The Unite Round Derby was another Sydney FC win as they took advantage of weak defence to run out 4-2 winners in Sydney tonight.
Major news out of the Wanderers camp was the return to the lineup of goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas from injury, coming in for Jordan Holmes after his sole appearance thus far. The only difference in the starting 11 from the 4-1 win vs the Jets was Joshua Brillante being left out entirely on a presumed injury absence. Oscar Priestman was elevated off the bench to replace him, and James Temelkovski took his place as a sub for what could be a Sydney Derby A-League debut for the 26 year old striker. Juan Mata continued his impact sub role, despite the midweek plea of player agent & former A-League player Fahid Ben Khalfallah to start the Spanish maestro.
The first 15 was a cagey affair with neither side managing to put together a clear chance at goal, Adrian Segecic had a left footed strike but he kicked it off the turf and it went well wide. WSW went up the other end and with the pace of Nicolas Milanovic he won a corner off Courtney Jordan-Perkins. The corner routine was a training ground move that ended with Jeong Tae-Wook bringing the ball down on the edge of the 6 yard box for a Kraev shot on the turn he scooped over the bar. Neither team were able to put a shot on target in the first 25. Anthony Caceres was the first name in the referees notebook after an awful touch run away from him and was followed by a desperate late lunge. Douglas Costa continued the lack of accuracy with his 29th minute free kick from a long way out that was wide but not by much.
Sydney FC opened the scoring with a lucky tap-in in the 32nd minute. Attacking on their left, Tae-Wook couldn't stop a cross into the penalty area that Cleur misplayed, the ball rolled to Klimala, his shot was blocked but unfortunately for the Wanderers it fell to the feet of Lolley who couldn't miss with an open net 5 yards out.
After the goal a melee sparked when Brandon Borrello was judged to have committed a foul on Costa who went down extremely easily. The dive from Costa leading to a set-to with a variety of pushes & shoves, and Klimala throwing a head-butt at Dylan Scicluna. The head-butt went unpunished but decided somehow that Borrello deserved a yellow card along with Costa.
The Wanderers turned a deep free kick for the home team into a lightning counter-attack, Scicluna and Zac Sapsford combined down the right, and the first time ball from the winger lead to a collision on the penalty spot between team-mates Andrew Redmayne and Lolley who was tracking back in cover defence.
Seconds before the break Sapsford continued his incredible Derby scoring record with his 3rd Derby goal out of his 4 total! Committing 9 players deep into the Wanderers half created space for Priestman to find Milanovic on half-way, with only a single defender back it enabled Milanovic to drive forward against Aaron Gurd who was in the impossible position of having to decide to let Milanovic attack the goal unmarked or leave Sapsford free at the back post. Milanovic drew Gurd in, and beat his outstretched block attempt and Redmayne before the keeper could come out, giving Sapsford an open net tap-in at the back post to level the scores.
The level scores lasted all of 2 minutes. Leo Sena continued his displays of diving dark arts by pretending to have been shot in the face after brief contact from Priestman, the ref paid the dive with a free kick which was a whipped in cross to the back post area, Alex Bonetig was far too slow, beaten to the ball by his opposite number Jordan-Perkins and the SFC defender nodded it past Thomas to make it 2-1.
Anthony Pantazopoulous caused the derby to go from bad to worse for the Red & Black when he gave away a clear penalty in the 52nd minute. He threw a lazy leg at the ball to clear only to find Rhyan Grant ghosting in from his blindside and kicked him in the leg. Anas Ouahim had come on for Costa at the break and what was near enough to his first touch was sending Thomas the wrong way to make it 3-1.
Segecic was booked for not retreating the required distance at a free kick and blocking a restart from Milanovic, who himself was booked for chopping down Courtney-Perks on the sideline. Stajcic had seen enough and went for a quadruple substitution, bringing on Marcus Antonsson, Jack Clisby, Ayden Hammond and Mata for Sapsford, Cleur, Milanovic and Priestman. Dean Pelekanos came on for Pantazopoulous in the 66th minute to use up all 5 regulation substitutions for the Wanderers.
Antonsson tried to pull a goal back in a goal-mouth scramble, a shot on target that was blocked away by Gurd but missed by the officials. He eventually found his reward, with 12 minutes plus stoppage time to go, Mata finally made use of one of the myriad of set piece opportunities. The World Cup winner delivered an inch-perfect corner to the edge of the 6 yard box, Antonsson broke his 17 game non-scoring streak by beating Redmayne at the near post with a header.
SFC regained their 2 goal lead four minutes later. Ouahim was allowed to stride 40 yards forward while Borrello tried and failed to stop him. His through ball was weak but the defence was even weaker, Bonetig & Clisby's powderpuff defence giving Klimala the opportunity to shoot and he found the back of the net.
The circus tricks came out to end the game with SFC scoring a 5th. Ouahim and Caceres played off each other, Ouahim juggling the ball off his chest then volleying to the back post where newly introduced Jaiden Kucharski shot first time to his right to score.. at least until everyone was about to restart play only for the VAR to send Daniel Elder to the sideline to pull it all back for a missed foul on Jack Clisby before the attack set off. The intervention mattered little in the grand scheme of things, the game ending after 6 minutes stoppage time. Once again, a pathetic display in defence allowed an opposition team to run riot and look like scoring every time they came forward by the end of the game and wasted chance after wasted chance in attack. One wonders if there's any hope for Stajcic to turn it around even at this early stage of the season after starting it with one win from five games in the league and being knocked out in the cup by Adelaide United.
The Wanderers next game is against Melbourne City at AAMI Park on Saturday the 30th of November, in Melbourne with kick-off at 5pm.
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