Following back-to-back wins, Markus Babbel has urged the Western Sydney Wanderers not to waste the remaining matches in their A-League season.
Western Sydney Wanderers coach Markus Babbel says there’s still too much of the A-League season remaining for his side to throw in the towel.
Following Western Sydney’s impressive 3-1 away win over Adelaide on Saturday, the Wanderers second consecutive victory, Babbel implored his team to make the most of the eight remaining matches.
The German conceded a top six finish is essentially impossible with Newcastle six points ahead in seventh and Wellington Phoenix a further six points clear in sixth.
But for the sake of pride, the integrity of the competition and to continue that “winning feeling”, Babbel urged his players to build momentum and finish the season strongly.
“If I play a game I want to win,” he said.
“We can’t give 10 games up now; of course we can’t finish on six but we still have 10 games to go – today was nine games.
“We want to get results this is also fair play to the other teams…now we want to have competition on the pitch and we want to try to get a result.
“Now it’s two top results, Central Coast and Adelaide and keep going now because there’s so many games to go and we want to improve.”
The Wanderers took the lead early against Adelaide thanks to Oriol Riera before the Reds equalised a minute before halftime.
Babbel said he took the opportunity at the break to challenge his troops to play smarter against the fourth-ranked Reds who he said were physically superior to his side.
Adelaide came out firing but Western Sydney weathered the storm and struck twice through Roly Bonevacia and Abraham Majok.
“That’s what I said at halftime,” Babbel said.
“Because they’re stronger than us, physically stronger, they’re quicker than us so we have to be smart.
“At half time I was talking to the boys, we changed tactically a bit and I said if we’re not starting to use our brain then we will lose the game because Adelaide are too strong.”
“But the second half was much better.”
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
This Babbel is a suspicious character. He looked dissapointed when the Wanderers scored which makes no sense whatsoever. The Foxtel commentary team you have to start raising questions about them. In the first minute Isais just blatantly kicked Bonevacia in the leg. He didnt even bother to pretend he was going for the ball. The Fox commentary team all they said was oh that is a foul. It was a definite yellow card, even question marks over it being a red it was so blatant. Then another dodgy challenge early on by Reds other hatchet man Boland and Wanderers would have probably laid down and let the opposition walk all over them at least put in some effort in. .