A-League: Light at end of the tunnel for Wanderers

Western Sydney coach Markus Babbel says this is no time to bury his head in the sand.

Wanderers striker Oriol Riera takes on Melbourne Victory’s Leigh Broxham

His team might have ended one of the toughest weeks in the club’s short history with a loss that leaves their finals hopes teetering, but Western Sydney coach Markus Babbel says this is no time to bury his head in the sand.

Just four days after captain Brendan Hamill suggested the team needed to show more fight following a 2-0 loss to Melbourne City, the Wanderers produced possibly their best performance of the season to go down 2-1 to Melbourne Victory at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.

Victory were far from their best but got the points off the back of an Ola Toivonen double.

Western Sydney deserved to get more out of the game after taking it to the defending champions and giving them an almighty fright.

The performance provided some light at the end of the tunnel for a club that was put under the intense spotlight after the Wanderers active fan group, the Red and Black Bloc, staged a walkout 10 minutes into the second half of the game against City in protest at the team’s performance.

Hamill’s frank post-match comments were followed the next day by chairman Paul Lederer issuing an open letter to members calling for patience, putting his support behind Babbel and declaring the club’s future was bright.

In praising his players for the performance they put in against Victory, Babbel also downplayed the fallout from the City loss, declaring it was wrong to criticise the effort of the players and denying they did not show any fight.

“Everyone saw a big problem and we were criticised (after the City game). But, we can win this game easily … (but for) two unbelievable mistakes at this level. We had three massive chances and dominated the second half even more, then you see the result … no fight, not good. This is not true.”

However, there was no doubting the Wanderers’ commitment on Saturday night or Babbel’s belief that the club can still figure come finals time, even if they have slipped seven points out of the top six.

“It (the finals) has to be the target. We keep going, keep going,” the German said. “I know it is a big gap but I believe in my team. We just have to work harder.

“This is no time to put the head in the sand. So we lost and it is hard to accept because we were the better team, just like last week. That’s football.

“Tonight I feel very sad for the players because the performance was very good. I am very proud.”

As has been the case for a good slice of the season so far, the Wanderers were made to pay for their wastefulness in front of goal. They had the Victorians on the back foot for much of the first 45 minutes and could easily have been two or three up before they were caught with a sucker punch goal from Toivonen. The Wanderers then equalised through Alex Baum­johann’s penalty before Toivonen grabbed his second.

“We created many chances. We had maybe six or seven big chances and they had maybe three or four and we could only score one,” Babbel said.

“This has been the big difference for us this season.”

Still, he refused to blame the strikers, in particular Oriol Riera, who appears to have lost his confidence. Riera missed a penalty against City the other night that could have made a huge difference.

“This is not about the striker, it is a team problem,” he said.

“We missed two great chances from set pieces.”

Having seen the commitment from the players against Victory, Babbel wants to see it again when they back up against Wellington Phoenix tomorrow night.

“The mentality, the attitude was top and this is the basic now for me to work on for the next games. I saw it from them tonight and I want to see it again,” he said.