Pierias' Halloween Haunting

[mack]

Dylan Pierias returned to the Western Sydney Wanderers and scored a brace as his former club hosted Adelaide United on the much hyped Asian Champions League win 10 year anniversary. The teams showing up with defense an afterthought with Adelaide doing enough to keep the Wanderers at a distance all night long to win the match by 4 goals to 3.

Both teams came into the game without a win. Adelaide with a sole point for a draw following their Round 1 Bye, the Wanderers losing a Sydney Derby to continue an 8 game streak without a win at Parramatta, but picking up a 1-1 away draw against Western United to open their league account for the season.

Adelaide began brightly, winning a first minute corner and keeping the game in the Wanderers defensive third, before hitting the front in just the 3rd minute. It was an exceedingly simple goal. Panagiotis Kikianis stood on halfway on the ball, with no pressure he found Ethan Alagich who was allowed to stride forward over 20 yards unchallenged and shoot from 30 yards out. The shot was aimed straight at the Wanderers young keeper Tristian Vidackovic, who spilled the powerful shot to the edge of the 6 yard box. The only player to react quickly was striker Luka Jovanovic, he left the central defensive duo in the dust and Vidackovic caught in no man's land after the spill gave Jovanovic the angle to sidefoot the ball in the back of the net via the far post.

There was little reaction from the home team, the quarter hour came with the Red & Black having zero touches in the Adelaide penalty area, zero shots on target, zero corners won with an abysmal 35% possession. None of the stats had improved by the 20th.

Adelaide on the other hand, improved their goal count from 1 to 2. What should have been a harmless cross was completely botched by the young keeper, as Vidackovic punched instead of catching, but mistimed it horribly to knock the ball into Austin Ayoubi who couldn't believe his luck to score Adelaide's second of the game without needing to try.

It took until after that second goal to finally get the ball into the Adelaide defensive area and it turned into a first shot, shot on target and goal. Adelaide failed to clear a Jack Clisby cross and it eventually fell to Nicolas Milanovic at the far post and his rasping finish was strong.

The 2-1 scoreline didn't last long. A dumb foul from Milanovic allowed Zach Clough to fire a free kick into the defensive wall. It broke kindly for former Wanderer Dylan Pierias 24 yards out, it bounced once before Pierias lashed the ball over the crowd of players in the penalty area, Vidackovic may have been unsighted and that lack of vision caused a delay to his dive, turning a shot he probably would have pushed out for a corner into a weak touch that ended up inside the post and nestling in the back of the net for a 3-1 score before the half-hour had arrived.

Mercifully half-time arrived with no further damage on the scoreboard, Alen Stajcic needing to implement one hell of a turnaround if the fortunes in the match were going to change, and in doing so he threw on Zac Sapsford wearing a batman style protective facial mask, and Dylan Scicluna with Oscar Priestman and marquee Juan Mata replaced.

It took 10 minute for the changes to bring the Wanderers back into the game. Adelaide lost possession with an aimless long ball, Alex Bonetig finding Brandon Borrello who turned it around the corner for the brilliantly timed run of Sapsford, he ran into the area and with Kraev beating his marker for pace on the interior line he was found by Sapsford who couldn't miss from 6 yards out and with the keeper covering the near post only.

Adelaide picked themselves up and found a 4th goal. Clough was in an acre of space in the attacking 3rd, he pierced the Wanderers back-line with a precision through ball, Vidackovic was caught waiting for the ball to roll through by the run of Pierias whose pace was more than enough to see him get to the ball first and toe it through for his second of the evening.

The goal fest continued with the Wanderers scoring their 3rd, and the 7th of the night in the 75th minute. Dylan Scicluna monstered Clough off the ball to leave Adelaide scrambling back & out of position, Sapsford recieved the ball and probably should have scored with his initial effort only to be smothered by James Delianov, the rebound was battered into the corner woodwork, leaving Borrello and Delianov to challenge each other for the bouncing ball. Borrello summoned all his strength to out leap the giant keeper in a legal challenge, the contact was enough to send the ball over the line with Borrello wheeling away with 15 to go and a 3-4 scoreline.

With the seconds ticking away the game took on a frantic feel & the Reds fell back deeper and deeper as they tried to defend their one goal lead in the 6 minutes of stoppage time. The last attack of the game was a desparation corner that even Vidackovic went up for, but a near post flick on went over everyone's head and Adelaide managed to scramble it down into their attacking corner to hold out for the final seconds and pick up their first win of the season and keep Western Sydney from adding to their single point.

The Wanderers next match is against Newcastle Jets, at Parramatta on Friday the 8th of November with kick-off at 7:35pm.

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[Smoggy]

First half shockingly bad

Second half entertaining..

Throw in some crazy defending and keeping and it all adds up to a ******* long old season.

[Themumf79]

Penny for the thoughts of NTS, La Roc and co watching our imitation of a defence tonight. Sapsford and Scicluna did more than enough to earn a start next game. And the keeper simply has to go. Terrible.

[jockman]

The result papers over just how bad we are. We upped the pace in the second half and Adelaide looked  gassed mid way thru the second half.. 1 point out of a possible 9...racing towards the bottom

[immortalshogun]

Alright alarm bells should be ringing now. Bets on Staj seeing out the season?

[torcidaSI]

Mata is obviously very skillful on the ball, but I think having him alongside Brillante (and Priestman) is too much of a collective liability right now. Sapsford is one of the few players that is creating genuine danger.

Scicluna looked fired up and should at the very least be given another chance to fill that holding mid role. 

I think the sooner Staj goes, the better. When a couple players regress, that can be down to form, confidence or fitting into a system. When it's pretty much the entire list of last years players, you put that down to tactics and the coach.

[sonar]

Looking back at my own football career I thought as a kid I was a terrible player but after 8 seasons of Wanderers dross I have come the conclusion I was wrong. I was way better than any of these guys.

Edited November 2 by sonar

[tardotz]

That was bad. You are not going to many games when the defence is that bad. 

If you had to look for positives the only one is that they kept on trying.

Will be interesting to find out why Milanovic was subbed. Injury  or Stajcic giving up?

[William]

We have to hope that Thomas is back next game I think he will give the defence more confidence , Matta is not a starter does not have the legs put him on late  bring Kraev into the attacking mid role and get Sicicluna on the park at the kick off but for goodness sake we cannot play the keeper again. 

[ManfredSchaefer]

That we kept the work experience kid in goals after the first two egregious cock ups was a joke, and Stajic cannot but blame himself.

We looked like a rabble for way too much of the game, and to have 4 goals incurred against an Adelaide team that were hardly better than competent is a telling indictment of our players and management.

Every single one of that ACL squad that was there tonight should go I to the sheds and give the current crop a boot up the date. 

[SBW]

This was a horrible performance, how is that performance acceptable? 

You'd think the players at least were fired up before the game celebrating with our ACL winning team but it was a complete opposite.

That first and 4th goal for Adelaide Utd pissed me off a lot.

Alagich runs from the halfway mark UNCHALLENGED, has all the time and space to shoot at goal, Tristan was late to react and no one in defence picks up Jovanovic running through unmarked.

And for the 4th goal, again our defence are asleep, Pieras runs through our defence unchallenged puts the ball away with ease. 

Stajcic has a lot to answer for, this job out of his depth and he's not capable of taking in the pressure of this job. 

1pt after 3 games is unacceptable, we've got Newcastle Jets at home next week, then the Derby 2 weeks later, if we got no result from Newcastle Jets game and then lose the Derby, then Stajcic should step down after the Derby.

I don't care that he's a nice bloke, his record in the men's Game is very poor and he should stick to coaching women's football.

[immortalshogun]

It’s a shame that we used to be killers 10 years ago and now we have CBs who cant read a ball being played on the ground between the two of them…

[FootballRelic]

We are basically the  Perth Glory Team of last season rebadged as the Western Sydney Wanderers for this season. With the bonus addition of some traffic cones as midfielders and defenders.

[MathyouWSW]

So...

 

 

 

 

...the NPL NSW First Grade season starts in February. I might just stick to watching that for the time being.

[WESTSYDFAN]

It may only be round 3, but we have definitely gotten our manager appointment wrong. Staj's tactics are simply not good enough and the players he's recruited don't fit his system. He needs to get a result against Jets at home or he will certainly be under pressure.

[torcidaSI]

Next week we won't get the liberty of our opponent fielding;

• 2x wingers as fullbacks
• a 1.73m midfielder as a CB
• 1x natural defender (an inexperienced kid)

[Themumf79]

5 minutes ago, WESTSYDFAN said:

It may only be round 3, but we have definitely gotten our manager appointment wrong. Staj's tactics are simply not good enough and the players he's recruited don't fit his system. He needs to get a result against Jets at home or he will certainly be under pressure.

I didn’t realise quite how appalling his A League record was until they showed the graphic at the start of the game. 

[VedranRozic]

Being at the ground it was clear that the players had no clue what they were meant to be doing or how they were meant to be playing. They were making it up as they went. If Staj has a system it’s clear they don’t understand it.

This was all predictable from the beginning. Staj has never won anything. Even the club wasn’t confident and gave him a one-year contract. 
 
The time to remove him is now. If we are going to get anything out of this season we need to re-start as quickly as possible. I don’t expect the club will do this because it’s pretty clear the new chairman is worse than the last chairman - which is saying something.

[WESTSYDFAN]

2 minutes ago, Themumf79 said:

I didn’t realise quite how appalling his A League record was until they showed the graphic at the start of the game. 

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

I understand he 'laid the foundations' for the Mariners' success, but he picked up a wooden spoon with them. Also got another one with Perth. 

The only periods he's been successful is when he's coached woman's teams such as the Matilda's and Phillipinnes national team.

[PedroPony]

Not disagreeing with the sentiments on here, but if Thomas had played we would have won that comfortably.  3 of Adelaide's goals were keeper errors. 

[StringerBellend]

14 minutes ago, WESTSYDFAN said:

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

I understand he 'laid the foundations' for the Mariners' success, but he picked up a wooden spoon with them. Also got another one with Perth. 

The only periods he's been successful is when he's coached woman's teams such as the Matilda's and Phillipinnes national team.

I don't understand the laid the foundations for the Mariners 

He left saying he couldn't take the forward 

Well Montgomery did then he tags on for the credit 

He won nothing with the best Matilda's team so I'm not convinced on the success period 

Edited November 2 by StringerBellend

[Sithslayer1991]

Just quickly I am not goinv to put full blame on Vida for the 2 goals. The first 1st goal is really on our players. We just gave Adelaide space to do what they want. The 2nd goal ok thats on him but he is learning.

He did save us the 2 previous games. Really its on our defence because the next 2 goals are just **** defending.

[scarcev]

You cannot win a game of football with Keeper errors like that.  Sure blame the defence, but goal 1 was poor hands, goal 2 was worse hands, it was actually going wide until he got his hands to it, goal 3 he was given too much space sure but keeper got both hands to that and was way out of position too far to the back post and then 4th sure the central defenders were split with a pass but you just have to get to that ball, sliding in not just kneeling waiting for it.  We were not good tonight and got cut to ribbons straight through the middle but geez 3 of those in a season is bad enough for a keeper, in one half is just wow.  Blame Stajic, blame other players, whatever, but the fact remains we were let down badly by possibly the worst keeper performance I have seen in recent memory.  I hope he bounces back but he needs to sit down next week.

[scarcev]

8 minutes ago, Sithslayer1991 said:

Just quickly I am not goinv to put full blame on Vida for the 2 goals. The first 1st goal is really on our players. We just gave Adelaide space to do what they want. The 2nd goal ok thats on him but he is learning.

He did save us the 2 previous games. Really its on our defence because the next 2 goals are just **** defending.

1st goal he has to hold that, it was a nothing shot that went through his gloves and hit his head, 2nd goal was going wide until he punched it in, 3rd he was out of position and got two hands to it and 4th he has to get that ball.  Our defence did not help, but he was awful and should be blamed.

[immortalshogun]

our recruitment at all levels has failed. why have a player take up a visa spot if he’s going to offer nothing and ride the bench?

[JackDoff]

I have a positive from this game…I got a single cone with sherbet post game! It was awesome! 

[StringerBellend]

39 minutes ago, WESTSYDFAN said:

It may only be round 3, but we have definitely gotten our manager appointment wrong. Staj's tactics are simply not good enough and the players he's recruited don't fit his system. He needs to get a result against Jets at home or he will certainly be under pressure.

He has a system?

Conceded 4 at home 

He did this all last year with Perth 

He's shite 

 

[StringerBellend]

2 minutes ago, immortalshogun said:

our recruitment at all levels has failed. why have a player take up a visa spot if he’s going to offer nothing and ride the bench?

So our visa spots 

mata 

Plus 

A terrible center back 

A forward who sits on the bench 

A ok midfielder 

A open visa spot

Edited November 2 by StringerBellend

[PedroPony]

2 minutes ago, scarcev said:

1st goal he has to hold that, it was a nothing shot that went through his gloves and hit his head, 2nd goal was going wide until he punched it in, 3rd he was out of position and got two hands to it and 4th he has to get that ball.  Our defence did not help, but he was awful and should be blamed.

Agreed. I hate having to blame a young player but the fact is we would have won 3-0 tonight if Thomas had played.  Nice that everyone on here is going easy on the guy, but the fact is he cost us the game.

[Hughesy]

We looked good in attack and actually played well, some of the stuff we created was nice to watch.

The other end is a completely different story… ball watching, flat footed, zero urgency - just a total lack of effort which is quite alarming cause that’s not really something you can coach, that has to come from within. 

I feel for the keeper cause he’ll be the scapegoat for tonight but the reality is that any bloke playing behind a defence like ours would concede goals. The suggestion that if Thomas played tonight then we’d have won comfortably is laughable. Adelaide’s forward line were having a field day 

It’s disappointing that on a night like this we play like that but then again it was probably always gonna happen wasn’t it? From the highs of the ACL win, the following decade has been **** and tonight just proved as much. Such contrasting emotions. What a sorry state this club is in