Sky Blues must lift against Wanderers
SYDNEY FC coach Steve Corica is demanding a response from his team in their A-League derby following their stunning capitulation last week.
The Sky Blues will meet Western Sydney tonight in the second derby of the season, where they hope to bury their last-start 3-1 loss to Wellington.
It was their heaviest defeat in over 32 months but Corica refuses to push the panic button and pinpoints a strong start as the priority at ANZ Stadium.
Sydney have conceded the first goal in their past three league matches – two of which they lost – leaving them in danger of dropping out of the top six.
“It was uncharacteristic mistakes (last week). It was only the first-half performance. The second half was a lot better,” Corica said yesterday.
“We need to start well in this game, especially the first half, get up and running and be on the front foot.”
The Sky Blues have lost only one of their past 15 contests against the Wanderers and claimed a controversial 2-0 win in their first match-up in round two.
However, this time not only are Sydney reeling from a shock upset but Western Sydney enter the clash buoyed by a tidy 2-0 win over Central Coast last week.
Corica said it was important his side put last week’s effort behind them.
“Obviously we look at that game first and focus on how we can improve from that game. We’ve done that and now it’s the Wanderers,” he said.
“I’m more interested about the way we start games and how we approach them and the way we want to play football.”
The Sky Blues are expected to make a couple of changes to their line-up, with marquee Siem de Jong and Daniel De Silva a chance of starting. For the Wanderers, import Patrick Ziegler is in some doubt after aggravating a knee injury that kept him out of the opening six games of the season.
Attacking Roly Bonevacia could make a return from a hamstring issue.
New A-League club Western Melbourne say they’ll waste no time getting to work on their new stadium, aiming to play matches there by season three.
Bid spokesman Steve Horvat laid clear the club’s ambition to sign marquees and challenge for the title in their first season, beginning in October.
“We’re looking at Alessandro Del Piero levels (of signings). We know we have to make an impact straight away. We’ve built that into our budget,” Horvat said.