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Arguably the two best teams in the A-League so far this season met in a top-of-the-table clash in Sydney’s West.
Kevin Muscat named achanged side due to the uncharacteristically nervous loss last week.
Popovic named an unchanged side, preserving his best players and formation for an enduring winning streat. The Wanderers set sights on beating their 10-match winning streak from their debut season.
Wanderers’ defensive performance was highly effective. Nikolai Topor-Stanley once again resolute and cool in defence keeping the elusive crazy man Besart Berisha and Greece lightning Costa Barbarouses very quiet. Nikolai surely deserves a call up for the Socceroos and is arguably the best central defender in the league at this moment.
Popovic has had to cope with a practically re-arranged team from last season, various injury problems and all but three of the starting XI that had never even met each other before this season’s training started. Despite this, the Wanderers managed to work so efficiently as a unit tonight, despite barely any familiarity between the players in terms of style and technique.
The Wanderers’ overall approach was more interesting than their tactics. This was a game they needed to win to show they are genuine contenders for the golden toilet seat and not just the debut show ponies of a couple of seasons back.
Even if their main title rival had a game in hand and therefore many might have expected them to take the game more to their opponents, it turned out to be not the right tactics from Muscat and not a good result for Melbourne Victory. They now travel to Perth to play on Wednesday and then back to Melbourne for a derby against Melbourne City on Saturday.
City have a very winnable game against the Jets tomorrow and could leapfrog Victory and Sydney FC into third place on the table, which would make for an even more interesting Melbourne Derby.
Giving Muscat more respect than he deserved, Popovic decided to play from deep, his first target probably to reach half-time at 0-0. Melbourne Victory have consistently made terrifyingly quick starts to big matches in Sydney. If Wanderers could reach half-time goalless, they could take advantage of the fact Melbourne Victory can tend to fade after half-time, and maybe win the game in the second period.
Once the approach was decided, the tactics were obvious. Wanderers have become accustomed to defending well under Popovic, himself a former Socceroos central defensive stopper. This was their fourth clean sheet this season.
It was logical for Wanderers to defend deep to nullify the pace of Besart and Barbarouses and to encourage Melbourne Victory to go wide and put in the crosses, which Topor-Stanley and Alberto have been handling this season with consummate ease.
That’s exactly what they did, with Wanderers in a deep, compact 4-4-1-1 formation and the full-backs tucking inside and then going wide when the space and opportunity arose.
It was the same tactic that made Sydney FC look very ineffective in the Derby and only a couple of disallowed goals from very marginal offside calls and the very late goal from Ninkovic took the points away from the Wanderers.
As a side that has consistently thrived breaking into space, especially at home, Victory were surprisingly ineffective in making any decent scoring opportunities at Parramatta.
The problem with going through the middle was that they lacked genuine incision from the central midfield trio – there was a lack of midfield runners breaking forward to join Besart, with Barbarouses’ sporadic efforts unconvincing.
The Wanderers’ attacking approach was very simple. Even though they had control of possession, they were attempting and setting up surprise counter-attacks, with support from the fast running wide players. Most of their efforts on target started from a move in their own half.
The first goal was a good example of how with pace and precision passing the Wanders were able to catch the Victory in some disarray. Castelen was able to get away from his marker and make a tellingly accurate pass from the right for Bridge running from deep to outpace his marker and bundle the ball over the line.
The second goal was crafted from the same source and almost identical well-worn path as the first and this time Castelen was allowed even more freedom from a tiring Finkler and was able to send in a stinging shot from the right, which Vukovic was unable to parry and instead helped it nestle into the back of the net.
Wanderers defended extremely effectively. Melbourne Victory are breaking goal-scoring records, yet barely had a clear chance here – the vast majority of their attempts were from long range. Their attacking play was generally quite poor.
Melbourne Victory were surprisingly short of ideas against a deep defence. It’s hardly a new concept for Popovic to focus on defence and sit back with possession and wait patiently for opportunities, so why didn’t Melbourne Victory have more of a cohesive strategy against this? Perhaps Muscat was simply surprised that Popovic played so deep in a game where Wanderers were expected more likely to take the initiative.
Muscat played surprisingly conservatively, a more solid formation than usual and using his full-backs deeper.
Once hot favourites to sit on the golden toilet seat, Melbourne Victory and Kevin Muscat need a flash of inspiration from one or more of their leaders and key players. I’m sure they’ll bounce back and figure in the finals, but they aren’t the sure bets anymore that they were at the start of A-League V11.0.
This season’s championship is more open than we’d originally thought and we’d expect Popovic’s boys to be once again in there fighting for the dinner plate and holy golden toilet seat. With 17 rounds to go things can still change, so Sydney FC, Brisbane Roar, Melbourne City and the others won’t be giving up the fight either.
The starting line-ups:
Western Sydney Wanderers: Redmayne (gk), Neville, Alberto, Topor-Stanley (c), Jamieson, Andreu, Dimas, Nichols, Castelen (Mebrahtu 84′), Vidosic (Sotirio 72′), Bridge (Santalab 74′)
Melbourne Victory: Vukovic (gk), Geria (Howard 87′), Broxham (c), Delpierre, Georgievski, Mahazi (Gallifuoco 77′), Bozanic, Barbarouses, Finkler, Ben Khalfallah (Pain 67′), Berisha
Scorers: Bridge 54′, Castelen 79′
Red cards: Nil
Yellow cards: Nichols 20′, Ben Khalfallah 43′, Andreu 56′, Geria 66′, Barbarouses 70′, Santalab 85′, Mebrahtu 86′, Sotirio 88′
Conditions: Western Sydney 19C, Overcast
Attendance: 17,073 Pirtek Stadium, Parramatta
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