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  • Strikers Fire In Brisbane

    mack

    By mack

    A great team wide performance was the catalyst for a clinical Western Sydney Wanderers to take home all 3 points with a 2-0 win in Brisbane tonight.

    The 2-0 win sees the Wanderers jump into the top 6 pending the rest of the round, with a game in hand & some winnable fixtures coming up they might be on pace to make a tilt at the top 4. With injuries, suspensions, player departures & youth national team call ups, Josep Gombau elected to play a 4-4-1-1 formation with Riera & Santalab up top with Lustica & Bridge on the wings, Kearyn Baccus & Chris Herd central with Raul Llorente filling in for Josh Risdon at right back with Clisby at left fullback, and the experienced central defensive combination of Thwaite & Cornthwaite screening for Janjetovic in goal.

    Brisbane Roar had the better of the early stages, but their ineffective attack and inability to stay onside cost them any hope of making inroads into the scoreline. Corey Gamiero was perhaps unlucky to have been called offside just before the Wanderers opened the scoring but with the Roar racking up a total of 6 in the game it would be hard to blame the linesman if he got the tight decision wrong.

    For their part the Wanderers stayed compact and rose into the game, their passing improving with Oriol Riera the standout with his back to goal play. The marquee striker began the move that saw him become the beneficiary of great work by Steven Lustica & Brendon Santalab. Lustica with the ball wide open on the right flank he hit a pinpoint cross into the 6 yard box. Santalab's diving header was on target and a wonderful save from Jamie Young happened to fall in the path of Riera and he couldn't miss from point blank range.

    Brisbane tried to strike back through Corey Gamiero, who managed to keep himself onside in the 34th minute as he latched onto a long ball over the top of the Wanderers defence. As Thwaite & Llorente tried in vain to catch up, his shot was fired in from the edge of the 18 yard box but Vedran Janjetovic stuck out a left hand and held the ball to his chest.

    Mark Bridge's selection saw him rise to the most capped player in Wanderers history and he celebrated with a goal before half-time. Once again Riera was the creator, picking up the ball on the edge of the area before finding Bridge with a penetrating ball into box that Bridge took a touch to get around Daniel Bowles before firing it past Young at the near post.

    The second half saw the Wanderers turn the screws on the home side and they had multiple chances to go further ahead. Riera found himself in open space at a free kick with a free header he could only put wide of the post. Lachlan Scott came on to play wide and combined with Riera & Santalab well. His best chance was late in the game with a fierce shot from a tight angle that couldn't beat Young.

    For yet another game the VAR system appeared to fail at it's task of finding major errors. After some pinball at a corner, Massimo Maccarone lined up Brendon Santalab, ignoring the ball completely then cut open Santalab with a nasty elbow. Despite the video replay showing the incident clearly deserved a penalty and a red card, the VAR astonishingly declined to intervene. The attack didn't even result in a yellow card for Maccarone. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was Santalab who had cut open an opposing player I have no doubt at all that he would have been walking off the field & receive a long ban.

    The Wanderers closed out the game well and kept the Roar from any major opportunities the win seeing them leap into the top 6 for now, with a game against Adelaide United coming up on Wednesday they might be looking to push into the top 4.

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    Erebus

    Said it last night to missus and ATB folks, but scott on the wing coming on when 2-0 up took all pressure off him when normally leading the line. Having bridge, Santa and Riera there to take the heat, he could just play and link up with them. Did really well and should have had 2 assists.

    It's the kind of play he should have been introduced into the squad in the first place. But he was thrown in the deep end last season.

    He can learn from Riera and let's hope he is for the future.

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    SBW
    11 hours ago, beatsurrender said:

    Couple of things re. the VAR

    The VAR ref decides to check incidents independently 

    The Santa clash was not checked by VAR. The VAR ref didn't deem it a significant error 

    Macaronne can be reviewed by the panel and given a retrospective ban as dealing with it on the field means getting a yellow or red and the ref did neither 

     

     

     

    The thing is players are getting red carded for non issues by the VAR then we have players like Bobo and Maccarone who get away with violent conduct. Neither refs or VAR 'see it'. Match review panel take no action because this was not noted or sighted by the ref as both will be free To play next week.

    What message does that send? You can elbow and kick players in challenges and off the ball when you will get off scot-free. There your ***** FFAlogic right there

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    wendybr
    22 minutes ago, dcrow said:

    Did anyone notice last night, some of our free kicks and crosses actually hit our targets, courtesy of Lustica.

    Yes definitely!  

    Why has he hardly played for us - injured at the start of the season, was he?

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    Paul01
    49 minutes ago, wendybr said:

    Yes definitely!  

    Why has he hardly played for us - injured at the start of the season, was he?

    Injured his foot in r2 from memory and was in a moonboot.

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    wendybr

    Thanks Paul....and had he had much game time before that?

    I remember him playing, but nothing specific. Don't think he did anything to let himself down??

    I hope he'll get a lot more game time from now on.

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    Paul01
    23 minutes ago, wendybr said:

    Thanks Paul....and had he had much game time before that?

    I remember him playing, but nothing specific. Don't think he did anything to let himself down??

    I hope he'll get a lot more game time from now on.

    Featured heavily in this pre-season mostly as a winger but is more a CM. Last season got injured as well. Last season ended up behind Dimas and Pinatares early in the season, then behind Antonis and Baccus Snr as DMs. Was always behind Mitch and Nico.

    He is better suited to the Gombau system as he can shoot as well (always worried when he came on for Brisbane as a sub against us). Next game, either he Kearyn will be the main DM. 

    Its time for Mack to give us a match day thread for tje game against Adelaide.

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    btron3000
    19 hours ago, mack said:

    Gombau said in the press conference it was a 4-4-2 then a 4-2-4 late in the game with the pressing high and subbing on Scott.

    Yeah was definitely 4-4-2 and I’d say there were times we were 4-2-4 even before the subs, when Bridge and Lustica (who was great!) pushed forward. If you wanted to get fancy you could say it was 4-2-2-2, with the wide mids/wingers playing further forward than Herd/KB.

    The media here are pretty lazy when it comes to formations, they are usually about 2 months behind! They’ll probably have us lining up as 4-2-3-1 for the rest of the year!

    Maybe we aren’t mini-Barca after all - if we keep playing 4-2-4 we can be mini-Brazil!!

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    Paul01
    43 minutes ago, btron3000 said:

    Yeah was definitely 4-4-2 and I’d say there were times we were 4-2-4 even before the subs, when Bridge and Lustica (who was great!) pushed forward. If you wanted to get fancy you could say it was 4-2-2-2, with the wide mids/wingers playing further forward than Herd/KB.

    The media here are pretty lazy when it comes to formations, they are usually about 2 months behind! They’ll probably have us lining up as 4-2-3-1 for the rest of the year!

    Maybe we aren’t mini-Barca after all - if we keep playing 4-2-4 we can be mini-Brazil!!

    This tells me that the team is adapting to the multiple transition system that Gombau likes to use. It is less predictable. 

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    WestSyd
    27 minutes ago, Paul01 said:

    This tells me that the team is adapting to the multiple transition system that Gombau likes to use. It is less predictable. 

    That's the thing though. Before these last two wins, we were hearing non stop about how Gombau could only coach tiki taka, or he couldn't manage players, or even we only signed him because of his sideline antics.

    One would think that he is making some subtle changes behind the scenes with formations and playing personnel. He would know in his mind exactly what he wants say around two years down the track. So everything at the moment would be a WIP.

    One of our problem previously were that we were too rigid. Always using the same formation and eventually being worked out. It is good to see we are finally being more flexible, and even better the players aren't whinging about it.

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    Paul01
    3 minutes ago, WestSyd said:

    That's the thing though. Before these last two wins, we were hearing non stop about how Gombau could only coach tiki taka, or he couldn't manage players, or even we only signed him because of his sideline antics.

    One would think that he is making some subtle changes behind the scenes with formations and playing personnel. He would know in his mind exactly what he wants say around two years down the track. So everything at the moment would be a WIP.

    One of our problem previously were that we were too rigid. Always using the same formation and eventually being worked out. It is good to see we are finally being more flexible, and even better the players aren't whinging about it.

    Cornthwaite latching on to #NoExcuses as well

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    Spotty

    so tell me , I was one calling for Topor Stanley to be replaced as a centre back because he had lost a lot of speed , he was giving away fouls in desperation as players ran around him.

    Story is he is 5 kilos lighter at Newcastle and doing well , certainly not getting run around like he was in the last season at WSW, Popa was a fanatical fitness coach  !!!

    Tell me

     

     

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    WestSyd
    15 minutes ago, Spotty said:

    so tell me , I was one calling for Topor Stanley to be replaced as a centre back because he had lost a lot of speed , he was giving away fouls in desperation as players ran around him.

    Story is he is 5 kilos lighter at Newcastle and doing well , certainly not getting run around like he was in the last season at WSW, Popa was a fanatical fitness coach  !!!

    Tell me

     

     

    For me it was a different situation in our first season when players from other clubs all came here with a point to prove. Popa was also a raw, young coach wanting to show he could match it with the others. He had good support in Milicic as assistant. There was motivation behind everything we did.

    When we won our first premiership, made two grand finals and won the ACL, what more from a players point of view could they achieve from club football in this country. No doubt a few players let themselves go. The coach was being taken seriously, as was our club as a threat. The end result was the season 3 we had.

    Season 4 was a revival of sorts, but I don't think we ever that fit as we were in our first two seasons. ACL also didn't help. Topor no doubt has been revived under Merrick, like he was originally under Popa. Like they say, a change is a good way to recharge the batteries and move onto new challenges.

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    wendybr
    19 hours ago, Paul01 said:

    Featured heavily in this pre-season mostly as a winger but is more a CM. Last season got injured as well. Last season ended up behind Dimas and Pinatares early in the season, then behind Antonis and Baccus Snr as DMs. Was always behind Mitch and Nico.

    He is better suited to the Gombau system as he can shoot as well (always worried when he came on for Brisbane as a sub against us). Next game, either he Kearyn will be the main DM. 

    Its time for Mack to give us a match day thread for tje game against Adelaide.

    Thanks again Paul! :good:

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