The Western Sydney Wanderers were demolished 3-0 by a clinical Besart Berisha inspired Melbourne Victory outfit tonight.
A perfect hattrick to the Albanian hitman gave the Victory a well deserved three points, leaving the goal less Wanderers clinging to the top 6 by a thread. The only major change for the Wanderers was the reintroduction of Andrew Redmayne in the Wanderers goal, with Jerrad Tyson suspended after his red card last week against the Mariners.
Brendon Santalab had the opening chance of the game, not long after the starting whistle he sliced a right foot shot well over the Victory goal. 10 minutes into the match Jack Clisby, who has been a standout for the club since his arrival as the replacement for Scott Jamieson, nearly had his first goal for the Wanderers, a rifled first time strike on his left foot, it looked certain to nestle into the side netting, only for Victory keeper Lawrence Thomas to make a fingertip save to turn the ball onto the post, it ricocheted back off the woodwork and across the face of goal.
Melbourne's strike duo of Maxi Beister & Berisha combined to open the scoring arguably against the run of play. Redmayne proved once again he is not good enough to be a first choice goalkeeper in the A-League, Beister tried a speculative effort from upwards of 35 yards, he made clean contact but it should have been a routine save or at the very least a shot to be turned behind for a corner. Instead Redmayne stumbled before diving, being left on his knees and having to make a double handed block with zero control. As usual for Redmayne, his save fell into the path of the opposition striker and Berisha had a tap-in.
As long as his replacement only signs a contract to the end of this season, I do not care who replaces Redmayne. His performance has been howler after howler, he consistently costs our team points & goals (so far this season he's been directly or heavily at fault for goals against Perth, Newcastle, Sydney FC, Melbourne Victory & the Mariners), our defence clearly has no confidence in his ability to command his area, his reflexes are among the slowest in the competition and his distribution is woeful. The time has come for Tony Popovic & our goalkeeping coach Zeljko Kalac to bite the bullet and get rid of Redmayne in January.
Brendon Santalab had two clear cut chances to give the Wanderers a share of the lead or better, one a header from 6 yards out that he sent straight at Thomas, and a shot from a cutback that the normally gun striker blazed past the goal just minutes before half-time.
Instead Victory extended their lead after the break. The Wanderers defence stood off substitute Jai Ingham, and he delivered a pinpoint cross into the box, Berisha who is hardly known for his leaping ability outflew both central defenders & his header was past Redmayne before the keeper had even lifted his hands to attempt a save.
The final chance for the Wanderers to salvage the game came in the 81st minute, with another shot from Clisby that Thomas made a good low save. Mitch Nichols was sliding in at the back post and made a meal of his attempt to turn the ball home, ending up prone on the turf and being judged to have handled the ball.
Directly from the restart the Wanderers had switched off, Thomas booted the ball upfield for Jason Geria to flick on behind the defence, Berisha outpaced Artiz Borda before stabbing the ball past Redmayne with his right foot, securing the colloquial "perfect" hat-trick.
Tony Popovic must make changes. The midfield duo of Pinatares & Dimas have been exposed this season as lackluster in defence & are barely involved creatively. Yet again, the side wasted numerous set pieces with the baffling habit of taking short corners that always end up with two or three backward passes before losing possession. How is it that at a professional football club, that no-one can accurately hit a corner into the penalty area with enough confidence that no mucking around with short corners is required? One of the long corners nearly created a goal, with a block from a defender keeping the ball out. Despite this achievement the second corner was played short and wasted.
The predictable substitutions once again failed to make an impact. Week after week, Popovic makes the exact same substitutions even if his side is losing. After an hour one of the foreign defensive midfielders is replaced with another defensive midfielder. At some point between the 65th & 75th minutes a winger & the striker are replaced by another striker & another winger. The formation is always 4-2-3-1. It doesn't matter if we're playing a team in last, or we're down 1-0 at home.
The first season Premiership & incredible Champions League victory are heading from recent memory into history, and no manager, whatever their achievements, can continue to fail at winning trophies, or to keep losing to rivals, without their position as manager being questioned. Popovic needs to turn around his side and to demonstrate he can adapt to ongoing tactical issues and not just deflecting the failures solely onto the players that he recruited with press conference after press conference where "the results will come" or "the players need to take their chances".
This season results coming, but those results are heavy losses to bitter rivals. It is not good enough.
One final note is that I will applaud Clisby & Neville, the only two players that decided to face up to the crowd post game to thank the fans who showed up and stayed to the bitter end.
Western Sydney play Wellington Phoenix away in Auckland on Saturday the 17th of December.
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