Analysis: Youthful Glory hit for six in Tasmania

It was a dark day in Perth Glory’s history yesterday, as the club succumbed to an embarrassing 6-0 defeat to Western United.

While Interim Head Coach Ruben Zadkovich did inform the owner of Perth Glory, Tony Sage, of the situation with player availability and how difficult the game would be, United brutally dismantled the youthful and inexperienced Perth Glory.

Embed from Getty Images

Lachie Wales had an astonishing performance, scoring a maiden hat-trick, and Connor Pain chipped in with two assists.

Starting line ups

(graphic source: SofaScore)

As mentioned prior, it was an incredibly youthful Glory side fielded by Zadkovich, with Darryl Lachman and Liam Reddy the only established senior players in the starting eleven.

For John Aloisi, it was a completely different story, as he put out his best team.

Major statistics

(graphic source: FotMob)

It’s been one of the Glory’s main issues this season; endless ball circulation with no end product.

To have 59% possession to the naked eye is an impressive feat, but the reality is, there are too many players on the team, regardless of quality or age, who don’t know how to break down an opposing team’s block.

Western United were clinical when presented with their opportunities, and that was due to their speed of play, but also their shot locations.

Shot locations from the game (graphic source: FotMob)

United had 14 shots inside the box, compared to Perth’s 1.

Obviously, if you have more shots inside the box, then the chances of goals occurring is likely.

This led to Western United having a final xG of 4.75 compared to Perth’s 0.63.

To put it simply, it was a clinic from United as they demonstrated to the inexperienced Perth side how to break down opposing teams.

Match analysis

Initially, the game was quite even with both sides testing each other out.

A decision that appeased many Glory fans was Ruben Zadkovich starting Daniel Stynes. Within the opening five minutes, he was receiving the ball in good areas and even created a fantastic opportunity for Josh Rawlins, who’s cross was deflected and went out for a corner.

It wasn’t a bad start for the Glory, however 20 minutes in, Rawlins was harshly penalised for what looked like an accidental handball. Fortunately, Liam Reddy was able to make the save from the ensuing penalty.

But just four minutes later, lack of defensive awareness caused the home side to grab their first goal.

One still image Interim Head Coach Ruben Zadkovich won’t want to see is this.

Connor Pain unmarked

Now, this isn’t the first time Western United have profited from the Glory player’s inability to be aware of their surroundings.

Round 2, the two sides faced off and United won that game as a result of a dodgy VAR call but more to the point, poor defending from the Glory.

I highlighted this issue on a piece I did for the A-League Wrap Up.

Diamanti in possession

Alessandro Diamanti isn’t going anywhere in this still image. He’s facing away from the goal.

Now the two players at fault for this goal were also at fault to a degree for United’s first goal yesterday.

Antonee Burke-Gilroy applied limited, passive pressure on the Italian. This allowed him to turn and play in Connor Pain, who was not tracked by Pacifique Niyongabire.

Pain, unmarked, makes his run down the line

Back to Western’s first goal against the Glory yesterday, it was a similar pattern.

Antonee Burke-Gilroy got beaten far too easily by Ben Garuccio, and Pacifique Niyongabire (who was ball watching) was not aware of Connor Pain, who was able to get his shot away and Lachie Wales was able to deflect the ball home.

Pain, about to shoot

Three Glory players were around Pain, yet none were able to affect the shot in any way.

The second goal Western United scored occurred two minutes later, and sadly it does not do Pacifique Niyongabire any favours.

Tomoki Imai was able to get the ball into the box, which Darryl Lachman got to first.

Lachman clearing the ball

However, notice Niyongabire’s positioning.

Situating himself in that area serves no purpose, other than perhaps getting front row seats to Glory’s most likely Most Glorious Player come season’s end.

Lachie Wales was in a dangerous area just outside the box, and Niyongbaire had to position himself closer to the attacker to affect any potential threat on goal.

He didn’t, and this happened.

Wales’ second goal

It was a cracker of a strike and unfortunately Liam Reddy could do absolutely nothing about it.

Western United’s third goal came just seven minutes later and sadly, it was due to Glory’s failed attempt on trying to progress the ball forward.

Antonee Burke-Gilroy played a wicked pass to Ciaran Bramwell, who tried to flick it on first time to Niyongabire who was trying to make a run in behind.

In that situation, it was the wrong choice for Bramwell. In that moment, he had to hold the ball up. There weren’t many options going forward.

So Topor-Stanley was able to intercept the attempted pass, found former Glory midfielder, Neil Kilkenny who played a beautiful lob over the top of three Glory defenders.

This allowed Connor Pain to get into a situation where he had lots of space to attack.

Pain receiving the ball

Now, what happened above, should never happen.

There was a four on two. The clear absence in structure can not be accepted at A-League level and it just shows that when you play the good teams, they will punish mistakes swiftly.

Glory being exposed in this manner caused severe disorganisation, which saw Ciaran Bramwell playing at right-back, and due to the unfamiliarity in that position, he allowed Pain to get away from him with ease.

Pain crossing the ball

The left-winger delivered a super ball to Dylan Pierias, who simply had to tap the ball home.

I mentioned how Daniel Stynes had a promising first five minutes. He’s honestly a player who should be getting more game time, and he made a great case why as a result of this pass.

This season what I’ve noticed, is that the Glory would tend to push the wingers inside, to have the fullbacks adopt wide areas however they would rarely be utilised.

One advantage of playing with inside forwards and high fullbacks, is that you can get at times situations like these.

Stynes in possession

Josh Rawlins has taken up a fantastic position. He now has the chance to make a blindside run, which he did, to which Daniel Stynes found him with a super ball.

Rawlins receiving

The 17-year-old did a terrific job to work the ball to Pacifique Niyongabire, who unfortunately couldn’t finish the chance.

Western United punished the Glory just under 10 minutes later, and this goal saw some very tidy link up play between Connor Pain, Neil Kilkenny and Ben Garrucio.

You get taught in grassroots football to try and create triangles with your teammates.

An advantage of utilising a triangle in possession is you can get a situation like this.

That, in combination with the Glory players not picking up their runners and also not restricting the space centrally, gives teams the opportunity to score very easy goals.

Perth started the second half how they ended the first, conceding a sloppy goal.

Antonee Burke-Gilroy was far from adequate in this game, as his final action was displaying a clear lack of discipline, by pulling Lachie Wales back inside the box. Aleksandar Prijović made no mistake from the spot this time.

Burke-Gilroy fouling Wales

It was totally unnecessary from the right-back, which saw him subbed off basically straight after the goal.

Joshua Anasmo had a decent opportunity in the 65th minute following some very tidy wide play from Tyler Vecchio, who was able to whip in a cross, to which the big striker unfortunate not to score.

United’s final goal, scored by Dylan Wenzel-Halls in the 82nd minute basically summed up the Glory’s horrid afternoon.

An overhit cross from Imai, was saved by Jerry Skotadis, who brought the ball down and smashed the ball across goal.

Jacob Young, the young defender, was not positioned correctly and was also flat footed, which caused the ball to deflect off of him straight to Wenzel-Halls who was able to force the ball home.

Young’s poor touch

Final thoughts

Words to describe that game could include insipid, embarrassing, or as Ruben Zadkovich said in his post-match conference, “extremely poor”.

It’s been a season to forget for the Glory and one would hope that the club is going to try and do absolutely everything in it’s power to rectify it next season.

A new coach has to be brought in. One that has experience and a quality CV, so that all of these players, young and old, can develop to much higher levels.

Signing players who are first of all, good enough, but secondly not injury prone would also assist the Glory next season.

Things need to be critically analysed by the club and action has to be taken, otherwise, next season will just be as abysmal.

A-Leagues, WA Football
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About the Author

James Renton