Australian A League Round 13 Wrap Up & Stats

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Weekend Wrap

Melbourne Victory has now jumped out to a massive 12 points, the biggest ever lead in the Hyundai A-League, after another interesting weekend of action. The battles for second and fourth spots has become very tight and sets up for a thrilling last eight rounds of the home and away season. Yesterday’s blockbuster at Aussie Stadium, saw Sydney prevail over Adelaide again, while the Central Coast and Perth made sure they remain in finals contention with well earned victories. Melbourne made sure Frank Farina’s debut as coach of Queensland ended on a miserable note, with a 2-0 win.

Game Wraps
Queensland Roar 0 lost MELBOURNE VICTORY 2
Queensland Roar fans were hoping that new coach Frank Farina could inspire their team to a win that would hopefully resurrect their season, but two defensive blunders saw Melbourne come away with the three points. The first error came when Andrew Packer failed to notice Liam Reddy coming out for a Fred through ball and the former Sydney FC defender poked the ball past Reddy and into an empty net after ?? minutes. However Queensland had hope at half time, but within 60 seconds of the restart that hope was all but dashed when a long ball from Simon Storey eluded Josh McCloughan and then bounced over Sasha Ognenovski, allowing Archie Thompson to run in and lob over a stranded Reddy. Queensland tried to come back into it, but found the Melbourne defence in form with the closest they came to scoring when a deflected shot by Stu McLaren hit the post and came back out for a grateful Eugene Galekovic.

PERTH GLORY 2 bt Newcastle Jets 1
Luka Glavas came off the bench to give Perth Glory an astonishing 2-1 win over Newcastle Jets at Members Equity Stadium and keep their finals hopes alive. Defeat would almost certainly have ended any chance of them playing in the finals, but Glavas’ last kick of the game goal, saw them rise to just two points behind the Jets, Roar and the Mariners, who are level in fourth spot. Perth started well with captain Jamie Harnwell playing as a striker for the first time in his career and the move paid off when he headed home a first half goal. The goal was richly deserved and after the break they had numerous chances to extend the lead and were made to pay when Newcastle were awarded a penalty that Nick Carle blasted home. But with Newcastle looking the more likely to grab a winner, Bertos set up Glavas and he calmly stroked his shot past Kennedy for a deserved three points.

New Zealand Knights 0 lost CENTRAL COAST MARINERS 2
The New Zealand Knights fans were also hoping that a change of coach might inspire the team back to winning ways, but like Queensland succumbed 2-0 at home against Central Coast Mariners. The Knights would have been encouraged by the first half with a number of chances to score, although John Hutchinson from the Mariners would have been kicking himself after getting his shot horribly wrong when clean through on goal. No matter as he set up Damian Mori for the opening goal in the second half, Australia’s greatest goalscorer showing his younger counterpart how it done with a good finish. Nik Mrdja made it two in injury time with a terrific strike from a 20-metre free kick.

SYDNEY FC 2 bt Adelaide United 1
Arch rivals Sydney and Adelaide turned on a classic, tough clash at Aussie Stadium, with the home side continuing its dominance over its southern rivals with a 2-1 win. Adelaide shocked the home side with an early goal to captain Ross Aloisi, who capitalised on terrific work by Jason Spagunolo. But it didn’t take long for Sydney to hit back when they received a penalty for a handball by Michael Valkanis, with Ufuk Talay making no mistake from the spot. Shortly after an inspired Sydney took the lead when Mark Rudan pounced after Robert Bajic could only parry a Steve Corica shot. The match came to life in the second half as the niggle, so prominent in other clashes between these teams, returned with Sydney hanging on for a big win.

Highlights
Luka Glavas’ last minute winner made it a memorable day for the Perth Glory fans, who have had to watch their team for the past month on the box, with four away games in a row. The return of Lazaridis and Colosimo made a big difference and Perth fans will now be looking for another big win next week against the hapless Knights.

Goal of the Week
The Hyundai A-League has proved very frustrating for Central Coast’s Nik Mrdja, who prior to the inaugural season was the form player. But a knee injury saw him miss 16 months of football and since making his comeback three matches ago has slowly worked his way back. Against the Knights, he scored his first A-League goal with a thunderous strike from a free kick, which could well spark a hot run for the striker in the last eight weeks of the season.

Player of the Week
It has been a tough run for the boys from the west. Racked by injuries to key players, a horrendous month on the road, Perth welcomed a match at home and several of its senior players. Through the tough period, captain Jamie Harnwell has led the team superbly and when coach Ron Smith asked him to play in the totally foreign role of striker, he didn’t bat an eyelid. Typical Harnwell he accepted it was for the team and in true style he repaid the coaches faith by grabbing a goal and running his heart out, before getting a well-earned break with 15 to go. Ironically it was his replacement Luka Glavas that stole all the headlines with his last kick of the game winner.

One to Watch
Tommi Tomich has bided his time as a goalkeeper in Australia and is making the best of his opportunities at the present moment with Perth. In as a replacement for the injured Jason Petkovic, he came in for the match against Melbourne Victory and held them to one goal and was again looking impenetrable on Saturday, until Nick Carle blasted a penalty past him. Might be a key to their finals chances in the remaining eight rounds.

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A League Ladder after Round 13

Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1. Melbourne Victory FC	13	11	1	1	29	9	20	34
2. Adelaide United FC	13	7	1	5	23	17	6	22
3. Sydney FC	13	5	5	3	22	16	6	20
4. Queensland Roar FC	13	4	4	5	16	14	2	16
5. Central Coast Mariners FC	13	4	4	5	15	17	-2	16
6. Newcastle Jets FC	13	4	4	5	17	21	-4	16
7. Perth Glory FC	13	4	2	7	15	19	-4	14
8. New Zealand Knights FC	13	2	1	10	4	28	-24	7

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Be interesting to see how Melbourne go this week. They host Newcastle this Sunday at Telstra Dome but the interesting thing will be to see the depth of their squad. They have nine players from their first 11 who could be out injured. They arent major injuries, just a bunch of knocks and a broken noses etc, but certainly something to keep an eye on.

Watch this space

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Spot on Ads as the Melbourne Victory depth will be tested this week.

This season they have only had the occasional suspension and minor injury during its domination of the A-League, but the Victory's depth of talent could be sternly tested on Sunday. After limping away from Brisbane with a 2-0 win against the Queensland Roar on Friday night, the Victory coaching staff was yesterday still assessing the eight-man casualty list to see who will be available to play Newcastle Jets at Telstra Dome.

While it is expected most of the eight injured players will come up after corks and hard knocks, there is most concern on captain and midfield playmaker Kevin Muscat (knee), attacking Brazilian Fred (lower leg) and defender Daniel Piorkowski (hamstring).

X-rays have cleared Fred, sandwiched in a challenge and substituted at halftime, of a broken leg but he needed crutches to get around. Muscat will have an MRI scan today to check the exact nature of his knee worry and Piorkowski will be closely monitored.

That leaves Archie Thompson (corky), Simon Storey (corky), Steve Pantelidis (broken nose), Grant Brebner (head stitches) and Danny Allsopp (ankle sprain) as likely to play against the Jets.

Friday night's substitutes, Kristian Sarkies, Alessandro and Michael Ferrante, are in line for promotion in place of the injured trio.

The ability of the back-ups to perform under pressure was exemplified by goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic, who kept a clean sheet against the Roar in place of injured Michael Theoklitos.

Playing his first A-League game for a year, Galekovic was impressive with his handling. He made several good saves and quite an impression on Merrick.

Galekovic will probably head back to the bench if Theoklitos overcomes a minor back strain in what might be one of the few straightforward selection posers Merrick and staff face this week.

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A League Home and Away Ladders

HOME

		Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Avg_Pts
1	Melbourne Vict	7	5	1	1	14	7	7	16	2.29
2	Adelaide Utd	6	5	0	1	19	10	9	15	2.50
3	Sydney FC	7	3	3	1	12	7	5	12	1.71
4	Perth Glory	6	3	1	2	8	6	2	10	1.67
5	Newcastle Jets	7	3	1	3	11	11	0	10	1.43
6	Queensland Roar	7	2	2	3	9	5	4	8	1.14
7	CC Mariners	4	2	2	0	6	3	3	8	2.00
8	NZ Knights	8	2	1	5	2	11	-9	7	0.88

It should be worth noting that Central Coast Mariners are undefeated at home and due to a quirk in the draw, they play seven of their last eight games at home, including the next 5 rounds, and that has to be a huge advantage with no traveling whatsoever between Rounds 14-18. One would expect the favourable draw to result in a climb up the ladder for the Mariners over the last 8 Rounds.

Melbourne and Adelaide are still the top two home teams but Sydney and CCM are not far behind them. The four teams all average over 2 points plus when playing at home.

AWAY

		Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Avg_Pts
1	Melbourne Vict	6	6	0	0	15	2	13	18	3.00
2	Sydney FC	6	2	2	2	10	9	1	8	1.33
3	Queensland Roar	6	2	2	2	7	9	-2	8	1.33
4	CC Mariners	9	2	2	5	9	14	-5	8	0.89
5	Adelaide Utd	7	2	1	4	4	7	-3	7	1.00
6	Newcastle Jets	6	1	3	2	6	10	-4	6	1.00
7	Perth Glory	7	1	1	5	7	13	-6	4	0.57
8	NZ Knights	5	0	0	5	2	17	-15	0	0.00

Melbourne have been sensational away with an unbeaten run of six games. Sydney and Queensland are the only other two teams to average more than a point away from home. Perth and the Knights away form is fairly poor.

Only two teams have a positive For and Against goal difference when playing away, and that is Melbourne and Sydney. Adelaide has still only scored 4 goals away this season, and that figure will need to improve.

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Next Weeks Round 14 Matches

Friday 24 Nov
Sydney	Vs	Queensland Roar	8.00 PM	Aussie Stadium
Saturday 25 Nov
Central Coast Mariners	Vs	Adelaide United	7.00 PM	Bluetongue Stadium
Sunday 26 Nov
Perth Glory	Vs	New Zealand Knights	4.00 PM	Members Equity Stadium
Melbourne Victory	Vs