Talk about another bloody Sunday. It was a Sunday when Tony Popovic dropped his departure bombshell in 2017, and another Sunday when Carl Robinson became the latest coach to leave the club having failed to emulate the success wrought by Popovic.
Now Mark Rudan has been handed the tiller until the end of the season, an undoubted audition for the long term while the club tries to work out what that long-term strategy should be.
With the best stadium in the A-League, a fan base that is second to none when it’s engaged with the team, and even one of the best kits, so many of the key ingredients are already in place. And yet for five long seasons, the recipe hasn’t worked, to the degree that former coaches have made pointed and personal comments on social media as to why.
As Rudan prepares to coach his first game against Perth Glory on Wednesday, there are five key areas to address.
Winning. This sounds screamingly obvious, and yet no blueprint or overhaul will succeed at a club that is habitually losing. The very reason Western Sydney was so successful as an entity so quickly from its formation was the success Popovic brought on the pitch. Everything else under his reign was subservient to a culture of winning, but the brutal truth is that the Wanderers have failed to win more than a third of their games in any season since losing the grand final in 2016.
Football department. With Rudan in charge to the end of the season, the club is again in a hiatus where a departed coach’s squad is being overseen by a temporary replacement. Wanderers owner Paul Lederer has spent laudable sums on the club’s training base and its facilities, but the question remains of whether another senior figure is needed to work closely with the head coach. At clubs from Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund to Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United, a football director is in place to plan for the long-term and instil a playing style and an ethos that isn’t ripped up each time a coach leaves.
Set pieces. Opta data shows that Western Sydney have conceded more goals from setpieces than any other team since the start of last season, an incredible 42% of all goals conceded, and scored among the least from their own setpieces. Carl Robinson was working a man down after his assistant, Kenny Miller, left just before the start of the season and was only replaced by Gary van Egmond a few days ago. Setpieces are incredibly time consuming and yet they are a crucial part of a team’s armoury.
Goalscorers. Also an apparently obvious point, but who will share the load beyond Tomer Hemed? Last year Robinson actually oversaw one of the most widely prolific attacks in the competition; the problem then was the equally leaky defence. But this year seven goals in seven games isn’t finals form, and the exit of Mitch Duke has been keenly felt. Coaxing goals out of his attacking players beyond Hemed becomes crucial to Rudan’s fortunes.
The anti-fortress. Since the Wanderers returned to Parramatta at the rebuilt CommBank Stadium, they have lost a third of games there, 10 out 29, and won only one more. In the old stadium, the team used to feed off the atmosphere, so how do they get that back? The fans have a key role in that, but somehow Rudan has to ensure his team is inspired by their impressive home ground, particularly as a product of Western Sydney himself.
