Wanderers Fail To Break Roar's Second Half Slowdown

[mack]

The Western Sydney Wanderers were looking for a win against the lowly Brisbane Roar that would catapult them into the top 6 in Parramatta tonight but defensive mistakes and the inability to break down the Roar's packed defence saw them share the points instead.

The Wanderers knew that after the losses to Sydney FC & Wellington Phoenix earlier in the round that 3 points would put them in 6th place on tiebreak, and there was no better side in prospect to face than the last placed Brisbane Roar. There were no changes to the side that beat Melbourne City 2-0 before the Wanderers first bye weekend. Roar manager Ruben Zadkovich was facing immense pressure with sections of the media pushing to have him replaced by former A-League star Besart Berisha, who was reportedly in the country & angling for a head coaching role in the A-League or NPL.

Brandon Borrello had a big rush of blood to the head when he spotted Roar keeper Macklin Freke off his line and attempted a shot from closer to his own goal than the half-way line. It had enough power to get into the Roar penalty box but nowhere near enough to stop Freke running back and catching it.

Antonee Burke-Gilroy became the first man into the referees notebook when he cut down Nicolas Milanovic from behind to stop him rushing toward the box. The set piece proved deadly for the Roar, as Joshua Brillante delivered a curler to the back stick, Bozhidar Kraeve sent a looping header back into the mixer that the Roar defence could only head back across goal where Borrello nodded it home.

The lead lasted 3 minutes. The Roar attacked down their right flank, with Jack Clisby on his heels chasing a run from Ben Halloran he failed to intercept a ball passed straight at him. Halloran took the space and delivered a dangerous ball to the far post where Gabriel Cleur had to intervene to prevent a tap-in. Unfortunately for the Wanderers his intervention ended turning the ball into his own net.

Borrello was looking hungry for a goal and he had it in the 21st minute. Another foul from the Roar allowed the striker to line up an audacious 32 yard strike. It was hit well but not with massive power, but Freke had let himself get out of position as the shot was struck and it meant he wasn't in position to turn it over the bar. Instead it dipped wonderfully into the back of the net to make it 2-1.

The Roar levelled the game in the 31st minute. A simple midfield turnover from Milanovic set the Roar on attack, Tommy Waddingham only had Anthony Pantazopoulos to beat and he beat him through his legs with a nutmeg shot which Lawrence Thomas couldn't get near. Adam Zimmarino followed his coach and Burke-Gilroy into the book for a studs showing tackle near halfway. Zac Sapsford's strong header was aimed at Freke, he arrived late in the box for a Borrello cross. Kraev had looked uncomfortable defensively and he eventually picked up a booking when a midfield mix-up allowed the Roar to sprint away, Kraev eventually pulling the shirt and bringing down the attacker not long before the half-time break. There were no changes for either side on resumption.

Neither team made much of an impact before the first subs of the night as Kraev & Sapsford departed for Marcus Antonsson & Aydan Hammond. Milanovic continued his night of cutting back onto his left and shooting with no luck. Roar gave away another dangerous set piece that was curiously not punished with a card. Milanovic stood over the ball as the obvious shooting choice on his left foot but he sent it into Row Z.

Juan Mata finally made his appearance in the 70th minute. Milanovic had toiled hard, had a few shots at goal but didn't trouble the keeper and he was the one taken off for the World Cup winning midfielder. His entrance was subdued very quickly by the Roar time wasting, faking injuries and being allowed to derail the game by sitting on the pitch, followed up by even more time wasting with confusion as to which players were coming on and off. Eventually Harry Van Der Saag & Walid Shour left with Quinn MacNicol & Jack Hingert coming on. Pantazopoulos earned a card of his own by knocking down Brazete on the sideline in a clear trip. Cleur then earned one of his own in the 83rd. More "confusion" at who was coming on enabled yet more time wasting as Neicer Acosta & Florin Berenguer came on for Halloran & Loius Zabala.

Deep inside the final minutes of stoppage time the Roar almost snatched the three points, a mistake from Mata allowed the Roar to shoot on goal, an awkward shot that went across Thomas who spilled it into the path of Acosta, with Thomas scrambling back he did enough to prevent a goal. Up the other end it was the Wanderers who had their best chance of the half, Brillante finding Cleur with a neat ball to the byline that the Roar managed to block an effort from Mata. James Temelkovski came on for an A-League debut replacing Dylan Scicluna, Oscar Priestman on for Borrello. Even the Roar keeper was falling to the floor, prompted by Zadkovich.

Brisbane wasted the vast majority of the 7 minutes without punishment, either from the ref or the Wanderers attack and that was the summary of the second half. One of the worst halves of football in the history of the league, Roar playing anti-football and falling over, and Western Sydney playing football, but playing it awfully while wasting one of the best attacking talents that the league has ever seen.

The Wanderers next match is against the Wellington Phoenix, in Parramatta on Sunday the 22th of December with kick-off at 5pm.

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[Kotallo]

Roar are football terrorists but we chose to negotiate with them

[Potkorok]

That second half  was friggin awful

[Benched]

And they wonder why we don’t attend games. That was absolutely a dogs breakfast. Not only are we crap but the league is shite. 

[Upthehill]

2 of the most inept managers in the league battling it out sure was a sight to see. Zads however takes the cake after literally telling his players to lay down on the ground. If theres not a response from the league during the week ill not be surprised but i will be disappointed

[immortalshogun]

my expectations were low but holy ****. im actually starting to miss Rudan

[tardotz]

I was a foundation red member and over the years I've have been attending less games. This season I downgraded to a red/black and I have not attended a single game yet...... I'm sure I'm not the only one. This club has lost everything it built in the first few years.... something needs to change quickly both on and off the field.....before the ground will be empty.

Edited December 14, 2024 by tardotz

[WSWJACK]

I’ll come clean, half time I got up out of my seat and walked straight out of the ground, can’t remember when I last did that or if ever………..

[Benched]

Staj seems tactically bereft and I’m disappointed with that because I was a Staj in dude. Also to see Zadkashit tell his players to fake cramp!!!! Expect nothing less of ex ESFC. But surely he gets reprimanded. The league’s so average we can’t have that type of display. So disappointing. It’s the first time ever that when people ask me about the league I actually tell them it’s ****. 

[sonar]

Once again our poor recruiting shows us up.

When you have two visa players on the bench and one of them is your marque man it says it all.

We have the firepower up front but we lack in the midfield and in defence.

Tbh i would of made Marcelo play out his contract instead of letting him go.

At this stage you can safely say we will not make the six again.

Very disappointing.

The downward spiral of WSW seems never ending.

So sad.

Edited December 14, 2024 by sonar

[Davo]

Stopping us is so obvious even a dud like Zadkovich and his pub team could figure it out.

Clog the middle up with a box of four players so when either Brillante or Scicluna get the ball and look up all they see is their midfield partner in the middle of that box and the front four way off in the distance.

So they play backwards and we just cycle the ball in a horseshoe along the backline until we turn it over or lose patience and pump a long ball to their keeper. The few times we tried to play through the middle Kraev and Milanovic lost the ball and we conceded in the transition.

[EmMac]

Borello was cooked 10mins into the second half and apparently everyone could see that except our coach 

Brisbane were disgraceful. At one point there were 3 roar players down on the ground at the same time. Then straight after that their faarkwit keeper goes down, finally gets up to take the goal kick. The ref is signalling him that he's timing him and still does nothing after he blatantly takes way longer than the allocated time 🤷🤦

I've never boo'd so loudly.

[StringerBellend]

Haven't read anything yet. But 

That second half was absolutely pathetic.

#StajicOut the tactical genius

[FootballRelic]

Well that was about 10% good, 30% bad and 60% ugly 

Two dog shite teams managed by Two dogshite coaches. 

Borello's free kick was the good part 

[StringerBellend]

Stajic must really really hate Matta

[FootballRelic]

1 minute ago, StringerBellend said:

Stajic must really really hate Matta

Seems to have no idea how to use him. So puts him in the to hard basket (the bench)

[StringerBellend]

4 minutes ago, FootballRelic said:

Seems to have no idea how to use him. So puts him in the to hard basket (the bench)

That he didn't use him in the first set of subs said a lot. 

Stajic is a tatctical genius, bringing on a defensive midfielder for a forward in the 92nd minute aboslute genius.

Perth shipped 69 goals last year, we could go close, our defence is an absolute shambles.

[StringerBellend]

45 minutes ago, Potkorok said:

That second half  was friggin awful

what second half I'm still waiting for some football to happen

[Hughesy]

I don’t give a **** about WSW right now, I’m making this comment as a general football/sport fan…

That bullshit from Brisbane was ******* embarrassing and shameful. That sort of carry on brings the game into disrepute more than any off field discretion ever could. The fact it was allowed to keep playing out with zero punishment or even warning made it worse. Imagine resorting to that when you’re drawing a meaningless, early season game and sitting tied last. You’d think they were about to lift the World Cup ffs.

Football’s lack of balls when it comes to stamping out theatrics and thinly veiled cheating is a complete piss take. I couldn’t care less about the game, that left such a sour taste in my mouth

[Themumf79]

It’s been bugging me for ages but I’m just going to say it. Milanovic is a poor man’s Grealish. Shuffle step, step over, walk a couple more steps. Genuinely don’t get the hype. And I mean Man City Grealish, not the Villa version. 

[StringerBellend]

37 minutes ago, Upthehill said:

2 of the most inept managers in the league battling it out sure was a sight to see. Zads however takes the cake after literally telling his players to lay down on the ground. If theres not a response from the league during the week ill not be surprised but i will be disappointed

Zads got a point away from home which he wasn't a bad result for them. Whereas our total idiot of manager gets 1 point at home against the bottom team. Zads did ok.

[GunnerWanderer]

Yeah I think I’ve seen enough now that Staj is incapable of getting this side playing any high level football for extended periods which would need to do against the better teams. 

Tonight was hard to watch even on the comfort of my couch in the air conditioned cool room. It must have been hell at the game. 
I have big respect for people still going to games… like others I’m like derby aside I cbf anymore. 

[StringerBellend]

1 minute ago, Hughesy said:

I don’t give a **** about WSW right now, I’m making this comment as a general football/sport fan…

That bullshit from Brisbane was ******* embarrassing and shameful. That sort of carry on brings the game into disrepute more than any off field discretion ever could. The fact it was allowed to keep playing out with zero punishment or even warning made it worse. Imagine resorting to that when you’re drawing a meaningless, early season game and sitting tied last. You’d think they were about to lift the World Cup ffs.

Football’s lack of balls when it comes to stamping out theatrics and thinly veiled cheating is a complete piss take. I couldn’t care less about the game, that left such a sour taste in my mouth

It's on the referee, he let it happen. It's also on us for going letting it happen. If we don't concede such soft goals straight after scoring then they are chasing the game and none of that happens. 

I'm far more pissed of at our gutless lot. Did any of them other than Thomas, Borello and Milanovic look like they remotely cared. Staight after the game it was all smiles. They really don't give a toss

[StringerBellend]

3 minutes ago, Themumf79 said:

It’s been bugging me for ages but I’m just going to say it. Milanovic is a poor man’s Grealish. Shuffle step, step over, walk a couple more steps. Genuinely don’t get the hype. And I mean Man City Grealish, not the Villa version. 

At least he has a go, rather than neatly passing the ball backwards

[mack]

Milanovic is playing like someone trying to get a transfer in January. Constantly ball hogging and instead of taking open space on the wing he cut back all night, there was even one where he went to do his cutback and shoot but realised he was 40 yards out and shooting from there would be obviously dumb.

[WHACKO]

45 minutes ago, tardotz said:

I was a foundation red member and over the years I've have been attending less games. This season I downgraded to a red/black and I have not attended a single game yet...... I'm sure I'm not the only one. This club has lost everything it built in the first few years.... something needs to change quickly both on and off the field.....before the ground will be empty.

Similar red foundation, downgraded to white and black and still sit in my same seat.

After tonight's game that will do me.

May reconsider when Staj is finally gone.

 

[immortalshogun]

I’ll never stop going to games as im a one eyed tragic for this club but i can see why people aren’t coming anymore… dont worry another merch drop will fix things 

[redpanther61]

That game was an embarrassment for football. Apart from being boring as f..k after the last goal, Brisbane players faking cramp every 5 minutes and an inept ref that didn’t have the balls to take action against them took the biscuit.

Staj must go as he has no idea how do use the players he has ( who the hell who wants to win a game leaves it until there is only 3 mins of added time left to bring on his last two subs). Kraev and Antonnson should be dropped as neither of them make any effort, Brilliante can only pass the ball backwards, and Clisby and Cleur are trying to outdo each other on the number of defensive mistakes.

i suggest as an incentive the players be fined $100 everytime they pass the ball back or sideways. Hitting their back pocket may lead them to playing forward for a change!

[matty]

I thought we played fine.  Staj isn't very good but the players tried. 

The reef killed the game and any intensity it had, let things go that would not be tolerated for a second in Sunday league. 

[Smoggy]

8 hours ago, tardotz said:

I was a foundation red member and over the years I've have been attending less games. This season I downgraded to a red/black and I have not attended a single game yet...... I'm sure I'm not the only one. This club has lost everything it built in the first few years.... something needs to change quickly both on and off the field.....before the ground will be empty.

We had a meet up last night and so was out and about, I only watched 10min of the second half and so cant comment much on the game.

Years back I would have dropped everything to be at the game, no way would I be doing what I did yesterday evening on a home game day. When it was planned and the wife said what we were doing tbh I didn’t even look at the fixture list, WSW weren’t in my thinking. Checking the score was a bit of an after thought….

Thats sad, never thought I would be that way.

Edited December 14, 2024 by Smoggy