Minutemen Blitz Melbourne City

[mack]

A 60 second double salvo and a saved penalty was enough to give the Western Sydney Wanderers a much needed win over Melbourne City tonight at Homebush.

With the so called "pressure" of the media on the Wanderers after a poor performance against Newcastle, the Wanderers responded to an early goal against the run of play from Ross McCormack with a brace in a minute via marquee Oriol Riera & Wanderers stalwart Mark Bridge.

The 25th minute goal came after a heap of Wanderers pressure on the city goal, Nathan Atkinson hammered a cross from the wing deep into the Wanderers penalty area. The ball evaded Raul Llorente, Robbie Cornthwaite & Vedran Janjetovic, and McCormack was in at the back post to take advantage of Josh Risdon's ballwatching to tap the ball home.

The early setback did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the home side, and they hit back and took the lead not more than 5 minutes later. The first came from the fruitful Llorente & Riera combination, a deflected cross found the marquee striker's left foot, he took one touch to get the ball away from ex-Wanderers Iacopo La Rocca, then fired on the turn through the legs of La Rocca & past another ex-Wanderer in Dean Bouzanis in the Melbourne City goal.

The home supporters had barely finished celebrating the first before they were celebrating going ahead. Riera was once again instrumental, he managed to wriggle the ball clear of the City defence & send it out wide to Bridge for an unerringly accurate shot again to the far post.

At the other end Robbie Cornthwaite gave away a soft penalty in the 39th minute with Peter Green deciding that the Wanderers Captain fouled yet another ex-Wanderer in Scott Jamieson, inside the penalty box. Ross McCormack stepped up in an attempt to add another to his penalty spot tally, Janjetovic flew low to his left and palmed the ball away from goal to safety.

Melbourne City tried in vain to penetrate the Wanderers defence once more, but found themselves on the end of desperate & heroic defence from Josep Gombau's men. A final chance was given away late with a 25 yard free kick, Luke Brattan fired low under the wall but Janjetovic made another crucial stop to secure the victory.

The win puts Western Sydney within striking distance of the top 6, and with a game in hand, a run of wins over similarly placed opposition in the next few weeks could even see them challenge for a top 4 position.

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[tardotz]

Winner are grinners.... great improvement on last week (TBH the bar was set very low).

Still a number of things that are a bit of a worry.

We were getting caught on the right every single time.

We are way too slow in transition. The number of times we could have been in a good attacking position but mainly Baccus and Roly hold it or pass it back...so frustrating.

BTW... Green was to be one of the worse referees in the A league.

Edited January 1, 2018 by tardotz

[JayZko]

Reira did good scored with feet and running and workmanship finally

bridge starting to look like the bridge of old

w league game before the main event looked like ..... do we seriously

w league with that team only highlights of that game was city somehow not kicking our arse and the substitute keeper bending over snooze fest our w league team sucks I would only

go to watch that sub keeper bend over

 

Edited January 1, 2018 by JayZko

[bombagol]

The funniest bit of the night was seeing Thwaite flying down the left, putting in a cross and when he got the ball back, he was falling over in the opposition's box Berisha-style (with a few less rolls) trying to milk a penalty. 

[JayZko]

24 minutes ago, GrEmIoWaNdErEr said:

Sorry guys I'm late to post but I'm on a plane going to Brazil because father is dying and I'm heart broken and have bad anxiety but still happy inside for the win showed some balls finally and beat a strong city team well done lads but yeah very sad that father is dying sorry guys I'm in the plane toilet chucking a **** while texting this but yeah happy in the inside so yeah guys I may not post for a few days because I'll be grieving my father death he's gonna die soon bye for now 

Same boat as me with my grand farther feel for Ya

Edited January 1, 2018 by JayZko

[lloydy136]

So it turns out that if you play your best 11 players the team plays better.

Shocking.

Riera won us that game. He is head and shoulders the best 9 we have had at the club.

Much better overall performance, pressing and commitment was there which was good to see but 2 things...

1. We are so static. No movement off the ball at all. It looks like the guy with the ball is delaying too long but its because nothing is happening in front of him so back we go to the keeper.

2. I absolutely hate the tactical fouling that gombau's  teams do. We did it heaps today and it just kills the flow of the game. It is effective but frustrating.

Also green is a horrible ref. I try not to criticise refs because i know how hard it is but i lost my **** when he didn't give a card to malik when he scythed down roly when we countered and then a minute later gave roly a card for brushing their guy to stop a counter. That type of blatant inconsistency is maddening.

[MathyouWSW]

I really think the RBB meeting up with the lads and also the aftermath of Thiwaite throwing the shirt to the fans and throwing it back really showed that the fans are not putting up with the really bad results we have been witinessing for weeks and also gave the boys a bit of a 'shakeup'.

I'm glad the boys won tonight, it's the result that the boys needed but also what the fans have anxiously been waiting for months. This also puts a bit of pressure off Gombau.

The boys play Roar on Friday. I think we could win this one as well and hopefully we will the see Wanderers play some finals football. 

[leslie]

Agree with Lloydy, play your best players and get the best result on the pitch and score board. Lets face it, its the team most on here would have picked given who is fit

Still a lot better but we were here a couple of weeks ago after CCM so the juries still out for me, although a bit more optimistic. Keeping biscuit will be the key and maybe after last night Jumpei will go in January, he didn't look to happy being a sub subbed, and tbh i didn't think he was that bad last night - by his standards

Gotta call out as bullshite the crowd. Seemed there was less than the roar game a couple of weeks ago but 11 thousand, where?. 

 

 

 

[StringerBellend]

8 hours ago, lloydy136 said:

So it turns out that if you play your best 11 players the team plays better.

Shocking.

Riera won us that game. He is head and shoulders the best 9 we have had at the club.

Much better overall performance, pressing and commitment was there which was good to see but 2 things...

1. We are so static. No movement off the ball at all. It looks like the guy with the ball is delaying too long but its because nothing is happening in front of him so back we go to the keeper.

2. I absolutely hate the tactical fouling that gombau's  teams do. We did it heaps today and it just kills the flow of the game. It is effective but frustrating.

Also green is a horrible ref. I try not to criticise refs because i know how hard it is but i lost my **** when he didn't give a card to malik when he scythed down roly when we countered and then a minute later gave roly a card for brushing their guy to stop a counter. That type of blatant inconsistency is maddening.

We also played to our better players strengths a bit more. 

We used oriol a lot better tonight we played the ball long to him a bit and he would win the ball and then bring others into play. 

[StringerBellend]

5 Positives 

- When we played to oriol we looked good

- The King scored 

- We won

- 11000 crowd was about 5000 higher than I thought we would get 

- Herd looked really good when he came on 

5 negatives 

- mini baccus did well in midfield but was getting destroyed at right back

- Jumpei offered nothing (see point 1)

- Thwaite will never be the ball playing centre back gombau wants, his passing was terrible 

- 2 injuries to key players 

- people calling for the Var

[Erebus]

Jumpei was lazy and left his RB isolated in defence and in attack. If he wants to have a hissy fit it should be aimed towards the man in the mirror for posing to be a footballer.

[WestSyd]

24 minutes ago, Erebus said:

Jumpei was lazy and left his RB isolated in defence and in attack. If he wants to have a hissy fit it should be aimed towards the man in the mirror for posing to be a footballer.

If he is worried about how Gombau rates him, he should come on this forum and see how his own supporters rate him. A dose over self entitlement.

[StringerBellend]

Oh and gombau in!

As for Jumpei substitution we were getting killed down that side in particular since Risdon went off something had to change on that side.

So anyone else think Herd did well when he came on? 

[homerj]

57 minutes ago, Erebus said:

Jumpei was lazy and left his RB isolated in defence and in attack. If he wants to have a hissy fit it should be aimed towards the man in the mirror for posing to be a footballer.

When Risdon went off, mini bacus was having trouble handling Fitzgerald. He needed more help. The Jumpei sub was a good one to get some help on the right. Although it looked like Bridge was loosing his effectiveness as the game went on. So it might have been a tough call. I thought Gambau used the last sub well.

[SomeGuy1977]

An improvement from the last couple of weeks. Vedran with some good saves at critical moments. The organisation at the back needs to be better, but there was desperation when we were caught; something we haven't really seen much of this season.

We seemed to clock off around the 60 min mark (you can almost set your watch to it these days), but fortunately City didn't really offer much. Arzani could have been trouble against slow, tired backs, but he offered little and was contained well (especially by the Corn).

I think the real difference was the confetti though. I had both my boys with me last night (something I don't do often), who don't need much encouragement to make a **** load of mess and were only too happy to shred whatever they could for the cause (well done RBB for giving them the idea ).

A win is a win. Onward and onward I suppose.

Edited January 2, 2018 by SomeGuy1977

[Davo]

4 minutes ago, homerj said:

When Risdon went off, mini bacus was having trouble handling Fitzgerald. He needed more help. The Jumpei sub was a good one to get some help on the right. Although it looked like Bridge was loosing his effectiveness as the game went on. So it might have been a tough call. I thought Gambau used the last sub well.

Yeah I thought Gomabu handled things pretty well considering how his hands were tied with two forced substitutions. Bridge looked cooked with 10 mins to go and Riera was slowing down too. My guess is he'd planned on bringing in Santa for Riera and Jumpei for Bridge during the last half hour of the game. Once Jumpei came on for Cejudo early in the game it meant that at least one of Bridge and Riera were playing 90mins.

[Paul01]

26 minutes ago, GrEmIoWaNdErEr said:

Yeah jumpie is **** but agree with herd he looked good when he came on he got stuck in which I like but worries are now for three players cejudo Rizzo and roly who is suspended what players we will use for roar clash especially if we lose cejudo or rizzo

.        Vs roar 

.                    Vedran 

rizzo (if fit to play)  cornthwaite.     Thwaite.    Raul

.                                                     Baby Baccus 

.                                   Baccus.                            Tokich 

jumpie.                                                                                             Bridge

.                                                       Riera

Baccus Jnr not available as on international duty with the Olyroos.

[WestSyd]

41 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

Oh and gombau in!

As for Jumpei substitution we were getting killed down that side in particular since Risdon went off something had to change on that side.

So anyone else think Herd did well when he came on? 

That's the thing about getting new players in who can plug holes. I hope we buy 2 or 3 players in this January window. Sounds like few players have asked for a release. Even someone like Elrich who is your average run of the mill A-leaguer, can probably fix that right back position.

Other teams will know our right back problem and attack it like MC did. They will also see how Newcastle pressed our defence and we crumbled. They will know if you cut off the supply to Riera, there is less chance of us scoring. They will know that our midfield can be lethargic and static at times, and don't give our defenders options. All these teams know this about us. Give Maccarone half a chance on Friday night and he will score.

So I hope the club is looking at adding to our stocks, because we need it. I don't think this win really says much. Just more relief that we are competing again.

[Neverbloom]

i always rated herd tbh, rate gombau too and i still rated him even after those extreme losses

 

i am not saying we looked amazing but we looked so much better

[tardotz]

So Roly was named in the team of the week (Foxsports).😯 Not sure what they were watching.

[wendybr]

1 hour ago, GrEmIoWaNdErEr said:

 Jumpie having a whinge about being subbed off would he do it to popa hell no so why do it to gombau he's the one who can start you or bench you but yeah jumpie should be careful because he will no longer be a Wanderers player when his contracts end 

Gombau is such a warm person, from my observations.

He's probably too nice to inspire the fear that Popa would have done.

It's a shame when it turns into dismissiveness and disrespect, as we saw from Riera early on in the season, and from Jumpei last night. Petulance is not what you'd expect from professional footballers, even if they are disappointed in the coach's decisions.

[EmMac]

1 hour ago, SomeGuy1977 said:

We seemed to clock off around the 60 min mark (you can almost set your watch to it these days)

Yeah, noticed that.

Just generally we are so slow in the 2nd half compared to the 1st half. Sluggish. What is going on with our fitness and conditioning? We used to be known for our fitness. 

[MartinTyler]

1 hour ago, GrEmIoWaNdErEr said:

James brown free agent after leaving South African side Cape Town he's a quick player with lightning speed better than jumpie and David williams who plays for hungararian side haladas 

James Brown on previous A League form is well below the quality we need. I doubt he's improved by playing in South Africa.

[EmMac]

12 hours ago, lloydy136 said:

 

1. We are so static. No movement off the ball at all. It looks like the guy with the ball is delaying too long but its because nothing is happening in front of him so back we go to the keeper.

 

All that holding does seem like the man on the ball has no ideas running through his brain. I've put it down to lack of creativity, but taking your point about the team members off the ball, maybe its failure to see playing opportunities from both the man on the ball and those off.

[ZachMercer]

22 minutes ago, wendybr said:

Gombau is such a warm person, from my observations.

He's probably too nice to inspire the fear that Popa would have done.

It's a shame when it turns into dismissiveness and disrespect, as we saw from Riera early on in the season, and from Jumpei last night. Petulance is not what you'd expect from professional footballers, even if they are disappointed in the coach's decisions.

I reckon Jumpei is definitely on the out with Gombau.

[StringerBellend]

21 minutes ago, MartinTyler said:

James Brown on previous A League form is well below the quality we need. I doubt he's improved by playing in South Africa.

David Williams and James Brown, might as well go the whole way and get a Griffiths brother in to!

[ennykays]

We are only 2 points away from the top 6 with a game in hand. 

I know there's still a long season ahead, just trying to stay optimistic. 

[xxBrandonxx]

Seems we only turn up to play after we get belted the week before. 

Riera, class above. 

Snake slithering to the bottom corner. Funny enough his last penalty save was against City at home last season too. Top stuff. Thought cities last free kick of the game was destined to go in. 

Decent spell after we netted the first goal,  not convincing in the second half. Any decent team would have punished us. 

Key players out, short turn around and away at Suncorp.

I expect the losses to resume this week.

I think it’s goimg to be very hot and cold until seasons end. 

 

[Harv]

2 hours ago, homerj said:

When Risdon went off, mini bacus was having trouble handling Fitzgerald. He needed more help. The Jumpei sub was a good one to get some help on the right. Although it looked like Bridge was loosing his effectiveness as the game went on. So it might have been a tough call. I thought Gambau used the last sub well.

Jumpei has copped a lot of criticism over this game, mainly, it seems because of his lack of support for Baby Baccus when he moved to the right back position.  Anti-Jumpei posters seem to overlook the fact that MC were equally effective down their right flank.  In the first half, Llorente, Roly and Bridge worked well together but by the 70-minute mark, Bridge was bushed, Roly nowhere to be seen, Llorente exposed and Atkinson was having a field day.  We were saved time and again by desperate defence and Arzani's inability to stay onside.  With Jumpei still able to run at the defence, perhaps Bridge was the better option for the substitution. (not that Santalab was any more successful stopping Fitzgerald and Jamieson when he replaced Jumpei).  Had Jumpei's attempt from a tight angle gone in instead of hitting the post in the first half, he would be hailed as a hero, rather than the current whipping boy.

[scarcev]

Is it just me??  How the hell do the media keep talking up Roly, he has been shite for most of the season and even yesterday I thought he was shite in attack with many quick easy passes ignored and shite in defence by not tracking his man. I know he gets targeted and I get that but he goes missing after copping one as well.   Having said that next week will be a problem in that central area with no Cejudo (injured), Roly (5 yellows) or Jnr Bacchus (U23 National team).