An 88th-minute penalty miss from striker Adam Taggart denied the Glory the opportunity to salvage a late draw, as they went down 2-1 to the Wellington Phoenix.
The first away trip of the season for the players saw a slight change in preparation, as they arrived in New Zealand a bit earlier than normal.
Unfortunately, the Glory did not get off to the best of starts.
It’s clear the players were struggling to find their feet as Wellington jumped out of the blocks pretty early and created a few decent opportunities.
Nine minutes in and the Nix were in front courtesy of an Oskar Zawada chip from a fair way out over Oli Sail.
You have to feel for the Glory goalkeeper as it was yet another mistake that has cost the team a goal.
In fairness to the players, they got their heads back into the game pretty quickly and got their rhythm back.
In the 32nd minute mark, Alen Stajcic’s side should’ve been level as Aleksander Šušnjar’s volley, was somewhat of a shank though it fell nicely for Jarrod Carluccio, where all he had to do was direct the ball home, however the strike went wide.
David Williams, who came on for Luke Ivanovic 18 minutes in, also had a great opportunity that was cleared off the line.
There was a feeling that as the game went on, it was a matter of time before the Glory would score and just before the hour mark, the captain Mark Beevers scored a towering header following a great delivery from the free kick from Oli Bozanic.
From there, the Glory really got going and the momentum definitely swung in our favour.
Adam Taggart had a great opportunity with a header that just went wide, however it was the Phoenix who got the go-ahead goal in the 77th minute.
A misplaced pass from Oli Bozanic saw the Nix spring a very quick counterattack that saw Bulgarian forward Bozhidar Kraev score from close range.
It was a sucker punch goal as it came against the run of play, but again, the Glory players kept going.
A sloppy yet dubious penalty was conceded by the Nix following a bizarre handball from Nix left-back Lukas Kelly-Heald.
Unfortunately for the Glory and for Adam Taggart, who took the penalty, the Wellington goalkeeper Alex Paulsen guessed the right way and saved the penalty.
Now the loss obviously left fans very disappointed and in somewhat unsurprising fashion, a lot of fans blamed a fair amount of it on our new goalkeeper Oli Sail.
I can understand it too. In essentially every game he’s played for the team, he’s made some sort of mistake.
West Ham, Macarthur, Newcastle and now Wellington, it’s clear Sail has struggled to keep a consistent level of focus and concentration to be the best ‘keeper he can be.
Fans have also called for Cameron Cook to get a go. I believe if Oli can’t improve his performances over the next few weeks, Cook should take his place.
Sail is an experienced and international goalkeeper who should be doing far better than he currently is.
Now looking at a more macro level for the team, we actually played well for the most part and the numbers show that while the results aren’t there, there’s enough plausible evidence to show we are on the right path.
The data showed that it was another game that the Glory should’ve won, with the xG for the Glory being 2.37 to Wellington’s 0.81.
Over the course of the season, at the time of writing, the Glory are first in the league for xG (4.7) and for xG conceded they’re 10th (1.3).
We are creating chances and we are defending reasonably well, it’s just at this moment we’re just unlucky in both areas.
Our pressing has improved significantly. Glory are third in the league for possession won in the final third (8.5).
This is promising, as the players go on throughout the season, we will be scoring more goals from our ability to turn the ball over in the opposition’s defensive third.
In essence, Stajball is working. It’s just that the results aren’t there, yet.
Hopefully, a few players can come back from injury over the next few weeks and in our next game against the Mariners, we can try and get our season going with a win at home.
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