Ladder leaders Sydney FC have continued their perfect start to the A-League season with a comfortable 2-0 win over Newcastle.
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Skipper Alex Brosque and midfielder Milos Ninkovic both put away easy chances on Saturday to cement the Sky Blues’ spot on the top of the table.
The competitive pacesetters have now tallied a maximum 12 points from their season-opening four games and have still yet to concede a goal in the campaign.
For the injury-ravaged Jets, the loss in front of 11,873 fans at McDonald Jones Stadium was their first of the year and easily their worst outing of the season.
The defeat for rookie coach Mark Jones was compounded by a possible knee injury to Ben Kantarovski, who had to be helped from the field late in the game.
It appeared to be an cruisy day at the office early for the visitors, who dominated possession and field position seemingly at will.
And it was a clinical Brosque who eventually got on the scoresheet first, justifying coach Graham Arnold’s decision to make his first alteration to his line-up this year.
Defender Michael Zullo charged onto an aerial ball in the 7th minute that fell to Milos Ninkovic, and he duly dinked over for a cutting Brosque into an empty box.
The former Socceroo, inserted for David Carney on the left flank, finished coolly for his third goal of the season.
Matt Jurman and Filip Holosko also spurned good opportunities early, allowing the home side to slowly work their way into the contest.
Andrew Hoole was a rock for the Jets in attack, and one of his relentless efforts should’ve been rewarded just before halftime.
The former Sydney FC midfielder chased down a long ball that fell to a steaming Steven Ugarkovic who only had Danny Vukovic to beat, but butchered wide.
The visitors made the Jets pay for the miss immediately after the break when Ninkovic fired for his second goal in as many weeks.
A long-range effort from Holosko could only be parried into the path of Ninkovic, who slotted home a straightforward chance to double his team’s lead.
Sydster
Guest
As a Sydney FC fan, obviously I'm rapt in our start to this year's campaign We're scoring goals and build up play is quite impressive.As good as the 0 goals conceded may look we have been rather fortunate not to have Vukovic pick the ball up from inside his own net last week and once especially against the jets.The tests will come in the next few weeks where we play Victory and Glory.I don't believe Arnold has rolled Muscat yet , so this week commences a string of games highlighting if Sydney FC are as greatly improved as their results show and the level of consistency which all seem to be striving for is the real deal.No doubt this side is much better than last season's , how much better, we are about to find out
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Terrific start to the season, could not have done anymore. Two further points from the game: 1. very good crowd I thought; and 2. Jets fans should demand an explanation from management in relation to those horrendous shirts their team had to wear.
Caltex & SBS support Australian Football
Guest
The colour of Sydney is Sky Blue..
punter
Guest
Yes I agree Nemesis, we won't find out how good SFC are until they meet City, Perth, Brissy, unfortunately they have another easy one against Muscat's fightball team this week, so all Sydney can do is beat what is in front of them.
Nemesis
Guest
The 4 clean sheets are very impressive. Incidentally, after 4 matches last season Sydney FC were also clear on top of the league with 3 Wins 1 Draw. So, you're 2 points better this year than last year. Lets see how the story unfolds this year. By my observation, Sydney have played WSW, Nix, Jets and CCM. So, basically 3 'home' matches and the away win against the Nix win with a goal in the final minute where the Sydney coach thought you were lucky to win.
punter
Guest
We are top of league, we are top of the league.