It was a new year, but the same old result for the Western Sydney Wanderers, as they earned a 1-1 draw with Perth Glory at the Sydney Olympic Stadium tonight.
The only major surprise in the home teams lineup was the absence through injury of fullback Scott Neville, and he was replaced by utility defender Brendan Hamill. The Wanderers had a good opening 10 minutes, with Dimas Delgado having a wide lash at goal after neat wing play from Nico Martinez. Perth however took the lead after 14 minutes. Josh Risdon, Andy Keogh & Chris Harold combined to send Adam Taggart through on goal. The assistant missed an obvious offside from meters away, but Taggart cared little as he strode in on goal, and took advantage of poor goalkeeping from Jerrad Tyson to beat the keeper at his near post.
Tony Popovic had named a substitute bench including Kearyn Baccus & Jaushua Sotirio, and the pair combined to bring the home team back level in the 65th minute. Baccus picked up the ball near his own penalty area, continued toward halfway unchallenged, before lobbing the ball over a static Perth defence who had been caught square with Josh Risdon keeping Sotirio onside. The speedy winger had been deployed as a forward with the suspension of Brendan Santalab, and Sotirio took inspiration from the Wanderers leading scorer, as he slotted a neat finish past ex-Wanderer Liam Reddy.
Neither side were able to score a goal to provide a precious win, with Western Sydney looking increasingly likely to find themselves breaking the record of 11 draws in an A-League season.
Reports indicated that the Wanderers have Eli Babalj, the twice capped Australian international forward on trial from AZ Alkmaar of Holland and Tony Popovic may add him to a squad which is already set to include Terry Antonis & Vedran Janjetovic.
Edited by mack
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