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Western Sydney Wanderers fans will always remember 2014 as the year they conquered Asia. However, continental success has come at the expense of domestic form.
Is it now too late to make a run to the A-League finals, and was coach Tony Popovic always prepared to accept struggles at home as a consequence of their success?
Making excuses is frowned upon in football, but this can sometimes cause basic facts to be ignored.
The Wanderers’ A-League campaign was always going to be significantly compromised by the various distractions that came their way.
With the latter stages of their triumphant Asian Champions League campaign – and the subsequent Club World Cup – playing havoc with their fixtures, their squad has been tested in a way no other A-League club has experienced. Their schedule has resembled that of a top European club, albeit with a much smaller squad and budget.
It could be said that Western Sydney’s entire season will be subjected to disruption, with the Asian Cup break about to take effect and the next Champions League campaign commencing in late February. Their domestic schedule has not been helpful either, having already played away against Perth and twice against Wellington.
Popovic would have had the foresight to realise all of this even before the season began, and perhaps was prepared to accept a dip in form in the A-League as a result. He would have had faith in his squad to at least remain in touch with the top six in the first half of the season, before going on to get the results necessary to secure a spot in the finals.
His team have demonstrated their ability to get results anywhere in Asia, so Popovic would not have been phased about the prospect of playing away from home in the play-offs.
The extent of the Wanderers’ struggles in the A-League has caused almost universal surprise, surely also to Popovic himself. Their poor form left them nine points adrift of the top six at the turn of the year. In particular, the failure to win during a run of four home games between the Champions League final and Club World Cup would have been a huge disappointment.
Making Western Sydney’s task of breaking into the finals spots all the more difficult is the strength of the A-League as a whole this year. Perth, Melbourne Victory, Adelaide and Sydney FC blazed away at the start of the year with long unbeaten runs. While the latter two have dropped away of late, the likes of Wellington and Melbourne City have now come into form.
At the start of the week Wanderers fans would have been concerned that their coach could be heading back to Crystal Palace. This now appears highly unlikely, and if recent reports of a mini exodus of players in the January transfer window are true then Popovic is at least demonstrating that he is not prepared to just sit back and write off their A-League campaign.
If the rumoured departures do occur then the replacements who come in will need to hit the ground running. Will it be too late to prevent the Wanderers from missing the finals for the first time since their foundation?
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