Newcastle coach Branko Culina took a swipe at his former club Sydney FC and their Czech coach Vitezslav Lavicka after the Jets suffered a 2-1 A-League loss at the Sydney Football Stadium on Sunday.
The result ended a two-game losing streak for Sydney, who were missing five key players, and sent them back into a share of the competition lead with Gold Coast.
The Jets battled hard and dominated for most of the second half but a frustrated Culina felt his side should have won the match and could not resist a swipe at Sydney and their foreign coach.
“There was only one team that really deserved to win that game,” Culina said.
“I don’t care what their coach says and the fact that he’s on $500,000 and I’m on 50 bucks or whatever it is.
“But if that’s what the foreigners are going to bring to this game let’s have more local coaches.
“I’m not having a go at him, I’m just saying that as far as football is concerned, I thought we played some great stuff.
“But we can only blame ourselves, we can’t blame anyone else.”
A second-half penalty to Sydney FC captain Steve Corica sealed the win for Sydney after Jets captain Matt Thompson had cancelled out a brilliant individual opener by Mark Bridge in the first half.
The Jets ended a frustrating afternoon with 10 men after defender Tarek Elrich was shown a red card in the final minutes for a lunging tackle on Sydney’s Sung-Hwan Byun.
Sydney also owed plenty to their goalkeeper Clint Bolton, who saved a first-half penalty from Thompson, just moments before Bridge broke the deadlock.
Lavicka, who spoke prior to Culina, praised the character shown by his side.
Sydney were without John Aloisi, Terry McFlynn and Stephan Keller due to injury while Karol Kisel fell ill and Kofi Danning was on Young Socceroos duty.
That saw Lavicka hand first starts of the season to Stuart Musialik, Adam Casey and Seb Ryall.
“It’s a very difficult situation because we had 12, 13 available players for this game,” Lavicka said.
“But I have to say that all players showed tough, strong character.”
Bridge was particularly impressive for Sydney, scoring one of the goals of the season so far in the 26th minute.
The former Newcastle striker collected the ball just past the halfway line, beat off several Jets defenders with a strong run, before unleashing a brilliant, curling finish from 20 metres out in a goal reminiscent of his winner in the 2007-08 grand final.
Thompson made amends for his penalty miss with an equaliser against the run of play after halftime but Alex Brosque won a penalty when he was brought down in the 56th minute by Jets goalkeeper Ben Kennedy.
Veteran midfielder Corica made no mistake from the ensuing spot kick, smashing it into the roof of the net.
A disappointing day for the Jets was complete when Elrich was surprisingly given his marching orders, though Culina was not prepared to comment on the incident.
A positive for Culina was a solid showing by Iraqi international Ali Abbas, who made his A-League debut off the bench.
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