Oli Sail didn’t hide his disappointment after Wellington Phoenix fell to a crushing 4-0 defeat at the hands of Western Sydney Wanderers on Friday night at CommBank Stadium.
Wellington goalkeeper Oli Sail has described his side’s 4-0 loss to Western Sydney Wanderers as one of the “worst performances” he has seen the Phoenix put together in a “long time”, as their winless run stretched to five straight games.
The ‘Nix needed a win to all but secure a finals berth going into the final round of the Isuzu UTE A-League season but were overpowered by a sensational Wanderers outfit who jumped Wellington from the word go.
Sail made some integral stops to ensure the score didn’t balloon out beyond the already massive four-goal margin as Western Sydney leaped into second off the back of their sensational win.
As a result of the loss, Wellington now drop to sixth on goal difference behind Sydney FC and remain three points ahead of seventh-placed Newcastle Jets and eight-placed Western United who are in action on Saturday.
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The shot-stopper spoke to Paramount + post-game and didn’t mince his words when talking about the performance either, with the loss extending a miserable run of performances for Ufuk Talay’s side.
“Up there as one of the worst performances we have probably put out for a long, long time, including the first 30 minutes last week” he said.
“Defensively so far from what we are trying to do. It wasn’t even close to the game plan. They are a decent side, they move the ball nicely and we couldn’t even foul them if we wanted to. It took us 70 minutes to foul Brandon Borrello.
“They are a good side, they are a very good side and we made them look a lot better than they are. That doesn’t discredit what they are doing. They created a number of chances.
“I’ve played under ‘Rudes’ (Marko Rudan), I know how motivated they are going to be for the playoffs, especially in front of their fans.”
Wellington now must beat Macarthur FC next Saturday afternoon on the road, which should wrap up a return to the finals for the second successive season.
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However, their defensive lapses again came to the fore on Friday evening, having now conceded 17 goals in their last five games.
“I don’t think I’ve probably faced more one-on-ones in my career, in one game,” Sail said.
“How we bounce back from it? I don’t know. It’s been a pretty tough five weeks. We are going to do it right on the back-side of the ball. We can’t just be a team that moves the ball nicely and looks comfortable in possession, you have to do the other side of the game.
“For a good half of the season, we haven’t been doing that at all. That’s where we start.”
Outgoing ‘Nix coach Talay also weighed in on the performance post-game, echoing similar sentiments to Sail.
“Today it was men v boys,” Talay told Paramount +.
“We were second best to most of the second balls in the game. We didn’t deal with the balls over our heads at time and I think we were very sloppy in defending, in conceding a few transition goals and we were chasing the game, we were a little bit more open and they scored more in that sense.
“Overall, I think it was a poor performance. Like I said… it was men v boys today and was a game that we didn’t stand up to.”
