Wanderers Stay Top With Draw

[mack]

The Western Sydney Wanderers took a point from their clash tonight against the Brisbane Roar, following a disjointed performance punctuated by multiple injuries and a last gasp miss from Alex Meier that would have won the game.

Brisbane came into the game with a nearly unchanged lineup and one solitary point, their early performance in the game belied that position on the table as they took the fight to the table topping Wanderers. The Wanderers suffered an early blow when Pirmin Schwegler was taken off after suffering what looked to be a calf injury after 15 minutes. A half an hour of figurative push & shove came to an end as Daniel Georgevski's athletic effort from a Max Crocombe spillage was tipped over the bar by the Roar shot stopper, and at the other end Jay O'Shea blasted from a wide angle forcing Lopar into a double handed save that spilled back into the path of Roy O'Donovan, rebounded off the striker before being cleared away from a strike by Brad Inman.

Daniel Lopar earned his man of the match effort in no small part with a quick reaction save on his line early in the 2nd half. A 49th minute corner was whipped in to the 6 yard box, Macaulay Gillesphey nodded it toward goal, Meier was Alex on the spot to clear. Only as far as Daniel Bowles, and his point blank volley brought the best out of Lopar and the Roar couldn't believe they hadn't hit the back of the net.

Western Sydney's new attacking midfielder Nicolai Muller saw his first action in Australia, although his contribution was quite limited in effectiveness. Patrick Ziegler returned from his long injury break, as the Wanderers injury ward grew with the addition of Matthew Jurman as he came off after an injury, in the 80th minute. The Roar continued their graft, Stefan Mauk trying two long range efforts as full time loomed.

In the dying minutes it was the Wanderers marquee man Alexander Meier who should have broken the deadlock. Two minutes into stoppage time, Baccus managed to work the ball out to Georgevski, he found new man Muller, his cut back was perfectly placed for Meier, but with the crowd rising in expectation, Meier badly misjudged the flight of the ball, a tame effort that he couldn't even aim to either side of Crocombe, and with that the Wanderers sent the home crowd home disappointed with the first draw at the Western Sydney Stadium. Despite the draw the Wanderers remain top of the table & yet to taste defeat, 1 point ahead of local rivals Sydney FC although Melbourne City could draw level on Sunday.

The Wanderers face expansion side Western United next Saturday the 9th of November at 7:30PM, at the Geelong AFL stadium.

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[THEWANDERERSPOST]

Worrying signs at the moment. Hopefully the boys pick up and improve drastically over the next few games. The table doesn't represent how we've played at all.

[Cynth]

Lucky we have a great keeper. 

[Prydzopolis]

I think it’s importance to have balance, the first few weeks especially for periods in the MV game we were very good. Last week we got the points but didn’t show much offensively & then this week was a further extension of last week. Where does that leave us? Not great but not bad. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to buy into the hype of the first few weeks. I just hope we don’t go too far the other way now

Important not to get too far ahead of ourselves, take the ladder position but lots of work to do in order to turn the foundations of the last 4 matches & preseason into something else.

As a priority, need to sort out the midfield. Losing Primin will be a big blow, you just hope it’s not too long. Hopefully now our new number 10 might start, bringing Grozos back into 6/8 with Baccus or Tass (not both, too similar) will be the conundrum now about how to get the best out of them. That city FFA cup game was a good lesson about how important our visa players are to our season & the need for those senior players to complement the youth.

We have been blessed with Reza having him 2/3 of our first 3 games. Back to reality. The best aspect to Reza’s game was his ability to let the game flow & how quickly the players learnt. The first time a player goes down easy & doesn’t get a soft free kick, the players learn very quick about how much they can get away with from the referee. The referee tonight was all too happy to blow for little bits of contact & players from both teams were more than happy to oblige. This just added another layer to a dire game. 

[Burztur]

Gotta win the midfield. We have the quality.

[pseudonym]

Random thoughts:

Stadium announcer: "This week marked the 5th anniversary of WSW's ACL victory"

Squad: "Yeah let's mark the occasion with another 0-0 draw"

I tried the cheeseburger at the stadium as I got to the pub late (on call work). $8.90 - The meat, cheese and pickle were fresh. But the bun was a little dry for my liking. 6.5/10.

It's a shame the squad can't play to their full potential with all these injuries. It'll be a struggle to get a point in Geelong.

[Smoggy]

1 minute ago, pseudonym said:

 

I tried the cheeseburger at the stadium as I got to the pub late (on call work). $8.90 - The meat, cheese and pickle were fresh. But the bun was a little dry for my liking. 6.5/10.

 

Dont know why...but when i read this i thought about my old grandad and what he thought of modern football and stadiums...he was all ciggies stood on the terrace..piss up against the back of the stand and a cup of bovril... I just know in my mind what he would have said about your post lol

[Balkanite]

 

Edited November 2 by Balkanite

[pseudonym]

"Back in my day, the light and pyro shows were much better"

[matty]

What a difference watching the Melbourne 'derby' tonight. From the refereeing to both teams general play - polar opposite to our game. 

Can Reza ref every match this season

[GunnerWanderer]

Lopar was good but did anyone else notice Jurman and DM encourage him to come off his line more than once... also the double save from corner - AMFG and then Lopar should have never been corner watch replay was going out easily. So like everyone our best player thus far still has room to lift. 
the players keep fighting and defend like lions it’s refreshing to see. 

 

Anyone for yeboah next week week, muller, adam I don’t care but yeboah needs more time on training field 2 weeks in a row he’s been inefficient and ineffective 

surprised Zeigler didn’t come for Swiss master, tells me Babbel still is cautious with him. 

if you told me we would 10 points by now any of us would take it still fining our feet and top of the league it’s great feeling 

One more game before the bye, I’d say we need it babbel needs more time to work on the offensive side of game we are creating very little - I don’t think it’s a simple reason  I’d say it’s more tactical development is needed 

[FCB]

Once Schwegler was gone we played with three kids in midfield, too young and inexperienced against The All Whites. They are are compact and physical unit.

There is a hole between AMFG and the CBs, that's the problem. We need to get Schwegler back, without him the trip to Gelong will be very difficult. 

We should have lost, and last season we would have. And could have won - which would have been a bit rich. I'll take the point. Good to see Ziegler and Mueller on the pitch, very promising. 

The biggest concern is that we currently have six players in sick bay. Yeboah is half the player he was in pre season. 

[Jefski]

Injuries aside, we need to have all 5 foreigners on the field at once. Add Georgevski, McGowan, Jurman, Duke plus (add 2 players here), and we have a different chemistry. We were woeful again tonight. The clean sheet isn't that flattering either as they were crap too.

 

There is a bright side though, 10 points from a possible 12 when we deserve no more than 4 thus far is a positive. Surely we can't get any worse. 

[Jefski]

That's strange, certain people have been noticeably quiet since the kick-off.

[Wanderboy]

Well, what can one say about tonight other than it was a very disappointing effort.

I went to the game in high hopes that we might see a vastly improved effort from a somewhat lucky derby victory last week, yet I left feeling it was our worst performance of the season. The only positives I took away from this match were Lopar (again), double dot Muller's debut and him looking rather sharp, and the performance of the RBB.

Otherwise, it was a dire match to watch live. As others have said, Yeboah was again below his best. We have looked far sharper in attack when Mo has been on the field recently. Yet, I don't want to point the finger at just one player. Everyone looked lethargic from the first whistle, even superman Duke. Grozos was just a passenger, and although I rate Wilmering highly and have been so impressed with his performances this season, he had a shocker. I lost count with the amount of times he just blasted the ball upfield to nobody or his passes just went astray. 

There just didn't seem to be the killer instinct to take this game by the throat and put Brisvegas Roar to the sword. 

We were so slow to play out from the back. So many passes back and forth between our CB's and WB's, with no options of pushing forward. Our midfield were providing few options. Things improved a little bit in the 2nd half, but generally, we never really looked threatening, nor did we look likely to take the game by the scruff of the neck and dominate. In fact, Brisbane looked more likely to do so. They went into tackles harder, won more 1 on 1 challenges, and look like they wanted the game more.

There really is no excuse for tonight's performance. We had a long pre season with a decent part of our squad available. We were 3 games into the comp and coming off uplifting wins against two of the strongest teams in the competition. Yet, we dished up a trash performance like this. 

Yes, we are undefeated. Yes, we didn't lose. But, with the squad we have put together this season, which could arguably be the best squad we have ever had, tonight's performance just wasn't good enough.

Just a few more observations.

* What is it with Aussie referees and getting sucked into diving fouls? Fair dinkum, some of the free kicks awarded tonight were embarrassing - for both teams. A player just needs to go down and the whistle blows. It's what I like most about our new Iranian ref. He doesn't tolerate that ****.

* RBB put in a stellar performance tonight. The noise seems to echo around the stadium a bit better when it is not so full. You guys and gals were very noisy and indeed, very uplifting tonight.

* I thought the 14000-ish crowd was pretty good. However, we need to start playing more attractive football to keep them coming and grow attendances. 

* After watching tonight's Melbourne derby, we'll need to be a shite load better next week to challenge WU. 

* How good is it to go to a game in the heat in Parra, have a kebab in North Parra beforehand, and have the sun in your eyes watching the match?  Can life get any better?

* Marcus better wear his ******* cap next week.

* What the **** was that low humming ear piercing noise they played over the speaker system before the kick off to both halves? Man that was annoying as all ****. ** Note to Wanderers - Please let the RBB do the pre match entertainment.

 

[Unlimited]

2 minutes ago, Wanderboy said:

How good is it to go to a game in the heat in Parra, have a kebab in North Parra beforehand, and have the sun in your eyes watching the match?  Can life get any better?

 

Yes, no sun in my eyes for starters.

[wswnick]

Western United may cause some damage if we don't organise ourselves

[Upthehill]

20 minutes ago, wswnick said:

Western United may cause some damage if we don't organise ourselves

WU have setup with a great front 3 and then 6 CB and Josh Risdon.

What they seriously lack is a proper 6. If they can work our their midfield they are going to give teams some serious problems

[echidna]

Only Daniel Lopar can justifiably excuse himself from being a target of the following comments...

To the WSW players:

If you think repeatedly playing the ball back and shifting it slowly back and forth across the backline, without showing movement and desperation to go forward is worthy of playing for this club, find yourself another shirt to wear - we will be better off without you!

To Coach Babbel:

If you cannot instil more forward drive, energy and enthusiasm in your players - find another club.

I am rarely angered by a performance, but I was about this one. The Melb Derby that followed showed more pace, dynamism and good football in its first minute than we showed in 90. Worse still, ours was the live free-to-air ABC TV game. Who watching would have been inspired to pay money to go and watch that rubbish? A team playing like that is utterly undeserving of being top of the table. Keep it up and Wanderland will look as vacant as Spotless!

[ManfredSchaefer]

Love seeing all these people attacking the players for today's performance.

Yeah, would love to see some of you go out there and try and play top quality football in the humidity and heat that was felt by all of us sitting in the stands. Oh, and do that with a packed oppo defence, your key playmaker off injured in the early stages of the first half, a ref who seemed to have an inability to let the game flow, and some players who have been carrying niggles since the derby, are returning from injury, or have just arrived from Europe.

Now was it what we wanted, expected? Of course not. There are issues. But FFS some of the hysteria and BS coming from so-called fans of WSW...pull your fooking heads in. How many of those who are bitching & moaning now, with 10 points in the locker and top of the table, would've been creaming their jeans to see a similar status after games like those we played against Newcastle when we lost 1-5? Jesus Christ...it wasn't until we got to the fourth game of that legendary first season that we scored our first win. When Popa left us Foxe couldn't buy a win and then Gombau came in and our season died further in the arse. We outplayed Brisbane twice last season and at times looked like we were blitzing them, yet still couldn't beat them (and brain fades cost us goals that this go round we're not letting in).

You want to lecture the players on playing for the club, or Babbel for how he's coaching then have another look at the table, look at where we are at now, where we have been, and then give yourself an uppercut.

[Jefski]

14 minutes ago, ManfredSchaefer said:

Love seeing all these people attacking the players for today's performance.

Yeah, would love to see some of you go out there and try and play top quality football in the humidity and heat that was felt by all of us sitting in the stands. 

Firstly, the players get paid to play and we, the fans in the stands pay to watch them so your comment is void.

 

Secondly, all these variables and reasons you've listed are completely understandable and agreeable, people can't arguing that. It was just another flat game of football which we have become so accustomed to over the last few years and are tired of paying to watch it. We have what is arguably one of the best squad in the club's history and I think we're just hoping for better than what we saw tonight. 

 

Let's just hope for cooler weather and a better performance next week heading into the bye and I'm sure, all will be forgiven (at least for another 2 weeks).

[ManfredSchaefer]

3 minutes ago, Jefski said:

Firstly, the players get paid to play and we, the fans in the stands pay to watch them so your comment is void.

 

Secondly, all these variables and reasons you've listed are completely understandable and agreeable, people can't arguing that. It was just another flat game of football which we have become so accustomed to over the last few years and are tired of paying to watch it. We have what is arguably one of the best squad in the club's history and I think we're just hoping for better than what we saw tonight. 

 

Let's just hope for cooler weather and a better performance next week heading into the bye and I'm sure, all will be forgiven (at least for another 2 weeks).

Your first statement is utter BS. It doesn't matter who pays and who is paid; when keyboard warriors come out and make ridiculous statements without a shred of experience of what the players are doing, how they train, what they've been told to do, their physical and mental fitness etc, then it's perfectly appropriate to call out hyperbolic BS. The whole point of trying to appreciate and deconstruct what has transpired this season so far is to understand that we have a limited and biased perspective, and that is based on the fact that we aren't professional footballers, we aren't on the inside of the club or the team, we are spectators who will never experience what the players do. 

As for 'flat football', yeah, it wasn't goal a minute excitement. However football is not going to always be like a 15 minutes highlight package on TV or a quick game of FIFA at your mate's place. Doing enough not to lose can be a key result in and of itself, but especially when there is another 5 or so months to go in the season. And if you think that the effort against Brisbane was like the last few seasons, then you must not have watched more than 4 or 5 games max. I can cite plenty of games over the last three seasons where we played far worse than that and got hammered, and some where we played better and still didn't get any points.

I see no need to 'forgive' the players because I don't go in for the hyperbolic flagellation game that some folk are doing. The team could've lost, the team could've won. The team could have played better, the team could've played worse. Bottom line is the team is undefeated after 4 games, top of the table. I'd rather believe in the players to sort themselves out and do what they can instead of superimposing on them my ill-informed and biased preconceptions of what they should do.

[wendybr]

4 hours ago, FCB said:

We should have lost, and last season we would have. 

Bit tired of hearing this comment tbh...and it's everywhere.

Hard to be positive atm, when "We should've lost, but we didn't" is the most common comment to be heard after a game. 

[Neverbloom]

the only reason we didnt lose is because of lopar, remove lopar and we would be on 0 points

[sonar]

1 hour ago, wendybr said:

Bit tired of hearing this comment tbh...and it's everywhere.

Hard to be positive atm, when "We should've lost, but we didn't" is the most common comment to be heard after a game. 

Playing poorly and getting a point is way better than the results from games over the last two seasons especially. Two clean sheets in a row. Were we great.....no. Can we improve ......yes. 

After listening to the managers presser it's interesting to see what the manager took away from the game and what a lot of supporters took away, both are starkly different. Babbel was happy....the fans not so much. 

Onward to next week....COYW. !

 

 

 

[lloydy136]

Everyone needs to calm down just a little bit.

The game was a poor standard and dreadful spectacle but this was for tactical and technical reasons not because of lack of commitment or effort.

There was no Llorente leisurely jogging back after losing the ball or Pio's permanently offside statue modern art experiment.

10 points, 2 clean sheets, only 2 goals conceded, good team resilience and attitude to grind out tough results - coaches love these things.

A fit muller will solve a lot of the problems we saw yesterday. Patience folks.

 

 

 

[hughsey]

Top of the league 

[btron3000]

8 hours ago, FCB said:

Yeboah is half the player he was in pre season. 

The attack is half what it was in pre-season. Yeboah’s touch is erratic and even when he was looking good in pre-season it was his energy that was the main ingredient. So where has it gone? Where has the energy of our attack gone in general?

I think it’s fair to ask whether our new striker suits our other attacking players. In the FFA Cup Duke, Adam and Yeboah were causing havoc and creating chances  through energy alone. Now they seem stagnant.

Yesterday was really hot and so perhaps the Fussballgott deserves some leniency, but he was stagnant against the smurfs too.

It’s a problem. He sits in the middle of the park and so Duke sits on the left, Yeboah on the right, our midfield sit in their “spots” and the ball gets passed along the backline with no options.

Babbel needs to work out how to get the players moving. If that involves sitting AMFG so the front three can start moving around again, so be it. Otherwise he has to get the midfield moving again, whether through a change in formation, personnel or tactics.

The question is, what is our attacking personality? In the pre-season it was high energy and pace. Now it’s ...?

We’re not a counter-attacking team. We’re not using AMFG as the fulcrum a-la Mark Viduka. We’re not a ball possession passing team. We’re not giving the ball to a creative #10 to playmake. What are we? Babbel needs to find the answers.

Edited November 2 by btron3000

[btron3000]

47 minutes ago, lloydy136 said:

A fit muller will solve a lot of the problems we saw yesterday.

Yes we looked much better when he came on. But we still couldn’t finish what he started. At this stage it’d be better having Duke on the end of his crosses than AFMG. The big fella has a lot to prove in the next couple of games.

[btron3000]

As for the reffing... who is in charge of these guys? Because almost every one of them - bar the new fella from overseas - is totally hopeless. Been saying it for a while that all you need to do is go down and you get a whistle, but yesterday was the nadir. Someone needs to coach these guys properly. It’s embarrassing.
 

Brilliante, O’Neill and Grant would hack galore and hold players from making counter attacks and nothing happens, everyone else gets pinged for any contact. No idea how to let players play or control the flow of the game. Terrible.