Adelaide United v Sydney FC Match Day Jamboree!!!©

[sevengoals]

Adelaide United 4-3 Sydney FC
97min

Must be fun for the neutral.

[otto62]

The commentators have aching for and cheering for a Sydney comeback all half. Even with a two goal lead it’s “Sydney would be right back in this if …” and “If only that shot that hit the post had gone in …”

Well they have one now ...

Then their next comment was “I wonder how much time the Ref will add on.” As though there isn’t an amount nominated.

[sevengoals]

Adelaide United 4-3 Sydney FC

Game over and what a game!

[sevengoals]

The commentators have aching for and cheering for a Sydney comeback all half. Even with a two goal lead it’s “Sydney would be right back in this if …” and “If only that shot that hit the post had gone in …”

Well they have one now ...

Then their next comment was “I wonder how much time the Ref will add on.” As though there isn’t an amount nominated.

I can answer that one ...

Not bloody enough!

[otto62]

Great win. Dug in deep.
Scored plenty. Conceded plenty. It’s the Adelaide way.

[EdDog]

Nervy finish but great result.

Some sublime goals.

Deserved win after only picking up 2 points in the last 2 home games.

Tunnicliffe very good in DM and Hiro having the game of his life.

Well done Reds!!!

[otto62]

Up to 5th. (That late goal …)
One of the reasons why I love the A-League.
Such a tight competition, where anyone can beat anyone, and one win can leap you up the ladder.

[EdDog]

Great win. Dug in deep.
Scored plenty. Conceded plenty. It’s the Adelaide way.

They said during the commentary that we have the highest xG for this season... And the highest xG against

Makes for entertaining games at least!

[sevengoals]

[red wombat]

I didn't realise the game was on
What a game to miss, especially with Hiro in such fine form.

[RedTide]

Such a strange game to watch. We should have been 3 - 0 down after the first 15 minutes, but thanks to Sadney's calamitously bad shooting, it was only 1 - 0. Once our first one went in, I was then confident that we would go on to win. We had our swagger back and we were finally controlling the central third of the pitch.

Hiro had his best game ever for us. Yes, he is the slowest player in the side, but he has clearly been told to either get to the opposition penalty spot and shoot, or stand on the 6 yard line and win every header that he can - and it's working. You can see the panic that he causes opposition defences. Last week, he was triple teamed by the Cows and he was still winning headers and causing mayhem. Dragging those defenders towards him then has the benefit of opening the spaces wide, for either Nestory or Ben Halloran to exploit. It's working brilliantly.

Isa looked like the Isa of old - going in hard on the tackles and winning every ball that he possibly could; classic La Liga (or La Liga Segunda anyway) technique that brought him here. The Foxtel commentators revealed something that I have not heard about him before - that he considers Adelaide to be his true home and AUFC as his true club and wants to stay on as a coach, once he retires from active service. I say offer him a guaranteed assistant coaching position now, so he can start planning the next 2 - 3 years now, for him and his family. With Marcelo Carrusca's youth academy now a formal part of the AUFC and potentially Isa as our midfield and/or defensive coach, what a back office structure we would have. It would be the envy of the competition.

Delianov seems to have knocked a lot of the rust off and I think only made one clear error, when he bowled the ball out directly to a Sadney player and it nearly cost us a goal. The backline saved him (and us), but that was the only obvious blemish that I can recall.

The second half was just madcap stuff, very end to end and it was one of those matches when all 3 possible results were in play. I actually tipped us to win in my tipping competition ... but it was more in hope than out of cold logic. A very strange match all round.

Does anyone know why we played in white? If it was our 'home' match, why did we have to play in our away strip? Both teams were playing in their away strips, which made no sense at all. Just like the needless own goal about ranking teams on the ladder by wins, instead of goal difference (if equal on points), it made no sense to me. I just don't understand after all the problems with the old Football Australia management how it is that APL can keep making just stupid, unforced errors.

Anyway - now we have a bit of a break before we visit MC Petrodollars in Crimebourne and as I've said before, we are their Kryptonite, so that could well be 2 wins on the trot, against teams that are far better resourced than we are. Interesting times.