Perth have kept a clean sheet and dominated the stats with a simple 2-0 win over a dire Wanderers outfit in Perth tonight.
The early news out of Western Australia on a sweltering day was the Wanderers outstanding goalkeeper Daniel Lopar missing the match with illness. Nick Suman added another to his small tally of A-League games in between the sticks.
Just a minute into the game the Wanderers almost opened the scoring. Nicolai Muller playing in the middle put Yeboah through on goal but had his shot smothered by Reddy. The rebound fell to Captain Mitch Duke and he aimed a curling strike at the top corner, but could only glance the post. Perth Glory had their first major action in the 8th minute, Diego Castro freeing himself up for a shot that streaked along the ground and was pushed away to safety by Suman.
Perth took the lead in the 18th minute from a goalmouth scramble and a heavy slice of luck. Neil Kilkenny's corner was met with a flick-on from Mrcela, a desperate bicycle kick from Fornaroli redirected back to the near post for Ikonomidis, and his header bounced off the crossbar and straight onto the head of Gregory Wuthrich and the ball rebounded back across the goal line. An unlucky goal to concede but one that should never have happened, as the defence failed three times to prevent Perth from keeping the ball in play.
The Wanderers had absolutely nothing going for them in attack the entire half apart from that very early shot, dismally ineffective build up play, boring static sideways passes between the central defenders and midfielders unable to hold onto the ball. The only minor positive was that Perth were relatively ineffective on their own after the goal and couldn't score a second that might have killed the game before the break.
Marquee Alexander Meier made his way onto the pitch for Bruce Kamau as the sides came out for half-time. Perth and Western Sydney traded ineffective attacks until the 55th minute when James Meredith blasted a shot into a desperate block from Daniel Georgievski. Ikonomidis then headed a Meredith cross just shy of the inside of the far post after beating Tarek Elrich's challenge. Meredith shot straight at Suman in the 62nd minute, as Perth piled on the pressure.
Perth finally scored their second in the 66th minute. From a simple Jake Brimmer wide set piece, the Wanderers completely failed to mark up against defender Alex Grant, Alex Meier's attempted clearance was little more than a flick-on towards the back post, the rest of the defence stood around watching and waiting for another player to do something and it let Grant bring the ball down with his right before blasting a low shot past Suman.
Western Sydney continued their inept first half, managing just one shot on target in the 2nd, barely troubling the home side. The game fizzled out, there was little urgency from the side two goals down, a fact that the intense heat may have contributed to, but is not an acceptable excuse after this many losses in a row.
This makes 5 losses on the trot, plus a poor 0-0 draw against Brisbane. Regardless of how much truth was in the reports of the imminent sacking of Babbel & hiring of Kevin Muscat, 5 losses in a row and little reason to expect that figure won't jump to 7 by the end of the year, the Wanderers leadership will surely be looking into alternative coaches now.
The Wanderers face Western United at Parramatta on Friday December 20, kick-off at 7:30PM.
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