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Lifeless Wanderers Downed By Newcastle

mack

By mack
in Western Sydney Wanderers

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mack

mack

Posted
Posted

The Newcastle Jets have almost surely killed the Western Sydney Wanderers Premiership defence as they took advantage of their limp and dour opponents to take a 2-0 win back up to Newcastle tonight.

 

Goals to Kew Jaliens and Adam Taggart, one in each half, was enough to secure the win on a dismal night for the Wanderers.

 

Western Sydney weren't in the contest, their trademark intensity and pressing completely absent for large swathes of the match.

 

The two teams took until the half-hour to mark an impact on the match, Emile Heskey smashing a long range effort toward the bottom right hand corner, only for Ante Covic to turn the ball around the post. Newcastle took the lead shortly after, as the Wanderers failed to clear their lines from a corner, Andrew Hoole whipped in a second effort to the back stick, Jaliens had stayed up and was rewarded with a free header that he couldn't miss at point blank range to open the scoring. Questions will be asked about the location of left fullback Adam D'Apuzzo who was nowhere to be found for what should have been his defensive duty at the far post.

 

Newcastle came again in the second half, Taggart was played in by Heskey but he couldn't get past Covic. The Wanderers didn't heed the warning, as Taggart doubled the Jets advantage minutes later. Another Heskey pass found Taggart, he spun around Topor-Stanley and fired a shot that deflected off the outstretched leg of Matthew Spiranovic to loop over Covic.

 

The Wanderers had precious little opportunity to score, managing just a solitary shot on target. This was arguably the worst 90 minute performance in the history of the club and with the Sydney Derby coming up next weekend Tony Popovic will need to lift his side if they are going to have any chance of keeping in touch with Brisbane Roar.

 

The Wanderers next match is against Sydney FC, at the Sydney Football Stadium at 7:45PM on Saturday the 8th of March.

 

Follow the @WestSydney twitter page and our Facebook Page for A-League news & discussion.

 

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WSW2166

WSW2166

Posted
Posted

ur right mack, but we cant be relegated, but we can keep relying on the teams around us to keep loosing when required, as we have for the past 10 rounds so we will probably stay second and get to the final and play it as an away game like last yr.

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MajorMelons

MajorMelons

Posted
Posted (edited)

No intensity which meant no pressing and losing most 50/50 battles. Our defenders were bouncing off Heskey. Luckily this is an easy fix, with no ACL midweek we will be fresh for the "faded blues" on Saturday.

Good 1 on 1 save from Covic on the second half, he plays so much better when he can actually see where the ball is.

 

We're still second, you got to have a bad game everynow and then.

Edited by MajorMelons
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WanderLo

WanderLo

Posted
Posted

I have to agree...D'Apuzzo seems to be rapidly deteriorating and his rot is spreading to NTS! On the positive side, Spira is wonderful, as always. Sigh.

 

Both the team AND the supporters need to bounce back for the derby! The Man wants us divided! We can't let The Man get us down!

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Jaggy

Jaggy

Posted
Posted

Frustrating match to watch every Wanderers player was off key and can't even remember if we got a strike on goal?

out muscled and out played a deserved victory to the jets.

We move on to the derby at Allianz and stay united as one.

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magicwand

magicwand

Posted
Posted

I have to agree...D'Apuzzo seems to be rapidly deteriorating and his rot is spreading to NTS! On the positive side, Spira is wonderful, as always. Sigh.

 

Both the team AND the supporters need to bounce back for the derby! The Man wants us divided! We can't let The Man get us down!

I don't think NTS won one heading contest against Heskey today. He looks like he's lost his power/strength the last couple of games. I get the feeling he might be in need of a rest. Spiranovic needs to do more when he surges forward... once he commits he's got to be more confident and keep going.... back himself 100%.  Most likely he won't be playing next week. In some ways it will be good to see Beauchamp partnering NTS again. Maybe it will give NTS a lift?

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Prydzopolis

Prydzopolis

Posted
Posted

Thoughts on the match

 

- Think everyone had a really flat game, no energy, no aggression, no bite, no ticker.

- Very surprised we didn't see a rotated squad today and I think we can attribute today as having a bit of an acl hangover

- One player who stood out as having a terrible game was d'apuzzo, he lacked vision in his runs, his decision making with the ball was non- existent, every time a player took him on he looked like he was going to get beaten. I can't understand popa's faith in him

- Would have been better having the team been beaten against a fresh rotated team rather than a tired first team

- thought covic and spira has a decent game but Haliti, bridge, Ono, hersi, Poljak, NTS, mooy and polenz all looked off game

- At the end of the day Newcadtle beat us at our game today and we were just not good enough. I thought that they pressed us well so we couldn't play out that easily and then when we went long they dominated in the air. Good anti our tactics by Newcastle.

- Taggart just looked at ease against NTS, surprised they didn't use this more than the 2-3 times they did it

 

Think this has to be one of those games we throw the tape out the window and start a clean slate for the derby next week.

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dcol

dcol

Posted
Posted

 

Couldn't believe I saw Polenz head it across our goal face again.

From my view he looked more central than he did the other night and at least got some distance on it unlike Wednesday night!

 

 

True! Just seemed a gutsy move after it backfired on Wed.

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Burgerman

Burgerman

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Posted

What someone above said - credit to Newcastle, they played a solid game.

Think I heard the squadron chant "we can't hear wanderers sing", well played there.

They also sang "Melbourne boys are number one again"

They did my head in tonight and I went and sat away from them red neck bogans most of them looked 15 and had annoying chants if you could call them that.

 

Bring on next week time to paint sfs red and black

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Carns

Carns

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Posted

I'm baffled as to why Popa started so many players that had already played ACL on Wednesday? I understand that they are professionals and should be capable of backing up, but why did he spend 2+ months building up his entire squads match fitness to not utilise these additional players the weekend after an ACL game? Why resort back to a standard lineup without considering how they may fade towards the end of the game?

 

We had at least 3-4 players who have played three games in a week; of course they'll be a bit lacklustre by the end.

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GunnerWanderer

GunnerWanderer

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Mack you're probably right worst 90 minutes we put together. 

 

No-one really performed to their best. Even Popa seemed incapable of changing tactics against a very will disciplined Jets side.

A few bad goals to concede again.

The best thing is derby is next up. Should give players a lift. Hopefully we can own Moore Park again. Game can't come soon enough. 

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ManfredSchaefer

ManfredSchaefer

Posted
Posted

All the points re the flat performance that have been raised previously are just as true in my view, and it was without doubt the least impressive effort I've ever seen from the Wanderers on the pitch.

It must be said that the ref and his two blind mice mates didn't help either. It seems as if every time we go up against the Jets this season the match officials decide that we are in fact playing the Knights, hence the going easy of swinging arms, tackles and kicks that would look far more at home on Channel Nine's Footy Show highlights reel. 

When you have losses like those against Ulsan and the Jets...well this is when we have to keep doing whatever we can in our very limited ways to keep the faith and get behind them. We're still in second, we should still qualify for the finals and who knows what will happen with the ACL. However let's be under no more illusions that we aren't in a dogfight to achieve anywhere near the same end of season result we secured in 2012/13.

PS (and no, this isn't a Balkanite brown nose)...for all the fun and humour at his expense, Dino's absence this season as a target man with Bridge, Hersi, Ono and others playing off him as the second man has been a marked aspect of our season. I'm not saying he is a panacea to this issues, however it must be observed that too many of our players across the entire park have issues playing out from the back with ground passes.

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SBW

SBW

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Posted

I dont think we have played that well (barring a few games) since the turn of the year.

 

Have looked quite toothless in front of goal and we are missing that clinical striker - a Shane Smeltz type player who can finish off the chances that we create.

 

Santa has been great signing for us and so has Juric (when hes actually fit) but neither of the 2 have been that clinical in front of goal

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SBW

SBW

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Posted

Manfred, you're actually right about Dino, his physical presence upfront is what we have been missing, i kind of thought of that myself when driving home from the game, what if Dino was still with us, would Ono, Santa and Hersi scored more goals? Our goalscoring tally this season isnt looking as good as last season and we struggle to score 2+ goals in a game.

 

Tomi Juric was meant to fill that void as he is younger and quicker than Dino but hes hardly been fit and is more often on the sidelines than on the pitch

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