RD 17 City travel to face the NRMAWSW

[NewConvert]

7 hours ago, Andrew Edmonds said:

Straight red card is a 3 game ban right..? Well Khalfala misses the derby! 

The Match Review Panel will look at the incident and then give a suspension. This could mean anywhere from 1 week to 8 weeks.

[HEARTinator]

Melbourne City's A-League title hopes could rest on strengthening defence

Date

January 30, 2016 - 2:24PM

Michael Lynch

Senior sports reporter with The Age

Attack: Mitch Nichols of the Wanderers and City's Anthony Caceres battle for the ball. Photo: Getty Images

The unstoppable force – Melbourne City's attack – met the immovable object in the form of the Western Sydney Wanderers' defence and midfield.

The result, a 4-3 triumph to the hosts at their Parramatta home ground, served only to whet the appetite for a repeat clash come A-League finals time.

The grand final would be appropriate after their Friday night thriller, which has quickly been dubbed the match of the season. 

But another encounter in any round of the play-offs has huge appeal. 

These sides have met three times this season, and the Wanderers have won two to City's one, scoring nine goals to City's six in the process. 

There is nothing John van 't Schip and his side want more than to get the chance of revenge.

But, if they are to square the ledger, they will have to do one thing much better than they did in Sydney on Friday, and that is to defend.

Too often Mark Bridge and Mitch Nichols got too much space and were allowed to get in behind to net three of the Wanderers' four goals and Brendan Santalab weighed in with what proved to be the decisive fourth late in the game.

Granted, van 't Schip's defensive options were severely limited after less than five minutes when captain and centre-back Patrick Kisnorbo limped off with an Achilles injury.

The club's other veteran, centre-half Aaron Hughes, was unable to back up off the quick four-day turnaround and was not selected.

So, for the bulk of the game, City faced the rampant Wanderers with debutant Osama Malik playing the anchor role in a back three, the back-from-suspension Jack Clisby, who came off the bench to replace Kisnorbo, and makeshift centre-half Jacob Melling, more often employed as a midfielder.

Still, when you have strikers of the calibre of Bruno Fornaroli and Harry Novillo, not to mention the creative talents of Aaron Mooy in the centre, anything is possible.

City went into this game averaging 2.5 goals a match and, although they bettered that, they still found themselves coming out of it with nothing because they were not able to hold the Wanderers out. 

Playing a high defensive line to compress the game, they were too often caught out by speedy attacks that broke the lines.

Van 't Schip has drawn criticism for the team's gung-ho approach, and there is no doubt he would like to have a less porous rearguard. 

But playing a defensive, counter-attacking game on the break is just not City's style these days. They like to go for it and work on the basis that they will outscore the opposition. 

It may not please some fans, who prefer a containment strategy, certainly against top-of-the-table rivals such as the Wanderers, but it certainly provides an exhilarating roller-coaster ride for supporters and entertainment for neutrals.

Few other teams could haul themselves back into contention when they were 3-0 down to the Wanderers with barely 25 minutes to go, so credit where it's due.

But the question also has to be asked: why did they let themselves get into that position in the first place? 

The fact they had to play out the final part of the game with 10 men after the dismissal of Anthony Caceres in just his second game for the club illustrates the scale of their achievement in getting back into it.

With Connor Chapman still missing for several weeks and Kisnorbo likely to be out for some time, City will be reliant on the ageing Hughes staying sound while Malik will have to adapt quickly to his new teammates as he needs to become a defensive lynch pin.

Van 't Schip lamented his side's lack of physicality and that is an area where they need to improve. Melling provides a combative option in the middle, but he can't contribute there if being press-ganged into service as an auxiliary stopper.

"They were very physical and targeting, as you can expect, Bruno and Harry and Aaron Mooy," van 't Schip said after the game. "We didn't have a right answer for that. They wanted it clearly more.

"In the end, they were aggressive and really wanting to get a good result and we didn't have that enough.

"We had to dig a bit too deep coming from 3-0 behind. The boys put in a great effort to close the gap but we just came up short.

"Playing with 10 in the end didn't help as well. The only negative is the result and Anthony Caceres got sent off in my opinion for nothing. He was devastated after the game."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/melbourne-citys-aleague-title-hopes-could-rest-on-strengthening-defence-20160130-gmhlsv.html#ixzz3ylYGFCaV
 

[Embee]

You can bring in whatever defenders you want, when your team is sent out to be as recklessly offensive as ours is and your midfield doesn't track back then it won't make any difference.

The players in the back 3/4 are getting let down by a terrible defensive system overall. For 3 of the 4 goals last night, almost every midfielder was out of frame when WSW were countering and scoring.

Unless JVS suddenly changes the way he sends this team out, or is sacked, we're going to continue to leak goals like we do, regardless of who we sign.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Embee

[playmaker]

Agreed, problem is if your wing weakness is exploited then the centre opens up like a sardine can, if you have traditional back 4 then the CB can zone and contain the centre.