The Western Sydney Wanderers hosted Adelaide United on Saturday night, Adelaide running out 3-2 winners with another lacklustre first half costing the home side a shot at taking anything from the fixture.
Craig Goodwin who was making his return for Adelaide opened the scoring in only the first minute. Ziggy Gordon made a mistake and gave away a dumb foul wide on the edge of the area. After a scramble inside the box the Wanderers set piece defence failed to clear the ball, it fell to Goodwin and he blasted it into Gordon's legs and the deflection was enough to beat Daniel Margush in the Wanderers goal. The shocking start continued the Wanderers woes at the set piece. They went up the other end not long after and managed to hit three headers at goal, one was well saved by the Adelaide keeper and the other two went off target.
Gordon continued his poor start to the game when he butchered a tap-in by taking it off the boot of Muller, Tate Russell had delivered a magnificent cross to the far post, taking out every Adelaide defender and all it needed was a simple finish to equalise but Gordon kicked it well wide with an awkward attempt. Adelaide went down the other end and Halloran blasted a shot that Margush did well to clear after a slight deflection off Gordon.
Despite a half dominated by the home side, Adelaide doubled their lead minutes before half time with Stefan Mauk. After the defence switched off and allowed Halloran to skip through, his cutback found the midfielder and he took advantage of some hesitation and fired through Dylan McGowan and left Margush with no chance. The game had followed the pattern of previous games, the Wanderers failing to defend set pieces, having possession and getting the ball into the box but lacking anyone attacking the ball hard, they even had 11 corners to 0 and only managed a single clear cut chance.
Carl Robinson sent the team back out onto the pitch very early, presumably after giving them the hairdryer treatment, but with no substitutions. The Wanderers had a good start to the half, winning corners, Nicolai Muller had a glorious chance from a wide cross by Tate Russell, but despite being inside the 6 yard box he hit it high and over the bar and then it turned out he was offside anyway.
Loius D'Arrigo should have made it 3-0, he was played a mile onside by Gordon, but instead of firing across goal he shot on the short side and sliced the shot off the post and out for a goal kick. Robinson made his first changes of the game in the 57th minute with a triple substitution. Muller, Russell and Yeboah exited and were replaced by Bruce Kamau, Thomas Aquilina and Mitch Duke.
The change had an instant impact. Wilmering who had been having something of an off night, delivered a beautiful cross to the far post. Adelaide's defence stood around ball watching and they allowed Kamau to ghost in at the far post and he stuck out a foot and turned the ball home to make it 1-2. Duke should have made 2-2 just minutes later, he was played clear through on goal but made a hash of the shot, opening himself up then shooting into the keepers feet. Gordon and McGowan both had chances from one of the avalanche of corners but one was cleared off the line and the other went over and a long range strike from Baccus took a massive deflection that flew over the bar. The Wanderers kept searching for the equaliser, bringing on Bernie Ibini for Simon Cox 20 minutes before full time.
Somehow it remained 2-1 in the 73rd minute when Lopaz stole the ball off the feet of Duke as he had 1 yard tap-in looming. Troisi was the final roll of the dice for Robinson and it pushed Kamau to the fullback role.
Adelaide scored a third on the counter with the help of the referee. The ball broke in the Adelaide half, with Dorrans blocked off by the referee it allowed Adelaide to start a counter that Mo Toure placed past Margush. Mitch Duke pulled it back to 3-2 on the cusp of 90 minutes, with a close range tap-in that gave the home side hope. Duke then fired a long range bomb that the Adelaide keeper turned onto the post.
Stoppage time was filled by a combination of questionable offsides from the Wanderers and Adelaide's players going down like they'd been shot. With no more chances made, the game ended with multiple Adelaide players lying prone on a turf with the ball out of play following a nonsense foul to Adelaide. It was another match of 90% laziness and 10% application from the Wanderers, needing another second half comeback, the question remains why can't Carl Robinson keep his side motivated to play at their full output for an entire game? The loss extinguishes any hope the Wanderers have of ascending to the top of the ladder any time soon, and will need a major improvement with just a short two day rest period before their game against Melbourne City.
The Wanderers next game is against Melbourne City on Tuesday March 2, at Parramatta with kick-off at 7:05pm.
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