Record Loss Puts Rudan In Firing Line

A midweek duel with implications on the top 6 was the scene in Melbourne tonight as the Western Sydney Wanderers faced up to Melbourne City, the Wanderers failed to turn up and were obliterated, suffering a record 7-0 loss that knocked them out of the Top 6 and hopefully caused Paul Lederer and the Wanderers ownership to finally get rid of Marko Rudan. 

The Wanderers made an enforced change in the defence with Tom Beadling coming into the starting lineup with Marcelo suspended and Dylan Scicluna coming in as well. Jack Clisby and Sonny Kittel both made their way to the bench after starting last Friday in the 3-1 loss to Western United & Lawrence Thomas was back in goals. City were missing Matthew Leckie and Curtis Good due to an illness, leaving them with an unchanged lineup from their previous match.

It took all of a minute and a half for City to make the first chance of the game with a lightning right wing counter-attack. Callum Talbot swept down the flank unmarked, released Marin Jakolis who found himself in the penalty area, electing to cut the ball back to the top of the 6 yard box where Leo Natel had beaten Aidan Simmons for pace but put his shot across to the far post and just wide, a glorious chance that shouldn't have been spurred. City had another great chance in the 14th minute, as Jorrit Hendrix made a calamitous error with a poorly played sideways pass out of defence, giving it straight to Tolgay Arslan. With Thomas stranded on the edge of the box and no-one quick enough to get back it scoring seemed to be inevitable and yet Arslan decided to shoot straight away and kicked it directly at Thomas.

Western Sydney failed to heed the warnings to tighten up their defence and City punished it with a quick-fire double. City worked a 2 on 1 on the right wing between Talbot and former Wanderer Steven Ugarkovic, there was one man in the middle for City and Ugarkovic picked him ou with a cross that while accurate, was inexplicably let drop by Tom Beadling, which one could only assume was a call from Thomas, leaving it for Arslan to hit a knee high volley into the empty net.

The second only needed thirteen seconds from the Wanderers kicking off to the ball ended up in their net. Yes, 13 seconds. A handful of passes ended with a lazy kick into midfield by Scicluna that was pushed upfield by City to Arslan, and he drove from the centre circle, the midfield couldn't catch up and the defence stood off, he fired a shot that went through the sea of legs attempting to block and then past the dive of Thomas to make it 2-0. 

City weren't done yet and in the 39th minute they had their 3rd, and shortly after their 4th. Another right side City raid but instead of going wide Jakolis went central and released Max Caputo, the defence were too slow to react and his cut-back across goal beat Thomas and gave Natel the simplest of tap-ins. Caputo went from provider to scorer to get the 4th goal, a touch of luck with Jakolis taking an air swing on a ball bouncing into the box, it fell to Caputo who had reacted faster than Beadling and his sweeping shot was beyond the feet of Thomas.

Western Sydney had all of three chances, two of which were hits straight at Jamie Young by Milanovic and Borrello, and a third from Simmons where he was into the area and free to shoot but blasted his shot toward the corner flag instead of the opposition goal. This combined with the horrendous, statuesque defending made the half a complete nightmare for the Red & Black.

Rudan needed change and he made the first ever pentuple sub in A-League history. Milanovic, Brook, Beadling, Simmons and Scicluna came off and in their place came Clisby, Ninkovic, Pierias, Cleur & young defender Nathan Barrie to make his A-League debut. The half-time changes did little to fix things, and only Thomas stood in the way of a City 5th. Jakolis found Caputo at the near post and his reaction shot looked certain to score only for Thomas to adjust his body and block the strike.

33 year old Nuno Reis had only scored 3 goals in his entire senior, but even he got on the scoresheet in this match. Terry Antonis swung in a corner that Reis rose up for, with Borrello losing his marker and giving the defender a free shot that he knocked down at goal, with Thomas and Antonsson colliding in their attempts to keep it out and failing to do so.

It was 6 through Jamie Maclaren in the 77th, Leo Natel working around in the box to trick the defence into letting him fire back into the middle. Maclaren was on the spot, his first touch had the ball up in the air and the second was a volley up and over Thomas and the defence.

The first 6 were typical football goals but the 7th was a wonder strike. Terry Antonis, after being frozen out by Rudan and forced out of the club had come on as a second half substitute. He punished the club that treated him poorly by scoring one of the best goals in the history of the A-League. With a bouncing ball in the centre circle he knocked it over his shoulder and turned, took a glance to see Thomas a mile off his line and fired from inside the circle, an arcing lob with pace and direction that turned Thomas all around and inside out, the keeper flapping at thin air as it landed behind him. Antonis ran off in front of the Wanderers bench with a pointed celebration aimed squarely at Rudan. City put the cue in the rack at that point, and despite City taking their feet of the accelerator they still had the better chances to score, the Wanderers simply had nothing at all.

Mercifully the full time whistle sounded after 93 minutes, a 7-0 drubbing that is the Wanderers worst ever defeat. Following the 4-1 loss in the Derby, the 3-1 loss on Friday against last place Western United, this 7-0 loss surely spells the end of Rudan's car park spying stigma era in charge of the club. To top off the failure, Rudan abrogated his duty to front up to the media by sending the assistant coach to the post-match press conference, a move that won't endear him to the supporters at all.

The Wanderers next match is against Perth Glory on Saturday the 16th of March, in Perth, with kick-off at 7:45pm EDT.