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The article I decided to write initially was about the Sydney FC offence and how impressive the last two games were, but I reserve my opinion for later in the season.
And the reason for that was because of how bad the Mariners defence has been. Of course, this isn’t news, the Mariners had been bad defensively for the previous two seasons.
Starting with the 2014-2015 season that ended with the Mariners conceding 50 goals against and had the second worst defence of the competition behind the Newcastle Jets, who had five goals difference.
Following that up, last season things were much worse with 70 goals against, the most in A-league history.
With 7 goals in their opening two games this season, the Mariners have continued their record of 31 games in the A-League since their last clean sheet.
Even if we consider that both games were away, where the Mariners are extremely weak having only one win in two years, it’s still not an excuse for the way the goals came.
But let’s look at the two first games and what happened.
In the first game against Perth Glory, they gave two easy first goals being caught out with players uncovered in the middle of the 18-yard box.
As far as the penalty they conceded in the 35th minute, it was a very bad play by Faty who is an experienced player that came to make the difference in defence.
Of course, they were able to come back and take one point, but they can’t rely on that kind of performance every time and it certainly did not occur against Sydney FC.
In the second game against Sydney, the mistakes became worse.
The first goal was a horizontal 35-yard plus pass to Holosko who was alone, and able to get into the 18-yard box and score far too easily.
The second goal came out of a bad play by Poscoliero who didn’t kick the ball away correctly and set up Bobo in front of an empty net to double the tally for Sydney.
The third goal came about because of a very bad body check by Jake McGing, of course having to cover Bobo for an inexperienced player is difficult, but Bobo had his back to the goal post and on the left side of the penalty area.
There is no reason to be so physical, especially in the penalty area, if we also consider that help was coming from other Mariners defenders.
As far as the last goal goes, it was a straight embarrassment for the goalkeeper who didn’t control the ball well and enabled Brosque to take advantage of it and score on an empty goal.
All the goals came from mistakes or inaction by the players of the Mariners.
Just to highlight my point, here are some statistics that make the situation much more serious for last season’s wooden spooners.
Firstly, in both games the Mariners had the majority of possession during both halves. Especially with Sydney FC they had 63% of the ball, however, they still allowed Sydney to create more opportunities and knock in four goals with just 37% possession.
Another point is that the Mariners had zero yellow cards in the game with Sydney.
Of course, I’m not saying they should be unsportsmanlike, but they should try to be more physical with their opponents and not allow them to change pass so easily.
That is what all teams work to do, create a more defensive minded approach to avoid conceding such a high amount of goals.
So if they don’t want to break another bad record, the coaching staff and players should start working more on their defensive attitude, try to communicate better and create certain schemes that would keep the team more compact.
At least they should try to be more respectable because I doubt many people are going to see them at their home games.
If you think that I missed something or you disagree with my points, please leave your comments below.
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