Sydney FC have inflicted a 3-0 defeat on Macarthur FC to bring the Bulls’ unbeaten five-game A-League Men’s run to an end.
After last week’s victory over Wellington snapped their winless start to the campaign, Steve Corica’s Sky Blues have now made it two on the spin.
Patrick Wood opened the scoring thanks to a well-weighted Max Burgess pass across the goalmouth, before Trent Buhagiar set up Burgess in an identical vein just before the half-hour mark.
Buhagiar got in on the act in the second half as Macarthur’s defence, which had conceded just once from open play this season, was comprehensively outplayed at Campbelltown Stadium.
Sydney were without Bobo and Elvis Kamsoba due to positive COVID-19 diagnoses, while English frontman Adam Le Fondre was also ruled out as he awaits scans to determine the severity of a hamstring complaint.
Wood and Trent Buhagiar were chosen to start up top and after Craig Noone and Moudi Najjar tested Andrew Redmayne early, Wood tapped in the opener in the 11th minute.
Paulo Retre cushioned a through ball into the box with Burgess squaring across the face of goal for Wood to finish from close range.
Macarthur asked questions of the Sydney back four, but were unable to find a way through and with that the Sky Blues needed no invitation to extend their lead.
A miscued pass in the Bulls’ half from Adrian Mariappa was picked off by Buhagiar who burst forward with electric pace leaving the Bulls’ defenders in his wake.
The forward raced to the byline and cut a pass back towards an unmarked Burgess who netted in the 29th minute.
Buhagiar was enjoying some good fortune down the right and that continued in the second half when he delivered a pinpoint cross to Burgess who was only able to flash his header to the side of the post.
Buhagiar made no mistake a few moments later when he slotted a cool finish in the 59th minute to put the game beyond doubt.
A corner deflected Wood’s way and the forward skimmed Noone at the byline before steering a pass back into heavy traffic.
Buhagiar was on hand as the pass fell in his direction and the Sydney forward made no mistake to fire past Nick Suman and make it three.
jbinnie
Guest
brainstrust - The game as played by Sydney last night was what I would term pure 60's football, with speedy players using the wide areas to outpace defenders, cut he ball back into a turning defence, and finding opportunist players to tuck the ball away. Entertaining?-For sure, Speedy ? For sure, What the fans love to see? For sure, Only two things sour that spectacle, between 1960 and 2000 football as a sport went through a debatable "improvement" when players were taught how to "defend" ,sometime en - masse and the former 5-4 and 4-3 matches almost disappeared from the scene and the saying "keep possession for possessions sake" made sure those fans enjoyment was extremely curtailed. This game brought back memories of that time but what will happen is that the McArthur coach will have a look at the outcome and realise that a 'skill" ( ie speed) showed up his defence as horribly vulnerable and no doubt will take tactical steps to close those danger areas down somewhat and we will return posthaste to the low scoring, negative retention of the ball, we have been subject to these last 20 years. Can it be changed? Leave it to you. Cheers jb.
Grem
Roar Rookie
Their young players did look good last night. It was good to see them put the ball in the back of the net - something that didn't previously happen and that was why they returned to Bobo and LeFondre. Hopefully they can continue to play and perform like this. Their combination play was very pleasing to the eye and it was one of Sydney's better games to watch.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Sydney with a younger team was great and Sydney have a lot of talented youth. When you have multiple players with pace if one makes a break then the others have the pace to get in a position to support them. Australian football has gone down the seniority path with the so called golden generation and their entitlement complex. At what point is it going to be so obvious that all these old players are useless and earning 10 times what better young players are doing.