The Sydney FC slide and pressure on coach Steve Corica has continued after a 1-0 home defeat to a nine-man Wellington Phoenix in one of the more incredible finishes to a match in A-League history.
The defeat is a third in four league games for the Sky Blues who drop back out of the finals positions after incredibly missing two penalties in stoppage time following a series of bizarre refereeing decisions.
Amid all the drama, the stocks of Wellington boss Ufuk Talay continue to rise after engineering a Wellington win away from home despite having two players sent off.
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The finale to the contest reached near hilarious levels when Sydney was granted a penalty for a handball, despite the ball looking as if it had almost certainly struck the back of Phoenix defender Tim Payne.
Wellington star shot stopper Oli Sail saved the Adam Le Fondre effort, but another handball was spotted only seconds later only for Le Fondre to blast his next spot kick well over the crossbar.
“That sums us up at the minute. We’re good one week, poor the next. We can’t blame Alfy, he scores more than he misses,” said Sydney defender Rhyan Grant.
All of that ensued with the Phoenix down to nine men after Bozhidar Kraev received a questionable second yellow card for a challenge that grazed Robert Mak’s calf, and then a straight red for Nick Pennington for lightly grabbing Max Burgess’ throat in a fracas between the two.
Despite that, Wellington were able to hang onto a lead they gained just 41 minutes in when Polish striker Oskar Zawade got onto a through ball ahead of Andrew Redmayne in the Sydney goal and then exploited the Socceroos keeper’s error.
We went through all the emotions there. There were a few decisions there, not sure they were the right ones, but we managed to come through it and that shows the character of the group,” said Phoenix striker David Ball.
Wellington should have put away a contender for team goal of the year ten minutes later with a wonderful fifteen pass move that ended up at the feet of David Ball inside the six yard box, but his finish was straight at Redmayne.
Sydney thought they had a second half equaliser on the hour mark, and for good reason, when Rhyan Grant tucked away an Adam Le Fondre flick on, but the VAR ruled it off-side by what must have been the barest of margins.
— NCA Newswire
