Farina surprised by Sydney’s demolition job

Sydney FC coach Frank Farina says he was expecting an overdue good performance from his team, but admitted his surprise at watching the Sky Blues demolish Melbourne Victory 5-0.

Sydney FC coach Frank Farina says he was expecting an overdue good performance from his team, but admitted his surprise at watching the Sky Blues demolish Melbourne Victory 5-0.

Having not managed a win in their previous five matches, few would have tipped the visitors to dominate the contest to such an extent at Etihad Stadium on Sunday, where an Alessandro Del Piero brace, together with strikes from Ranko Despotovic, Sebastian Ryall and Nick Carle, accounted for the hapless hosts.

And although Farina felt his players were equipped to end their poor run of results, he was as surprised as anyone by the scale of the triumph.

‘No, look. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting five (goals) at all,’ he said.

‘The previous games when we’ve lost 1-0 we haven’t played great, but the teams we played (against) haven’t played great either. It was a matter of who was going to score first. We had opportunities in those games, but we didn’t take them.

‘I didn’t see five coming, there’s so point me sitting here and lying. But I saw a performance coming.

‘The overall performance was pleasing. To get the five goals as well was pleasing.

‘We didn’t have a bad player, I thought we controlled the game from first minute until the end. We weren’t under a lot of pressure, we created a lot of chances. The scoreline was probably a fair indication of the whole game.’

The only downside to the win for Sydney was an injury to influential former skipper Terry McFlynn, whose long ball forward set up Despotovic for the opening goal but was later subbed off injured at half-time.

‘He’s torn a muscle in his quad,’ Farina said.

‘I don’t know which one, but he’ll be out for a while.’

Farina did confirm that fullback Pedj Bojic, a late withdrawal for the game, and young forward Joel Chianese are likely to return to fitness soon.

‘Pedj Bojic … he was only ruled out this morning. Trained very well yesterday (Saturday) morning. Got off the plane and something was going down the back of his hammy. He should be fine.

‘Chianese should be ok, he got a bit of a knock and had to miss this week.’