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  • WSW Extend Winless Run To Seven

    mack

    By mack

    New A-League team Western United have snatched a late draw at Parramatta tonight, with Aaron Calver equalising late after Patrick Ziegler's close range header gave the Wanderers the lead 10 minutes from time.

    The Wanderers bought back Daniel Lopar into the starting lineup after his illness last week, while Daniel Wilmering, having suffered an ACL injury at training was replaced at fullback by Tate Russell. At the start of the first half Western United nearly opened the scoring in the 2nd minute. After a well worked attack down the left side, Connor Pain's cutback found Panagiotis Kone but his shot was blocked by the leg of Daniel Lopar.

    Western Sydney's best chance of the half came late on in a similar fashion. This time it ended with Kwame Yeboah blasting the ball into low earth orbit, wrecking what should have been a golden chance to put a goal on the board.

    Apart from those chances, the Wanderers were dominant, pressing hard up the pitch and forcing Western United into long balls with little to show for it. Unfortunately the same old problems for the Wanderers came to the fore, as they failed to find good last passes to unlock defences, and in particular their crossing was abysmal.

    The 2nd half followed the pattern of the first, Western United parking the bus and bringing out their now trademark time wasting tactics to frustrate their opposition. The Wanderers didn't let the delays pull them out of their focus, and they were finally rewarded in the 78th minute. Nicolai Muller launched a corner into the near post, Keanu Baccus rose for a flick-on that found German central defender Patrick Ziegler who couldn't miss from point blank range to make it 1-0.

    Despite having to force the temp, Western United took some time to ramp up their attack. In the 86th minute they took advantage of Mitch Duke's failure to track back. Pain managed to squeeze just enough space from Russell to fire a cross towards the far post area. With Georgievski occupied & blocked by Max Burgess, Aaron Calver had slipped in unmarked, his cushioned header went back across Lopar and landed in the middle of the goal for the equaliser.

    Despite the clear need for fresh blood, not a single substitution was made by Markus Babbel. Those could have been made before the goal in an effort to push the attack to the visiting team, or after the Wanderers scored to take some of the heat out of the game and introduce fresh legs that would have been able to press & defend more effectively.

    The draw was worth 1 point on the league ladder but practically worthless in terms of the direction of the team, especially when compared with the high flying W-League team and their earlier demolition of the Sydney FC's Women. 5 losses bracketed at either end by draws simply isn't good enough for the club. The pre-season hopes of a top 2 finish are dead, and right now even making the 6 team finals series looks shaky. With no plan B in offer, and talented attacking youth players seemingly unable to make enough of an impression to get onto the park at all, it remains to be see how Babbel can turn around this dire start of the season.

    The Wanderers play Adelaide United on Friday December 27th in Adelaide.

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    wanderersfanatic

    Babbel needs to go, incompetent. 

    I hope JT and JP can follow him through the door.

    Simply not good enough, the club is being run to the ground. 

    Edited by wanderersfanatic
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    Unlimited

    I actually don’t mind no subs 

    To me, he’s building match fitness. 13 points behind first and they have a game in hand, but 17 games to go. Maybe Babbel is going for a late surge?

    My main issue was that it was a simple cross that undid us. We didn’t defend it properly, especially at 1-0 ahead. We got complacent.

    We should’ve scored at least twice with our chances.

    Link to comment
    Hughesy

    That’s the fourth game in a row we’ve conceded due to ball watching in the box. Calver could’ve made a sandwich before he nodded that in he had that much time. That has nothing to do with Babel, that’s laziness from our defence.

    Link to comment
    billybob

    I actually thought the team played well. Sure end product was often poor, but the build up was good.

    ive never been Babbel out, I was happy to give him to the end of the year. But after tonight, may as well give the head coaching gig to a traffic cone. If he doesn’t coach them during the week, he also does f@ck all during the game to try and influence the result.

    Link to comment
    StringerBellend
    7 minutes ago, billybob said:

    I actually thought the team played well. Sure end product was often poor, but the build up was good.

    ive never been Babbel out, I was happy to give him to the end of the year. But after tonight, may as well give the head coaching gig to a traffic cone. If he doesn’t coach them during the week, he also does f@ck all during the game to try and influence the result.

    Did you watch the same game? Our build up play was slow, our passing is all over the place, and we can’t cross.

     

    Link to comment
    Wanderingbeersclub

    Most telling for me was in transition. At one point Duke won the ball from a bad pass Ina good position. 

    No one knew what to do with it. We had them outnumbered and everyone just strolled around waiting to see what Duke would do..Duke couldn't do anything as no one was moving.

     

    There seems to be no plan. They talk about structure but I think that's limited to defence. Attack is just 'pass it around in midfield until your under pressure and then swing an aimless ball into the box so someone past the far post can glance it out for a goal kick.. 

     

    And the end of that game was crying out for subs.either Mo before out goal or some fresh legs in the middle to hold out. Was a hot night too.

    Really wanted Babs to come good. But it doesn't seem he will and he doesn't seem to care.

     

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    mack
    4 minutes ago, Xfactor said:

    Sat in the corporate area tonight and Mustafa Amini was in a box in lower tier. Our January attacking midfielder signing or here just on holiday?

    Visit surely. He's played 90 minutes in 16 of his side's games this year. He did miss 4 in a row earlier in the season, but I doubt he's leaving.

    Link to comment
    Wanderboy
    32 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

    Dreadful 

    No it wasn't.

    I saw a lot of positives out of tonight, not least being almost completely outplaying a team with way more points on the table than we have.

    Of course, our finishing is dreadful, but once again, we dominate a team for the majority of a game.

    I'm more Babbel in this week, than I was last week.

    Even a small thing like getting a point from a game we should have won, could make a massive difference to the mindset of the squad.

    I'm the glass half full kinda guy.

    Onwards and upwards.

    We really played some good football tonight. 

    Link to comment
    Smoggy
    1 minute ago, Wanderboy said:

    No it wasn't.

    I saw a lot of positives out of tonight, not least being almost completely outplaying a team with way more points on the table than we have.

    Of course, our finishing is dreadful, but once again, we dominate a team for the majority of a game.

    I'm more Babbel in this week, than I was last week.

    Even a small thing like getting a point from a game we should have won, could make a massive difference to the mindset of the squad.

    I'm the glass half full kinda guy.

    Onwards and upwards.

    We really played some good football tonight. 

    Was it as dreadful as the Brisbane game, no.

    Did we outplay WU, no, I would put it somewhere in between

    Did Babbel get the tactic spot on, no, I am unchanged on Babbel in that he baffles me and just don't know if he can sort this out.

     

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    Unlimited
    1 minute ago, Smoggy said:

    Was it as dreadful as the Brisbane game, no.

    Did we outplay WU, no, I would put it somewhere in between

    Did Babbel get the tactic spot on, no, I am unchanged on Babbel in that he baffles me and just don't know if he can sort this out.

     

    We had like 19 shots - how is that not outplaying them? They had like 2 shots of note, the one they should've scored in the first minute and their fluke goal at the end

    Link to comment
    billybob
    17 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

    Did you watch the same game? Our build up play was slow, our passing is all over the place, and we can’t cross.

     

    Agree that at time it was slow, but we had attack down both flanks and for all the poor passing we dominated most of the game. Yes our crossing is still poor, and we still take too long to pull the trigger or shoot from poor positions.

    My point was more that I don’t blame the players tonight. Babbel did nothing to try and influence the game when we went ahead. Ok, maybe the players on the bench aren’t better than what was out there, but they were fresh and would have added some energy into a team that was starting to look tired. Changes also would have taken some of the pace out of the game.

    Edited by billybob
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    Smoggy
    2 minutes ago, Unlimited said:

    We had like 19 shots - how is that not outplaying them? They had like 2 shots of note, the one they should've scored in the first minute and their fluke goal at the end

    Perhaps my standards of what I expect are high, maybe too high, the term outplayed I would reserve for a different scenario personally.

    I am getting a bit tired of this stuff at the moment and think I need a break to be honest. No time better than to take a break than leading in to Christmas and Christmas week, back other side of xmas folks, have a good one :)

    Link to comment
    Xfactor
    4 minutes ago, Unlimited said:

    We had like 19 shots - how is that not outplaying them? They had like 2 shots of note, the one they should've scored in the first minute and their fluke goal at the end

    How is there goal a fluke and ours with Durante sidelined with a head knock not? They were both well taken.

    Link to comment
    sonar
    2 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

    Perhaps my standards of what I expect are high, maybe too high, the term outplayed I would reserve for a different scenario personally.

    I am getting a bit tired of this stuff at the moment and think I need a break to be honest. No time better than to take a break than leading in to Christmas and Christmas week, back other side of xmas folks, have a good one :)

    Quitter

    :D

    Link to comment
    dcrow
    5 minutes ago, sonar said:

    Signing Meier was a mistake. Once we get near the box we are eunuchs.

    I thought Meier played well tonight and close to his best performance for us, his pin point first time passing was good and he created a few chances with his back to goal. And I thought he was a lot sharper tonigh as well.

    Link to comment
    sonar
    Just now, dcrow said:

    I thought Meier played well tonight and close to his best performance for us, his pin point first time passing was good and he created a few chances with his back to goal. And I thought he was a lot sharper tonigh as well.

    Too slow. When we transition forward we always end up holding the ball while players get into postion. He is not the sort of player where you can lob the ball and he can outrun defenders. We always give opposition defences time to reset or reform. They have time to crowd the box.

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