A League - Week 9 Review

Unusually the footballing weekend started on Thursday evening when Sydney FC took on table topping Perth Glory at Allianz Stadium in front of eleven thousand spectators. Glory took the spoils 2-1 in this top four clash and with it retained their place at the summit of the league, the defeat meant the unbeaten record of Sydney was cast to the wind.

Sydney took the lead in somewhat fortuitous circumstances in the fifty seventh minute, Shane Smeltz fired in a shot from the edge of the D and struck Glory defender Dino Djulbic on the upper arm just a few yards away. Referee Alan Milliner awarded the penalty to the incredulity of the Glory team, Smeltz strode up and despatched the spot kick.

Perth kept battering away and got back on level terms in the eighty third minute. A Nebojsa Marinkovic free kick from the right found the unmarked Rostyn Griffith six yards out and he made no mistake with his header. Just four minutes later Perth took the lead, maybe to even things up ref Milliner gave them an equally soft penalty when Scott Jamieson charged into the box felt contact and went down. Andy Keogh was more than happy to take the pressure of the kick and found the roof of the net via the foot of Sydney keeper Vedran Janjetovic to claim his sixth league goal of the season.

Friday evening saw Central Coast Mariners host Melbourne Victory at the North Sydney Oval in front of just seven thousand spectators. All of the chat before the game revolved around the relocation of the match from Mariners usual Central Coast Stadium, the club hierarchy claim that they want to expand the supporter base but it hasn’t gone down well with their own fans.

Neither did the location meet with the approval of Victorys abrasive coach Kevin Muscat who wasn’t looking forward to seeing his star players run out on a cricket pitch. Mariners performed adequately enough in the first half and managed to get in to the half time oranges at 0-0 but their hope was extinguished in the second period.

Victory opened their account in the sixty second minute when Archie Thompson created space for himself with a neat turn before feeding Besart Berisha into the inside right channel and the Albania marksman had no problem firing across Liam Reddy to the far corner for his sixth goal of the season. Six minutes later Victory extended their lead when left back Daniel Georgievski won the ball in midfield before advancing a few yards and unleashing an exquisitely placed effort that curled and dipped over Reddy into the top corner.

If the points weren’t safe already Connor Pain put the icing on the cake five minutes later when he side footed home a Kosta Barbarousis cross from the right at the far post. So Victorys fear of the pitch proved unfounded but despite the result they were still vocal in their condemnation of the venue after the match. Mariners are third bottom while Victory sit second a point behind Glory.

The first game up on Saturday gave us Newcastle Jets against Wellington Phoenix at Hunter Stadium and the visitors headed back across the ditch with all three points thanks to a 3-1 win. The defeat leaves the lowly Jets still looking for their first win of the season and they will be kicking themselves and possibly missing, after a fairly dominant first half performance. They took the lead half way through the first half with a goal for Joel Griffith, Jets best performer in recent weeks Dave Carney picked out Andrew Hoole unmarked at the far post and his pull back across goal was tapped home by Griffith.

Other chances came and went for the Jets and Phoenix would have been happy to get in just a goal down. The fragile confidence of the Jets was soon tested and found wanting yet again when Phoenix equalised in the seventy third minute. Roly Bonevacia played Nathan Burns in behind the Jets backline and he had no worries rounding Ben Kennedy and sliding the ball home to notch his eighth league goal of the season and almost certainly cement a spot in the Socceroo squad for the upcoming Asian Cup.

A minute later Phoenix took the lead when Bonevacias shot was parried by Kennedy and fell kindly for Michael McGlinchey to tap home from close range. Bad became worse for Jets when four minutes later when Fijian international Roy Krishna lodged his entry for the “Hotshot Hamish Impersonation award” when he took possession wide left advanced a few yards toward goal and thrashed an absolute beauty from around 25 yards out.

Saturday evening saw Adelaide United entertain Western Sydney Wanderers at Coopers Stadium and as expected the home side ran out winners with a 2-0 victory. Adelaide are a team cast in the mould of their Spanish coach and ex Barca staffer Josep Gombau.

They are a model of pass, move and ball retention, so possibly the worst thing that any team at the bottom of the league would want to do when facing them would be to lose their defensive king pin and skipper after just seventeen minutes. Sadly for Wanderers that was the scenario that they faced when Nikolai Topor Stanley saw two yellow cards just two minutes apart for a petulant foul and a handball.

The statistics that Adelaide produced from this game give you some idea of just how dominant they were. Twenty six shots to one, 80% against 20% possession in their favour and 786 to 210 completed passes, how they only ended up winning 2-0 says more for their profligacy before goal rather than Wanderers defence.

For the record the first goal came on thirty six minutes Spaniard Sergio Cirio engineered space on the left before picking out Argentine Marcelo Carrusca with his cut back who calmly side footed home from eight yards. The second goal came courtesy of Portuguese Fabio Ferreira in the fifty fifth minute when he cut in from the right played a dinked 1-2 with Carrusca and fired to the left hand top corner from ten yards.

United may not be top of the league but they are most neutrals favourite team to watch, they remain in third place two points behind Perth while the Wanderers remain winless and bottom of the league.  The Parramatta team now head off to Morocco for the World Club Cup with all sorts of manoeuvring going on behind the scenes to quell a potential walk out by the players over financial rewards for reaching the competition.

Sunday brought down the curtain on the weekends action when Melbourne City played Brisbane Roar at Aami Park. Rumour had it that City coach John van’t Schip could be joining ex-roar coach Mike Mulvey in the dole queue if they lost this game, so he would have been a mightily relieved man that they claimed a 1-0 win.

Roar will be disappointed as they more than matched their hosts in the first half and missed the two clearest chances through Matt McKay, placing one wide and hitting the bar with the other. Another soft penalty award proved decisive in the forty ninth minute when Mate Dugandzic felt the presence of Roar defender Daniel Bowles and went down.

Aaron Mooy took on the task and expertly found the bottom corner. Sadly for City fans Damien Duff was withdrawn at half time with what proved to be a calf tear that will keep him out until the New Year, they will miss him badly in his absence. Possibly worse for Roar is the news that skipper Matt Smith has been transferred for an undisclosed fee to Bangkok Glass they will have to be busy in the transfer window. Both teams look short of confidence and cutting edge and the lower mid table positions of both of them says it all.

What have we learned?          

We constantly bleat that all we want from refs is for them to be consistent. Well this week they were consistent with penalty awards where a threatening glance from a defender was rewarded with a penalty to the opposition. So they were consistent, wrong but consistent.

This week’s fixtures

Adelaide United v Brisbane Roar

Perth Glory v Newcastle Jets

Wellington Phoenix v Central Coast Mariners

Melbourne Victory v Sydney FC