Western Sydney Wanderers striker Brendon Santalab ruled out of match against Adelaide United

BRENDON Santalab has been ruled out of Saturday night’s match against Adelaide United, as a fatigued Western Sydney Wanderers side play their fifth match in 15 days.

BRENDON Santalab has been ruled out of Saturday night’s match against Adelaide United, as a fatigued Western Sydney Wanderers side play their fifth match in 15 days.

The Wanderers returned from China following their heavy 5-1 defeat to Shanghai SIPG, with coach Tony Popovic saying a number of players are carrying “bumps and bruises” from the busy schedule.

While he still has time to assess who is fit enough for the game, Popovic has already ruled Santalab out.

“We won’t have Brendon Santalab, who will unfortunately miss the game due to a very minor injury,” he said. “It’s one that kept him out in China as well.”

The Wanderers’ busiest period began well with a shock win over rivals Sydney FC, but they went on to lose against Perth Glory before travelling to China.

The scheduling hasn’t helped A-League teams taking part in the Asian Champions League, but Popovic doesn’t want to use it as an excuse for his team’s poor performance. He does admit, though, that the Asian clubs have improved.

“Have the others improved? I believe yes,” Popovic said.

Western Sydney Wanderers striker Brendon Santalab has been ruled out of Saturday night’s clash with Adelaide United through injury.

“The (scheduling) issue that Australian clubs are facing have always existed - they’ve been highlighted further by the recent results, our club included, in terms of poor results.

“We don’t want to make excuses, we won the competition a few years ago. In these two games so far we haven’t been good enough in the games, we’ve been punished for errors and that shows you the level of competition the ACL is.”

Domestically, Saturday night’s match is crucial as the Wanderers continue to hang on to sixth spot - just.

Popovic is hoping his team replicate the performance they showed they are capable of against the Sky Blues.

“Now’s the time to step up and we need a good reaction from the players,” he said. “We’re playing in front of our home fans, we really want to put n a performance like we did couple of weeks ago in the derby. We know we’re capable and we need to show that against an Adelaide team that has a lot of quality. They don’t have much to lose with this match and we’ve got to make sure that we do all the little things well - the small details to enable us to get the three points.”