He has impressed my wife and I, quality passing and aggression on the ball.

    Follows him on Instagram, I see?

    Frankly I’m surprised that a professional footballer is paid so badly the poor guy apparently can’t afford any shirts…

    Link to comment
    WestSyd
    8 minutes ago, beatsurrender said:

    Actually who remembers that hammill saved us in the ACL. Can't remember the game. Maybe Evergrande away but his pace to recover when they were away in our half was a massive  (amongst others obviously) factor in our progress. 

    I remember that. He chased down a midget lol. When he came back to the A-league he was exposed for his lack of pace. He has never been that quick. Hence relying on slide tackles a lot.

    But he does look a bit more trim this season and I am still wondering whether a good defender could come out of him. Gombau seems to think so.

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    StringerBellend
    11 minutes ago, beatsurrender said:

    Actually who remembers that hammill saved us in the ACL. Can't remember the game. Maybe Evergrande away but his pace to recover when they were away in our half was a massive  (amongst others obviously) factor in our progress. 

    I remember that one although if its the one I'm thinking of arguably if either him or Topor Stanley had called for the header in the first place the last ditch tackle wouldn't have been necessary. 

    But he is ace at last ditch tackles though, it's his tendency to every few games give the ball away leading to a goal, score an own goal or give a stupid free kick away (see Perth game for example) is the worry. 

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    Carns
    34 minutes ago, WestSyd said:

    But he does look a bit more trim this season and I am still wondering whether a good defender could come out of him. Gombau seems to think so.

    Not sure if this is having faith in Hamill, or having no other options available.

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    WestSyd
    9 minutes ago, Carns said:

    Not sure if this is having faith in Hamill, or having no other options available.

    Maybe a little bit each way. The longer Hamill goes playing well, the more faith he will have in him. Of course that makes us all nervous, but..

    In the below article he seems to hint that he believes Hamill can do a job for him. 

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football/wanderers-v-phoenix-loss-of-aspropotamitis-leaves-gombau-short/news-story/61d31d201364213e4bdf6ef0ace270d0

    Link to comment
    Burgerman

    Next two weeks will be a massive test against our cb combo and can see both teams pressing the $h1t our of them to create errors but I can see an opportunity for our attacking players to play a counter attacking game, just need our fullbacks to be tracking back and not leave them stranded.

    Gombau should play smart tactics or face a whopping with an inferior back combo.

    Link to comment
    BBB
    1 minute ago, luisenrique said:

    Was anyone else amused by the half-time interview with the guy from Coffee Emporium, and his constant battle to get sole possession of the mic? Surely someone else saw this?

    Yeah, that was pretty funny... He actually used two hands at one stage, one to hold the mic and the other to push the interviewer's hand away...

    Edited by BBB
    Link to comment
    luisenrique
    Just now, BBB said:

    Yeah, that was pretty funny... He actually used two hands at one stage, one to hold the mic and the other to push the interviewers hand away...

    By the end he was genuinely angry at the interviewer...clearly he had a whole bunch of stuff to mention and wanted to make sure he got it all in. Was really funny.

    Link to comment
    BBB
    1 minute ago, luisenrique said:

    By the end he was genuinely angry at the interviewer...clearly he had a whole bunch of stuff to mention and wanted to make sure he got it all in. Was really funny.

    It was good as it took the mind off the thought of only being up 1 nil at half time with our dreaded 60 minute clock off only 15 minutes away... thankfully that didn't eventuate!!!!

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    BBB

    In terms of the game, it was great to see us put together a 90 minute performance, even if it was against a pretty poor opposition. I actually said last night that the Nux are that bad that they would probably want to have Sotirio as an upgrade to most of their team! I think if we can make the top six and have Oreo, Iko and Carrusca (possibly Cejudo if he ever gets back on the park) fit and firing then I think we will scare a few opponents. By then they should have built up a pretty good combination.

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    MartinTyler

    I've read in a number of places that 'It was only the Nix and they are woeful'. However, before Christmas we played the Roar who were equally as woeful at the time and missing several key players. Result? We went down miserably 2-0. Onwards and Upwards !!

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    Davo

    It's also the same Nix team that we played less than a month earlier when we were lucky to hold on to a draw. And their two best players in Burns and Ljujic weren't up to speed yet and only came on in the second half in that game.

    Link to comment
    HillsWanderer
    17 minutes ago, Davo said:

    It's also the same Nix team that we played less than a month earlier when we were lucky to hold on to a draw. And their two best players in Burns and Ljujic weren't up to speed yet and only came on in the second half in that game.

    And the same Nix team that East Sydney 'only' beat 4-0 the week before.

    Link to comment
    Erebus
    14 hours ago, beatsurrender said:

    Actually who remembers that hammill saved us in the ACL. Can't remember the game. Maybe Evergrande away but his pace to recover when they were away in our half was a massive  (amongst others obviously) factor in our progress. 

    Was semi final first leg away to FC Seoul.

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    Erebus
    1 hour ago, MartinTyler said:

    I've read in a number of places that 'It was only the Nix and they are woeful'. 

    Well...they were. They are coming last for a reason and you need to beat last and 2nd last placed teams comfortably if you want to challenge in the finals.

    The fact that we've struggled against Perth and Brisbane recently means we are just as mediocre as them. We're mid table for a reason.

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