A 3-1 win for the Western Sydney Wanderers has continued their mini-revival, with their second win in a row keeping them within touching distance of the Newcastle Jets on the A-League ladder.
Adelaide kicked off on a perfect evening for football, Adelaide in 4th place wearing their all red kit, and the Wanderers in 8th and their change black kit. Adelaide set the tone of the game early, with Isaías scything down Roly Bonevacia from behind with a disgraceful kick out. The referee awarded a foul but not the clearly deserved yellow card.
The home side went to the professional foul well once too often and they were punished by the Wanderers after 10 minutes. George Blackwood gave away the foul and then was beaten all ends up on the resultant cross by his marker Oriol Riera, the cross from Bonevacia found the big strikers head on the edge of the 6 yard box, Adelaide keeper Izzo stayed on his line and Riera found the back of the net for his first goal of 2019.
Kris Griffiths Jones managed to insert himself into the game from his VAR position shortly after the goal. Despite the centre official waving away a soft penalty shout, he was called to the sideline by the VAR and his decision was over-turned. Brendan Hamill had stuck out a foot to try and block an incoming cross, he missed Jordy Thomassen only for the Dutch striker to dive over Hamill's leg. Justice was done from the penalty spot, with Goodwin's awful penalty being saved to Vedran Janjetovic's right side.
After half an hour of backs to the wall defending for Western Sydney, Janjetovic cancelled out his penalty save with another example of poor goalkeeping this season. An aimless Adelaide cross from Jakobsen was nowhere near the attacking players, Vedran leapt into the air, but instead of simply catching the ball he 'punched', for lack of a better term, with the ball dribbling about 3 yards forward into the pitch, Ryan Kitto ran onto the ball, got to it before the Wanderers defence could react and he smashed it past a stationary Janetovic.
Replays showed that Thomassen was in an offside position when the cross was taken, and subsequently he knocked into Brendan Hamill, unfortunately as is the normal case with the linesman when the Wanderers play Adelaide, they ignored the offside, and then the VAR didn't bother checking. After such a huge fuss was made about Jaushua Sotiro's "offside" offence in the first Sydney Derby, surely if the VAR was being consistent Thomassen would have been called offside on review and the goal chalked off.
The Wanderers regained their lead with a goal very much against the run of play 10 minutes after the interval. A right side throw-in from Tate Russel rolled through for Roly Bonevacia, and he took an invitation to run into the Adelaide defence and fire a strike that took a heavy deflection from an attempted block, leaving Paul Izzo wrong-footed and unable to even attempt a save.
The visitors took a commanding 3-1 lead 20 minutes from full time. Roly Bonevacia, having an absolutely storming game, was found by a Riera flick-on, the midfielder watched the ball drop then hit an elevated through ball for the excellent run of Abraham Majok and with Izzo rushing out the young striker perfectly executed a lob that dropped gracefully into the empty net.
Bonevacia could have had a double right before stoppage time, as he went on a length of the field sprinting dribble into the Adelaide penalty area only to have his attempted nutmeg shot blocked by Izzo, the rebound kept out again and a lay off to Majok being slightly overhit and not giving him a chance to put away the fourth. Adelaide pressed hard, and despite a number of Wanderers going down with cramp, the Red & Black held their lead, refusing to even give up a consolation goal. The clear man of the match was Bonevacia, who arguably had his best game at the club since his arrival. Markus Babbel had said in the media that he would refuse to give away the rest of the season, and it appears his mentality has filtered down onto the pitch tonight.
The Wanderers have closed the gap to Newcastle Jets in 7th to 6 points, and face Perth Glory at the Sydney Showground Homebush next Sunday the 24th at 7pm.
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