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  • Windswept Wellington Blown Away


    mack

    The Western Sydney Wanderers completely dominated a second rate Wellington Phoenix on a cold and rainy afternoon in Wellington tonight.

    As Markus Babbel served a touchline ban, his charges took to the field with a couple of changes from last week's match as Bruce Kamau replaced Jaushua Sotirio on the wing and Tarek Elrich shifted infield to cover Ruon Tongyik's central defensive position, and allowed Raul Llorente his first start after recovering from a foot injury.

    The Wanderers put together some nice passing combinations early in the fixture and they took the lead as a result of one in the 10th minute. Roly Bonevacia penetrated the Wellington defensive line with a skidding through ball into the path of Kamau, the flying winger having made a brilliant inside run, he propped on his right foot to cut back to the middle, and Alexander Baumjohann strode on and blasted the ball past the despairing dive of the Wellington keeper.

    After the break there was little difference to the flow of the game, as the Nix were kept away by resolute Wanderers defence and were scrambling to prevent conceding a second. Unfortunately for the home side their long serving defender Andrew Durante, on his 250th game for the club gave away a stone wall penalty for handball as he blocked a long range effort with his arms, marquee striker Oriol Riera stepped up and calmly slotted his opening goal of the A-League campaign to make it 2-0.

    Bonevacia should have added a goal to his good performance late on, as a mix-up defensively allowed Riera to fire a pass across the face of goal, Bonevacia inches away from tapping it home for a 3rd, but it hardly mattered as the Wanderers completed the demolition job into stoppage time with a sweeping counter-attack, Wellington turned it over deep into the Wanderers half, as they committed numbers forward they were caught out on the break. Bonevacia & Keanu Baccus combined to released Jaushua Sotirio down the right, he found Baccus who tipped the ball into the path of Jordan O'Doherty, the pacey midfielder strode toward the penalty area, took a couple of touches and fired unerringly to put the seal on an excellent performance to make it 3-0.

    The win catapults the Wanderers back into the top 6 pending other results, and leaves the team in good position for their fixture against Brisbane Roar in Mudgee next weekend.


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    6 minutes ago, Erebus said:

    lel at Riera hate.

    Its the same stupid argument that Viduka was getting heaped crap on for the Socceroos.

    Riera is a workhorse on and off the ball. He probably has more defensive headers than our entire backline combined. He links up with those around him, holds the ball up for the wingers and wins most long ball challenges. Just because he hasn't scored in open play, it doesn't mean he is a massive part of this team. He's only had a couple of clear cut chances. The rest of the service he's been getting has been rather average. If people are seriously $h1tting on Riera, they can GTFO and go back to playing FIFA where every player needs to be fast and sprints forward all the time.

    and we can see how that works out for Sotirio !

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    3 hours ago, shady1983 said:

    I'd say Riera is the best forward in the history of our club..

    Not until he scores with a back heel....

    Behind St Dino and Santa

    Edited by Smoggy
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    On 04/11/2018 at 3:21 PM, Davo said:

    False 10? He was playing a false 5 for parts of that game, clearing headers and making last man tackles. And not just from set pieces.

    I was wondering during the game whether that was a tactic brought on by our last minute backline reshuffle, or just Riera trying to do everybody’s job.

    I think the conditions had a bit to do with it, ball getting blown around Reira was doing a lot of defensive work on their set pieces

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    If the babbel boys are playing 4-2-3-1 then it is a very unconventional interpretation.

    For the 0:1, LW Roly was releasing RW Kamau who was ahead of him on the left. Kamau's pass back was for treejack who was spearheading the attack, with Oriol behind him to the right. In the second half Oriol was playing in LW position passing to Roly in No 9 position, and  who narrowly missed. And if I saw correctly then it was the two DMs which led the attack for the third goal (or did JoD play 10 for treejack at this point?).

    Should be an interesting season for formation enthusiasts. 

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    I like how quickly we move the ball forward creating more attacking chances rather than just passing the ball around to keep possession for the sake of possession.

    Both Kamau and O'Doherty provided more then what both Sotorio and Mahazi ever will and I hope they start this Saturday against the Roar.

    One thing I forgot to mention is that we tend to struggle to score more than 2 goals a game and its refreshing to us put 3 past the Nux.

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    17 hours ago, FCB said:

    If the babbel boys are playing 4-2-3-1 then it is a very unconventional interpretation.

    For the 0:1, LW Roly was releasing RW Kamau who was ahead of him on the left. Kamau's pass back was for treejack who was spearheading the attack, with Oriol behind him to the right. In the second half Oriol was playing in LW position passing to Roly in No 9 position, and  who narrowly missed. And if I saw correctly then it was the two DMs which led the attack for the third goal (or did JoD play 10 for treejack at this point?).

    Should be an interesting season for formation enthusiasts. 

    looks like a 4-2-3-1 formation as a guide. for mine the boys aren't playing with as much rigidity as we did with Popa. it's a bretty good formation imo for rotation of the front four. exciting to watch.

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    I think the main reason that goal looked a bit strange (RW to LW), was that it came from a throw-in on the right side of the pitch, with Riera coming back into the midfield to play the ball, ball sprayed out left really quickly and before Riera could drift back, Kamau filled the gap up front, their left fullback played him onside and Roly found him with the pass.

    The 3rd goal was just a complete defensive collapse by the Nix, I've watched the goal numerous times to figure it out.

    Durante (Central Defender) had been subbed off for David Williams who is a forward. This meant they were nominally playing three at the back. Except that their other central defender Steven Taylor had hung around up front like a striker because Wellington had won a few corners & throw-ins in a row. He probably expected a long-throw into the box from one of those throw ins. So their three in the back had become two at the back.

    And their left fullback, Liberato Cacace, who was also supposedly part of this back three, was actually taking the throw in that Williams lost control of.

    Which meant they were playing one at the back, their right fullback who had no chance against three attackers.

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