Milanovic Earns Late Draw In Wellington

[mack]

Western Sydney & Wellington Phoenix played out an entertaining 2-2 draw with the Wanderers having to fight back from a 1 goal deficit twice to earn a point through goals to Bozhidar Kraev & Nicolas Milanovic.

Wellington took advantage of the strip of sun stretching across the back post area to open the scoring in the 20th minute. It was a simple corner to the back post, all of 3 yards out from goal but the sun apparently stopped everyone on the defensive end from seeing the ball away, leaving Corban Piper to jump and head the ball down with no-one on the back post to stop it.

The Wanderers hit back 15 minutes later through former Phoenix player Kraev. A sterling piece of football that began with Milanovic, who played a triangular 1-2 pass with Zac Sapsford to put Milanovic into space on the byline, his cut back enabled Kraev to take a step back and shoot with the keeper having come out to the near post it was an open net and he made no mistake to level the game at 1-1.

The Nix regained their lead through Francisco Geraldes who scored the first goal for Wellington in the 69th minute, standing up Gabriel Cleur who watched and watched and watched until Geraldes finally decided to shoot on his left foot, Lawrence Thomas had a weak hand and even if he got a touch it did little to stop the path into the back of the net.

In the final minute of regulation the Wanderers levelled the match through their seasons top scorer Nicolas Milanovic, who added his 10th goal of the season. Brandon Borrello started the move by dribbling through the middle of the pitch, found Milanovic in space, and instead of playing Milanovic onto his right foot the defender made the mistake of inviting a patented Milanovic cutback on the left, and it was perfect. A sweet strike of venom and accurate, in the top corner on the far side. 2-2 with 4 minutes of stoppage time to play, and Marcus Antonsson nearly took the lead with a similar shot but palmed away by the keeper.

The draw extends the Wanderers unbeaten run to 7 games but the single point against the team in 11th was hardly the result Alen Stajcic would have been looking for but he would be happy at the determination shown to come back from a goal down twice.

The Wanderers next match is against Auckland FC in Auckland on Saturday the 5th of April with kick-off at 3pm Sydney time.

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[Kotallo]

Inability to keep a clean sheet costs us again. Ordinarily I would rail against the lack of an experienced CB but unfortunately I think Lawrence Thomas was a bit suspect on both goals, especially the second

[GE942150]

Anyone know why Hammond wasn't playing?

[StringerBellend]

@Zelinsky

 

Staj Action (I Believe in Staj)

When you're in love

You know you're in love

No matter what you try to do

You might as well resign yourself

To what you're going through

If you're a hard man or if you're a child

It still might get to you

Don't kid yourself you've seen it all before

A million mouths have said that too

I've had my hard times (hard times) in the past

 

 

I've been a wanderer and a loser too

I've lain alone and cried at night

Over what sotirio made me do

And the loved ones who let me down

And couldn't share my point of view

But this is Stringer talking

I want to tell you

What I've found to be true

I love my Staj action

Lust's just a distraction

No talking, just looking

Watching some Staj action

[Smoggy]

#Stajhasworktodotastic.

[StringerBellend]

8 minutes ago, Kotallo said:

Inability to keep a clean sheet costs us again. Ordinarily I would rail against the lack of an experienced CB but unfortunately I think Lawrence Thomas was a bit suspect on both goals, especially the second

I thought the second was Cleur not putting any pressure on the ball, just kept backing off but to be fair to him it was a good ball so he was always on the back foot 

But yes we can't keep conceding at 2 goals a game 

[Sithslayer1991]

Well we started strong. Then that sloppy defending at the corner. 1-1 half time and then Chief must have made some tweaks because we were not in the game for a good 30 minutes until Pelakanos and Mata came on.

Look point isnt bad for finishing in the 6 but for 2nd place we may have lost the charge.

 

[Sithslayer1991]

5 minutes ago, GE942150 said:

Anyone know why Hammond wasn't playing?

He and Simmons started and played majority of the game for Olyroos against Qatar. So they rested him. We could have used him for some energy up front.

[matty]

Allowed them to score 2 goals when they've managed less than 1 per game 

[VedranRozic]

Aaaaand we’re back…

Needed a bit of individual brilliance to avoid losing to the second string of the team coming third last.

Second to most balls and Staj out-thought by Italiano. I will go back to doubting.

 

Edited Saturday at 06:26 AM by VedranRozic

[William]

7 without loss is not bad , Staj will have us ready for next week 

[WSWTragicAgain]

We don't give up this season.  We could have had all 3 points,  but I always felt we were a chance. Very different this year.

[Wanderboy]

Away games are always difficult. Regardless of who the opposition is and where they are on the table.

So much negativity here today. Yes, we should beat teams like WP but they put in a good shift today. They won so many 50/50's in the midfield, which kept them on the front foot. 

However, we are honestly playing with so much more positivity this season. Looking to move the ball forward at the earliest opportunity, rather than the tikka takka playing out from the back shite that we have been trying for years.

Hang in there folks. There are better times ahead. I'm enjoying watching us play again. I can't say that I have felt like that for a decade.

[sonar]

 

[apvz]

25 minutes ago, Sithslayer1991 said:

Well we started strong. Then that sloppy defending at the corner. 1-1 half time and then Chief must have made some tweaks because we were not in the game for a good 30 minutes until Pelakanos and Mata came on.

Look point isnt bad for finishing in the 6 but for 2nd place we may have lost the charge.

 

Allow me to play devils advocate: i do not want to finish 2nd. Puts us in ACL Elite next season, which has shown to absolutely rail any hope of a good A-League season. Plus the week off in finishing second for finals does not always work out well 

[Kotallo]

1 minute ago, apvz said:

Allow me to play devils advocate: i do not want to finish 2nd. Puts us in ACL Elite next season, which has shown to absolutely rail any hope of a good A-League season. Plus the week off in finishing second for finals does not always work out well 

I totally agree with you re ACL Elite, but without looking it up finishing 2nd usually makes you much more likely to hit the GF, I'd have thought

[matty]

14 minutes ago, Wanderboy said:

So much negativity here today. Yes, we should beat teams like WP but they put in a good shift today. They won so many 50/50's in the midfield, which kept them on the front foot.

Hence the 'negativity'

[BoyFromTheWest]

34 minutes ago, VedranRozic said:

Aaaaand we’re back…

Needed a bit of individual brilliance to avoid losing to the second string of the team coming third last.

Second to most balls and Staj out-thought by Italiano. I will go back to doubting.

 

Disagree that Staj was out thought. His team were more sluggish than they've been and missed several good shot opportunities. Too many wide or over the bar from players that should at least test the keeper. We played into their hands instead of playing our game.

They were up and were weren't quite there.

[immortalshogun]

We put in a shift similar to the one where we lost to the Mariners.. 2nd to every ball, unable to maintain any decent spell of possession and our transitions weren’t all there today. Lucky to grab a point but its good to see the boys remain in the fight all game

[BoyFromTheWest]

Panta's distribution needs a lot of work. He is growing as a CB but isolate him with the ball and he stops and inevitably looks something through our makes a slow and/or sloppy pass.

Boniteg makes some good runs but keeps going and loses it. Both CB's are growing but need to take it to the next level now.

[William]

Pants was not at his best today like a few others , we can forgive them today after the last few weeks of disruption 

bye 

win against Victory 

Another  week off and overseas travel for a lot of players 

 shitty place to travel to for the Wellington game

looking forward to next week and we do have a tough run home go wanderers 

[PedroPony]

In this league you are going to have games where you are flat due to timing of breaks (byes, international breaks etc) and travel. I'm pretty happy we salvaged a point from that and I'm looking forward to the Aukland game. 

Definitely a game we take nothing from in past seasons.

 

[PedroPony]

Oh and what does Laws have to do to get a run?

[StringerBellend]

That point looks a lot better now in some ways 

What a strike too 

Thwack

[Smoggy]

36 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

That point looks a lot better now in some ways 

What a strike too 

Thwack

Could be a big point when final standings are known..

Turn up against Auckland and get 3 points it will be a good return from these NZ games..

It's just i thought we would beat the Nix and draw against Auckland...

But the other way around works just as well...

Edited Saturday at 08:50 AM by Smoggy

[WHACKO]

2 hours ago, PedroPony said:

Oh and what does Laws have to do to get a run?

Get here six months earlier. 

[sonar]

1 hour ago, Smoggy said:

Could be a big point when final standings are known..

Turn up against Auckland and get 3 points it will be a good return from these NZ games..

It's just i thought we would beat the Nix and draw against Auckland...

But the other way around works just as well...

After the game today I was thinking the players minds might have been on the big game next week as they were expected to beat the Nix....here's hoping we play well against Auckland.

[StringerBellend]

3 hours ago, PedroPony said:

Oh and what does Laws have to do to get a run?

More to the point what does gersbach need to do to get a start 

[StringerBellend]

4 hours ago, Kotallo said:

I totally agree with you re ACL Elite, but without looking it up finishing 2nd usually makes you much more likely to hit the GF, I'd have thought

 surely the point is to play ACL elite 

 

 

[StringerBellend]

4 hours ago, Wanderboy said:

Away games are always difficult. Regardless of who the opposition is and where they are on the table.

So much negativity here today. Yes, we should beat teams like WP but they put in a good shift today. They won so many 50/50's in the midfield, which kept them on the front foot. 

However, we are honestly playing with so much more positivity this season. Looking to move the ball forward at the earliest opportunity, rather than the tikka takka playing out from the back shite that we have been trying for years.

Hang in there folks. There are better times ahead. I'm enjoying watching us play again. I can't say that I have felt like that for a decade.

It's a good point