Opinion

Wanderers' madness lets Sydney off the hook

Western Sydney Wanderers must be beginning to hate the derby against their cross-town rivals Sydney FC.

Janjetovic

Vedran Janjetovic (R) reacts to his red card against Sydney FC Source: AAP

They have beaten the Sky Blues only once in the last 16 matches and on Saturday night they crashed again to the tune of 3-1 for their fifth straight derby debacle.

They started brightly and with purpose in a rain-delayed match and a rare victory was certainly on the cards on an excellent ANZ Stadium pitch.

They took a deserved lead after 23 minutes but tragedy struck soon in the form of two moments of madness.

Goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic was sent off after he left his goal on a wild goose chase for the ball and deflected Adam Le Fondre's shot from outside the penalty area.

Referee Jarred Gillett had no hesitation in giving him a straight red card.

Coach Markus Babbel then raised even more consternation among both sets of fans by sacrificing his best and most creative player Alexander Baumjohann to make way for replacement goalkeeper Danijel Nizic.

It was a strange move that backfired because from that moment onwards there was only one team in the contest and it was only a matter of time before Sydney regathered themselves from their early troubles to control the match and take the points.

Babbel's decision to keep his defensive shape by taking off the man who was causing Sydney all sorts of problems with his immaculate passing - he also took the free-kick that produced Oriol Riera's goal - smacked of surrender and negativity.

He was telling Sydney that he acknowledged the Wanderers' disadvantage and that he was expecting an onslought.
Babbel's move also seemed to have a debilitating effect on his own players: all of a sudden they went from being proactive to reactive and their aggression turned into inhibition.
It's not the first time that a team was reduced to 10 men and went on to win.

But rarely have coaches become so negative by opting to play to keep the opposition at bay without trying to put any pressure on them.

"Alex is a fantastic player and I really felt sorry for him but it was clear to me we needed legs because we had to defend more and his defensive work is not his strength," the German coach said later.

That may be true but as soon as Baumjohann left the field in clear distress, the game changed completely.

The Wanderers immediately lost their solid grip on midfield and there now was nobody to relieve the pressure by holding the ball and playing passes deep into enemy territory while the opposition were forced to go for broke in search of goals.

Pulling out Jordan O'Doherty and leaving Baumjohann closer to Riera mght have been a better option than essentially having two lines of four players behind the ball and a striker who was so isolated that the Wanderers effectively were playing with nine men.

Babbel's Sydney counterpart Steve Corica could not believe that the Wanderers coach would pull out the one person who was behind the Wanderers' early dominance.

"I was surprised and quite happy to see him go off the pitch," Corica conceded.

"He is a good player and he was causing us a few problems in behind our midfield. Once he took him off that problem was gone and after we got to 1-1 we were quite comfortable and for us it was just a matter of breaking them down, which we did."

Sydney no doubt deserved the points because overall they played the better football, were patient and created more scoring chances, but the 18,000 fans who braved the stormy conditions would have been entitled to wonder if the outcome could have been different had Janjetovic not had the costly brain snap when the Wanderers were well on top.

This 'deluge derby' was a crazy game.


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4 min read
Published 16 December 2018 12:50pm
By Philip Micallef

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