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  • Wanderers Outgunned By Arsenal

    mack

    By mack

    The Wanderers first major pre-season circus event ended with a dominant Arsenal scoring 3 goals against an spirited but outclassed Wanderers team at Homebush tonight.

    Western Sydney managed to get through half an hour without punishment. On 15th minutes Steven Lustica had a chance to play through Jumpei on goal but his killer ball was blocked by an Arsenal defender. Jacob Melling was involved in set to with Xhaka & Olivier Giroud's fancy haircut, but despite the Wanderers winning a foul it seemed to fire up the Arsenal team and they took revenge shortly. After half an hour Arsenal opened the scoring, with Monreal breaking down the left wing, playing a one-two with new Arsenal signing Lacazette, who cut back the ball to Giroud to finish with a neat pass from close range.

    The Wanderers defence was caught square just 5 minutes later, as the Arsenal defence smashed a long ball over the top of Brendan Hamill, he was left in the dust by Aaron Ramsey, and his chip left Vedran Janjetovic with no hope at all of making a save.

    Right before half-time it was 3-0 with Mohamed Elneny striking from long distance and being helped by a deflection off Hamill.

    The Wanderers came out with renewed spirit in the second half, and took the game to Arsenal. They were rewarded in the 56th minute.  Following some intense presure in the box, Jack Clisby fired in one of his trademark "shoot at hit the crossbar" strikes from outside the area, Arsenal failed to clear the ball, and were pinged for an intentional backpass to the goalkeeper. With the Arsenal team camped on the goal line, Lustica fired, hit the wall, then pounced on the rebound to shoot the ball into the roof of the net for a 3-1 scoreline.

    Arsenal looked nearly certain to score a fourth, but they were held at bay with the help of the woodwork and scrambling defence from the Wanderers.

    The 3-1 scoreline reflected the ebb & flow of the game well enough. Roly Bonevacia did well, particularly in the second half, and new marquee striker Oriol Riera did well enough with his limited game time. Unfortunately, neither Brendan Hamill or Jumpei Kusukami made any positive impact for the Wanderers, Hamill being part of all three Arsenal goals, and Jumpei rotating between invisibility, and being monstered off the ball by his midfield markers.

    At the end of the day these matches are less about winning & losing than they are about helping to gain match fitness and regularity with the tactics involved, and on the whole it appears for the Wanderers they achieved what would have been expected of them. The pre-season will continue as we all head towards the FFA Cup and the opening rounds of the A-League.

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    JayZko

    I'm an ogre 

    even I was getting pissed off with the part timers in the active support bay got into tiffs with 3 people why do euro snobs sit back in our bay ffs

    Edited by JayZko
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    Zelinsky
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    Mr Popovic will not have been happy how we conceded three avoidable goals. 

    Risdon and Roly looked great.

    We looked much better once Oriol, Thwaite and Herd came on.

    Steve Lustica - goal machine.

    RBB put a good shift in.

    Cornflakes is twice the player he was nine months ago. Jumpei isn't.

    Add Bridgey and Nico and a healthy Santa and we'll be the real deal. 

     

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    Zelinsky

    "This team looks more physical, more ready, more advanced physically than the opposition the other night," Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger said. 

    DT: "There may have been some eyes on the RBB following the Wanderers’ warning to them earlier in the week that any anti-social behaviour would result in them being shut down, but to their credit they created a vibrant atmosphere."

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    Wobblies

    Good to see you again FCB. Relatively good performance last night all things considered. I think our defence will be good this season. Roly was very good, Bachus put in a strong shift as he did all last season.  From Oreo's few touches I'm very optimistic looks promising. Snakes had a good game along with his left upright and crossbar. Special mention to RBB good stuff showed up the Arsenal statues big time. 

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    GK21

    I sat in the corner closest to the arsenal active (ha) bay. At the start they chanted who are ya to the rbb. It was good to sing it back once Listica scored that goal. I could also hear the RBB aswell. It's good that they were able to get behind them team after the chaos leading up to it 

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    echidna

    Congratulations to our boys for playing with greater intensity, aggressiveness and generally stringing more passes together than SFC did against Arsenal and earlier in the year against Liverpool.

    I am not a great fan of these games as it just tends to feed the Eurosnob gluttony for worshipping foreign gods at the expense of what should be our own idols. However, if we do partake in these extravaganzas, we should do it correctly i.e.:

    (1) Have a dedicated Active area for our own fans so that the stadium is not bathed in an embarrassing wall of colour and sound that reflects Arsenal/Liverpool/Chelsea/ManUtd etc... at least we did this right!

    (2) Play with intensity and passion and controlled aggression, demonstrating that we can hold the ball too - and push forward. We did this to a degree only. Facing opposition that is quick and decisive and does not need three pokes to dispossess, you need players who can stay on their toes, turn sharply while shielding the ball, have good close control, accelerate and lay the ball off with vision. I think Kearyn Baccus did this most effectively, while Roly can certainly do this when he is fitter.

    (3) Maximise our benefit from the occasion by having cut price A-League admission tickets/season ticket discount offers handed to 'Arsenal' and supposed football fans attending.

    I have never denounced the dream that one day our sport will be number one in this country, but it seriously has to be asked if in a twisted sort of way, on the evidence of these matches, this has already been achieved. Multiple crowds of near 80,000 to 100,000 to watch Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester Utd with what would overwhelmingly be mutually exclusive Eurosnob attendees, is something of which even the AFL would be most jealous.

    Perhaps, we are already the No. 1 sport (we are already in participation rates) though not quite in the way we would like it. Our challenge is to lift our local game to be closer to being worthy of that accolade.

     

     

     

     

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    JayZko

    The only way to test the waters mate is if someone purchases a decent marquee and see what happens

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    Zelinsky
    24 minutes ago, JayZko said:

    The only way to test the waters mate is if someone purchases a decent marquee and see what happens

    That'll be a name that the Eurosnob will a) recognize and b) motivate him to tune into the HAL, right? 

    The HAL has been priced out of the market. A player that would have cost 2 million three or four years ago will now cost 7 million per season. In the current environment a Del Pierro style marquee is out of reach. We won't see such a big name player perhaps for a decade, and have to consider ourselves lucky if the league attracts and hold on to a player like Bobo, Fornaroli and Oriol. Guys who are 30 or so, not 40.

     

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    EmMac

    Craig foster talked about 83k crowd being evidence of high level of interest in football and that the challenge is for ffa to harness that interest. A good comment but i would have preferred to hear Craig address thos eurosnobs directly. He could have really talked up the aleague comp and put it out there that a fan of football could be attending matches each year right hear in Oz. You know, 'get out there and see whats on offer in the aleague, see the great atmosphere for yourself,  support your local team and help build this great game in Australia '. 

    Perhaps naive of me but these matches prove the interest is there, but we need more effort, better strategies employed to transfer that interest into bums on seats at aleague matches.

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    luisenrique

    Oreo & Roly look so promising. 

    Craig Moore's commentary was awful. Just spouting endless cliches. He made Basheer look like Martin Tyler. 

    I think the sight of so many eurosnobs would have made me physically sick, so it's a good thing I stayed home. I know people keep talking about the need to win them over, but after reading peoples' accounts of last night, I think **** em. The same way I don't know why people care about trying to convert dyed in the wool nrl/afl types. A Eurosnob is a eurosnob because of the way that he/she is, they're not going to suddenly change. They've had five years (in our case) to get on board, if all the things we've achieved on & off the pitch in that time isn't going to interest them, nothing will. 

    Let them live in their magical land of watching games at 3am and never seeing their team live, we don't need them.

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    jackyboyc
    12 hours ago, mack said:

    Jumpei rotating between invisibility, and being monstered off the ball by his midfield markers.

     

     

    :rofl:

    I couldn't agree more. I would love to force Popa to watch a "Jumpei cam" and see exactly what he does during a game. We need to start a petition to get Jumpei's contract mutually terminated.

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    StringerBellend
    46 minutes ago, luisenrique said:

    Oreo & Roly look so promising. 

    Craig Moore's commentary was awful. Just spouting endless cliches. He made Basheer look like Martin Tyler. 

    I think the sight of so many eurosnobs would have made me physically sick, so it's a good thing I stayed home. I know people keep talking about the need to win them over, but after reading peoples' accounts of last night, I think **** em. The same way I don't know why people care about trying to convert dyed in the wool nrl/afl types. A Eurosnob is a eurosnob because of the way that he/she is, they're not going to suddenly change. They've had five years (in our case) to get on board, if all the things we've achieved on & off the pitch in that time isn't going to interest them, nothing will. 

    Let them live in their magical land of watching games at 3am and never seeing their team live, we don't need them.

    This 

    If a few decide to give the A League a try based off last night fine.

    But largely stuff em they can stick to watching man utd v Liverpool in their Barcelona PJs

    Besides they are too mainstream for us brah

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    Hughesy
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    Had two Arsenal fans probably in their mid 50's rock up and stand in front of us in the RBB. They seemed quite relieved when everyone sat down at KO, only to **** themselves at the 5 minute mark when the party started. They couldn't see a thing and you could tell it was killing them. I didn't have a single piece of sympathy for them. To their credit though they were having a crack at the chants.

    You could tell so many of the Arsenal 'fans' were intrigued by us singing the whole game. We helped promote the aleague last night, you're welcome...  

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    SBW
    2 hours ago, echidna said:

     

    I have never denounced the dream that one day our sport will be number one in this country, but it seriously has to be asked if in a twisted sort of way, on the evidence of these matches, this has already been achieved. Multiple crowds of near 80,000 to 100,000 to watch Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester Utd with what would overwhelmingly be mutually exclusive Eurosnob attendees, is something of which even the AFL would be most jealous.

    The AFL don't really care about this... they can constantly get around 60-80k at the MCG and tend to sell out the Etihad Stadium.

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    ZachMercer

    Exhibition matches are purely for entertainment and marketing purposes. Any talk of using them as a convertion tool is nonsense. Growing the game begins at the grassroots level, and unfortunately at least in my local area clubs are run by "eurosnobs" that think their kids will play for juve.

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    ManfredSchaefer
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    I could post a real epic about the entire Arsenal in Sydney wankfest, but will focus on last night's match experience and what I saw from the real home team.

    First off, it was good to meet up with FCB, Braad, Stringer & some associates at the Concord pre-match. It really is the only decent venue for pre-SOP meet ups that is within a short walk of the venues. There was a decent crowd in, with a few EuroSnobs, some other WSW hools, a couple of Swans hangers on and even a Manuka Midget. Those of us who have been there know that the food is good and the beer cold.

    Getting into ANZ was surprisingly stress free. The seccos were their usual monosyllabic grunting best, but didn't feel too hassled heading in with Stringer. A slightly muted 'Arbeit macht frei' was issued as walked into stadium, then it was to the active section.

    Generally speaking the WSW active end was filled with plenty of Wanderers folk, and the aisle next to mine was where the RBB took up residence. There were some hassles apparently for La Banda, but as people may have heard and/or seen they did get to play. There was a sprinkling of Gunners fans there and to be honest they should've fooked off...they sat there like atmosphere sponges sucking up any passion unless one of their overpaid heroes scored, then they were yelling and screaming like they'd sat on a thumb tack.

    The opening silence from the RBB was powerful, in that it reminded all of us who love game day with them how ordinary things can be without them. Whether or not you agree or disagree with all or some of the things that have happened, game day experiences and being a WSW supporter is embellished by the RBB, and their absence will diminish us all.

    In the first half I thought that our defence was pretty solid, and it was good to see the likes of Clisby and Hamill get physical. Snakes did bloody well in front of goal, and it says a bit about how Arsenal struggled to score as freely as their numpty fans wanted that one of their goals came from a route one effort and another was a dumb arse own goal from Brendan. Captain Cornflakes led the back four as well as he could.

    Our attack didn't offer much in the first half and could tell that Majok was struggling. Jumpei was typical Jumpei, whereas Roly showed some nice moves. Second half however and it was a much more quality effort from all on field. There were times when Arsenal looked physically and even creatively pummelled by our lads. Of course they have plenty of excuses and reasons why they can excuse this, but let's not forget...our squad would be worth around 1/150th of theirs in money terms. 

    The goal itself was just desserts and gave us plenty to enjoy both at the ground and I expect at home. If Lustica can continue to play with such emphatic confidence he could figure in far more starting XIs this season. Janjetovic was saved a couple of times by the woodwork however the same could be said of the Gunners from a Clisby blinder (never thought I'd ever say that). And Oriel looks like a very nice pick up...didn't score but was positioned well, used his body nicely and reminds me more of Tomi Juric than Pio.

    After the match it was good to have a yarn with Taurus and Stringer before the shitfight to get the train home. Strolling through the crowd and seeing aerial ping pong fans outnumbered almost 4-1 by sokkah hools was a pleasant thought. Took about 90 mins to get home but hey...I got to see Lustica score!

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    Taurus

    Hard for me to be accurate coz, when you're surrounded by La Banda, you don't hear much else, but I thought that on at least one occasion, I heard an echo of one of the chants within ANZ stadium.

     

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