Friday Night Football saw the Western Sydney Wanderers host the Newcastle Jets needing a win to keep in touch with the top 6 before the upcoming international window, a window that will see Brandon Borrello recalled to the national team for matches in Asian World Cup Qualification. Nicolas Milanovic took all the attention however, his first A-League hat-trick seeing away Newcastle and putting the home side into the A-League top 6.
After the 3-4 loss last week to Adelaide, Alen Stajcic rung the changes from top to bottom. Jordan Holmes replaced Tristan Vidackovic in goals, Jack Clisby was benched in favour of Anthony Pantazopoulos. Oscar Priestman made way for Dylan Scicluna who had shown a lot of energy so far this season, and Juan Mata was reduced to an impact sub role with Zac Sapsford coming in to the attack despite the broken nose injury that has him wearing a batman styled facial accoutrement. The Jets were filled with former Wanderers, with Kosta Grozos, Daniel Wilmering and Thomas Aqulina starting against their previous employer.
The best chance of the early game fell to Pantazopoulos, after the Jets failed to clear a corner saw the ball loop back into the 6 yard area where Pantazopoulos threw out his leg with a jumping side volley that flew over the crossbar. Nicolas Milanovic has his first shot of the game after a midfield turnover and good work from Scicluna & Borrello, the shot on the right foot curving across the face of goal and going wide. Sapsford then turned a beautiful ball along the turf only a few yards out yet there was no-one gambling at the back post for what would have been a tap-in.
Newcastle thought they opened the scoring after 16 minutes, Wellisol broke down the Jets left and a cut-back found an attacker who couldn't miss, the celebrations were short lived as a correctly adjudicated offside call ended them entirely.
It was instead the Wanderers who scored first. A free kick 25 yards out from Milanovic that he blasted into the middle of the wall, the deflection from Lachie Bayliss was extremely heavy and it left Ryan Scott on the wrong side of the goal and with zero chance of turning back to stop it.
Milanovic made it two on the half-hour. Holmes launched a ball into midfield where Gabriel Cleur jumped higher than Wilmering to nod it down for Milanovic, he began his run from half-way, allowed to take touch after touch by Mark Natta. With the defence standing off and showing him inside, Milanovic took the space given to aim on his powerful left boot, fired past Natta and Ryan Scott's dive & hand to the ball was nowhere near strong enough to turn it away. The Red & Black dominated the rest of the half but neither side could add another goal to the scoreline.
Rob Stanton didn't wait for the hour before making subs, he took action immediately before the restart as Gibson, Wellissol and Wilmering departed for Timmins, Taylor & Vidic.
The changes didn't help. 10 minutes into the half and Sapsford made a magnificent solo run & goal. Cleur passed the ball over the top on the wing, Sapsford was one-off with Natta who continued his abysmal defensive performance by failing to knock Sapsford over. The striker continued into the area, the defence was late to come across and launched a rocket on his left into the top far corner.
Newcastle wanted a penalty as Jeong went down on his knees to attempt a block and Clayton Taylor fell over the feet on the floor. After initially waving the penalty away, the VAR intervened and after second guessing himself despite seeing it clearly on the live vision, Jack Morgan decided he'd made a "clear and obvious error" and gave the Jets a lifeline, Kosta Grozos stepped up and nailed his penalty into the top corner to bring it back to 3-1 with half an hour to play.
VAR intervened on the other side, with Natta capping his awful performance by giving away a stonewall penalty on Milanovic after being beat by a move inside and sticking a leg out. As is the custom for the A-League, the referee completely missed it in the live action and needed to check the replay to make the right call. Milanovic stepped up with his hat-trick on the line and finished with aplomb, down to the left and past the correct side dive of Scott.
The sting of the game faded away after the 4th, Juan Mata was installed for a few minutes of game time as Scicluna made way, with Marcus Antonsson and Ayden Hammond having come on earlier for Sapsford and Milanovic. Holmes hadn't much to do so with the exception of the penalty save attempt, yet his attention was on point with a wonderful double save deep into stoppage time. The first was a spectacular diving save to his right to keep out a long range curling strike, the second he made himself big to stop a point blank header down into the turf. The Wanderers closed out the remainder of the match and secured the three points, the 4-1 win was the first win at Parramatta since New Year's Day. Now attention turns to the international window, a short break before the 2nd Sydney Derby of the season.
The Wanderers next match is against Sydney FC on Saturday the 23rd of November, from Moore Park with kick-off at 7:35pm EDT.
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