Second-half goals to Brandon O’Neill and Bruno Fornaroli have given Perth Glory a 2-1 A League Men win over Sydney FC.
Glory captain and former Sydney FC midfielder Brandon O’Neill gave the visitors a 55th minute lead on Saturday, when he slotted the ball home after goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne pushed out a shot from Jack Clisby.
Bruno Fornaroli doubled their advantage at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium by lashing a shot into the net in the 85th minute.
Sydney got a goal back in added time as Anthony Caceres scored from a penalty after substitute Mustafa Amini was fouled by O’Neill.
“Tonight they played not only with their bodies but with their brains and managed the game very well and managed themselves very well,” Garcia said.
With the WA government this week changing their decision not to reopen their border on February 5, Glory, who haven’t played a home game since November, now face an indefinite amount of time away from home.
“It’s been a very tough few months and it’s fantastic to see their resilience as a group, their togetherness is pulling them through times that are difficult,” Garcia said.
The win lifted Perth four spots to eighth and Sydney stayed sixth.
At the 63 minute mark and with his team clinging to a 1-0 lead, Garcia made a daring double substitution by introducing two strikers in former England striker Daniel Sturridge and Republic of Ireland international Andy Keogh.
“We started to get on the back foot and I thought if I bought the strikers on it might actually get us back on the front foot so it was good we capitalised on that and we got another goal,” Garcia said.
Sturridge, who has yet to start and has made three cameo appearances off the bench, looked lively and released Adrian Sardinero with a great pass, but the Spaniard’s close range attempt was blocked by Redmayne.
Garcia said it was another step in the right direction for the striker, who did appear to be struggling in the closing minutes.
“He said he had a bit of tightness so we’ll check that out,” Garcia said.
He was non-committal about Sturridge starting the next game, but suggested the star recruit needed to play 45 and 60 minute blocks before playing a full match.
Neither team showed much imagination, creativity or intensity in a turgid and dull first half.
“We spoke about at halftime to take more risks and make sure we were rewarding strikers good runs, I thought the second half they started to do that quite a bit more,” Garcia said.
The loss completed a miserable week for Sydney, who scored just one goal across three home games, losing an FFA Cup semi-final after being held at home by Brisbane.
“We didn’t take our opportunities when they came along,” Sydney coach Steve Corica said.
“Both (Perth) goals I’ve got to say that was poor defending, very sloppy and you can’t afford to do that.”
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
thrashed? 2k crowd? rrriigght
NoMates
Roar Rookie
Thrashed 3-1 by a woeful Adelaide at home with a 2k crowd, told you the win over Glory was a fluke.
Ac
Guest
Only 45,000 watched the game on TEN’s main channel across 5 cities. That has nearly got to be. Record low for anything. Channel TEN must tell advertisers some great story to get anyone to advertise on them. No screaming figures for Paramount plus which doesn’t auger well. Where are the fans ?
BennoFootball
Roar Rookie
Official Stats : BRFC v pgFC Possession: BRFC 52% pgFC 48% Goal Attempts: Shots on Goal : BRFC 28 pgFC 5 Shots on Target: BRFC 9 pgFC 1 Corner Kicks: BRFC 11 Corners pgFC 0 ( ZERO ) Corners The ALL Important LONG BALLS: BRFC 48 Long Balls pgFC 65 LONG BALLS FORZA BRISBANE ROAR FOOTBALL CLUB!!!
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
What was Perth glorys game plan? I couldn;t quite make sense of what the plan was. Lachman is a good centerback, but when he was played wide in a back three previous season was beaten for pace quite often, Kamsoba beat him for pace in the second half and Buhagiar beat him for pace quite often. . Perth need to have two main centerbacks not four and spend the money elsewhere.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
Shots 12-3, Shots on target 8-1 but yeah, fluke :silly:
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
It wasn't the greatest game to watch, but credit where credit is due: Perth Glory have had a rough trot with the fixture, and came up with a well executed game plan which ultimately gave them the 3 points. They are effectively locked out of their own state, and they have a few players who have barely played any football for months, let alone actually playing with each other. Already you can see there is more to come from the likes of Sturridge and Sardinero. The latter having quite a good game, and when Sturridge came on, he showed a fair bit of class, in fact set up Sardinero for a shot at close range with a dinky little chip minutes after coming on. Special mention for Lachman, has had a good season, and showed last night what a fantastic acquisition he is for the Glory, an absolute rock in defence, and on more than one occasion, had to beat Kamsoba in a foot race to the ball.
NoMates
Roar Rookie
SFC should be no where near FTA TV, they play some of the worse dire football i have ever seen period. So glad i switched channels until close to the end where Glory scored. As for Glory they were unlucky last week again Roar losing by a fluke goal and this week they put it behind them and kept attacking SFC which paid off in the end.
AGO74
Guest
I’d suggest if channel 10 want to boost ratings that they don’t put Sydney FC on. We are pretty painful to watch at the moment. Haven’t seen us playing this dull and this predictably since the Farina days. There’s enough of a sample size in games this year to say that this is not a blip and is instead underlying issues. My concern going into this year is that we were going to the well one too many times with both the senior players and playing the same tactics and with nothing really changing this year we’ve been found out. Seems to be no Plan B or players capable of executing a Plan B. Kudos to Perth glory for a morale boosting win on what must have been a very hard week for them with the eztended border shutdown. They’ve got the players to go on a run if they can stay motivated away from home.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Sydney lost because they started Bobo, he could have had two tap ins and was asleep. Corica is fearful of playing youth , and has not given the rest of his players a rest so adding in Bobo who hardly runs means they have to work a lot harder and the opposition have no problem playing out. Its a mystery what Corica does with youth players, we saw Connor OToole for the first time, and he looked perfectly fit. Ninkovic on the other hand has a knee problem , misfiring, yet keeps on getting played , it seems the threshold if a player is old and they have a heartbeat they get on the field, if they are young on the other hand the threshold is a lot higher. Western United had the same issue Priyovic didnt look fit either, Diamanti blew three shots in the area , he seems to be a player now that does 1 good thing out of every 5 and the commentators pretend he is unbelievable. Amazingly another commentator went on and on in the match about Ninkovic and his workrate in defence , well yes 5 years ago. Perth saved their good players for Sydney FC against Brisbane they started 4 centerbacks and three 9's . It seems injury is the only way that A-league coaches can do anything sensible.