Sydney FC head coach Ufuk Talay says his side have the strength in depth to cover for costly injuries and suspensions accrued in Friday night’s Semi-Final first-leg defeat to Central Coast Mariners.
The Sky Blues led 1-0 through Joel King but the game ended 2-1 in favour of the Mariners, as Talay was left to count the cost of a first-half injury to Jake Girdwood-Reich and red cards to Jack Rodwell and Corey Hollman.
MATCH REPORT: Premiers take charge of Semi-Final in comeback win over nine-man Sky Blues
Speaking post-game, Talay said his side will “never make excuses” as he laid out a plan of action for next Saturday’s return leg at Industree Group Stadium.
“We’ve been through this this year with injuries and suspensions, and we’ll go again,” Talay said. “Players will step up and take the role… we’ve still got (Gabriel Lacerda) and Gurdy (Aaron Gurd) to come into our backline, at the end of the day.
“If Jake is alright, Jake can slot in as a six if we really need him to. Max (Burgess) is available, we still have JK (Jaiden Kucharski) who wasn’t involved tonight. We still have players available and for us, we never make excuses. We’ll find solutions of what the best way is to win the game.”
Talay confirmed Girdwood-Reich suffered a cork in Friday’s Semi-Final, which led to his substitution just 19 minutes into the game. The 19-year-old was handed a start in central midfield against the Mariners, coming into the starting lineup in place of injured winger Joe Lolley.
When asked to explain the thinking behind starting Girdwood-Reich over Burgess, who played in Lolley’s position on the right of the attack after his injury in the Elimination Finals, Talay explained: “We thought we were playing at home and we could be on the front foot, and use guys that are very energetic.
“When the game opened up, we wanted to bring Max on and Max does that very well, he holds the ball up for us (and) brings players into the game, and he’s a technical player. That was the thought process leading into the game, playing against a very good side on the ball. We wanted to nullify them actually playing through us. And then we made the change because Jake got injured and we had to bring Max on.
“Yeah look, decisions are made (for) what we think is the best game plan, we live by our decisions and we die by our decisions.”
The Mariners fought from a goal down to beat Sydney 2-1 at Allianz Stadium, and the match-winning goal came from the penalty spot after a challenge from Anthony Caceres on Christian Theoharous.
“For me, I think he’s looking for the contact to go down,” Talay said, reviewing the foul that led to the winning goal.
“I think he’s on his way down as (Caceres) is coming across anyway. But that’s the referee’s call at the end of the day. He sees it the way he sees it, and he gave the pen, so it’s a pen.”
Just minutes after falling behind, Sydney were reduced to 10 men when Jack Rodwell was sent off for a tackle on Theoharous that referee Ben Abraham explained was “contact above the ankle” and “studs to the shin” after reviewing the challenge on the pitchside monitor.
“Yeah look, with Jack’s one I can only look at the big screen and see the replays,” Talay said. “If his feet come off the ground and there is contact, then the rules say it’s a red card.”
Sydney were reduced to nine men by full-time after Corey Hollman collected his second yellow card of the night in the 82nd minute, having caught Ronald Barcellos in the face with a raised arm – but before the home side’s second send-off came the decision to rule out Rhyan Grant’s equalising goal, for what appeared at the time to be an offside call on Gabriel Lacerda who supplied the assist.
But Talay explained that, in a conversation with the officials after the final whistle, the no-goal call was due to the ball crossing the byline before Lacerda picked out Grant at the far post.
“They didn’t give an offside,” he said. “I asked the officials after the game, and they gave a goal kick apparently. It wasn’t an offside. When it came back off Vukovic and (Lacerda) controlled it, they said the ball went out and gave a goal kick, not offside.”
Friday night’s result not only gave Central Coast the advantage heading into the return leg at Industree Group Stadium on Saturday, May 18, but dealt the Sky Blues only their second-ever post-season defeat in Sydney in the history of the Isuzu UTE A-League, through 18 games in their home city.
It was also Central Coast’s first win over Sydney this season; leading into the Semi-Finals, Central Coast had only lost two league games since Round 4, with both of those defeats coming against Talay’s side.
Mariners head coach Mark Jackson was asked post-game about how it felt to banish talk of Sydney becoming his side’s “bogey team” this season.
“Everybody was saying that,” Jackson said. “Listen, they’re a good team and they’ve beaten a lot of teams this year as well, they’ve got a great way of playing, they’ve got a good manager, good coaching staff, they’re well drilled so we knew we were going to come up against it.
“Everyone was talking about the two games, we’ve broken that now, but the next game is going to be even harder for us, because they’re going to bring it. That’s the type of team they are. We’ll be ready for that… Sydney are a formidable team and a dangerous team.
“You know what people say: beware of the wounded animal. We’ve got to be prepared for what they’re going to bring. We’ll do our homework, we’ll prepare the players physically and we’ll be ready. But we expect a tough, tough battle.”
