A-League: Sydney FC unconvincing as finals campaign looms

Sydney FC are second on the ladder but their recent form has been less than convincing.

Sydney FC coach Steve Corica. Picture: Getty Images

It’s a tough sporting landscape when a team sitting second on the table and still in with a chance of a record-making hat-trick of Premiers Plates has yet to convince even some of their own fans of their quality.

When that side is A-League powerhouse Sydney FC, a club that have largely carried all before them over the past 24 months or so, it opens up the situation to even more questions and scrutiny.

On the surface, the Sky Blues are seemingly poised to be in the thick of the action come finals time next month and in May, as the regular season enters the final seven rounds.

With 39 points from 20 games, Steve Corica’s men sit eight points behind leaders Perth Glory and one ahead of third-placed Melbourne Victory. There is enough time and points available for them to make a charge for the top spot, though that is growing unlikely.

At the least, the Sky Blues are headed for a spot in the top four and the important advantage of a home final that goes with it.

They are also on the right side of the statistics, having scored 39 goals, making them third-best in the league behind Perth (43) and Victory (42). Defence has been solid, conceding 22, just four more than Perth.

But the figures mask some issues the club will need to address in the lead-up to the finals.

The table might not show it but Sydney are not in the same bracket as Perth Glory and Melbourne Victory when it comes to the depth of the squad and quality of their football.

Where once you could safely say they were head and shoulders above the rest, now there is hesitancy and doubt.

As much as it has been said the team is playing well, clearly the Sky Blues have been struggling to impose themselves in front of goal and, subsequently, with their ­results.

They are creating chances, but the ruthlessness and the killer instinct they were once renowned for in exposing their opponents have disappeared. They are no longer feared.

The goals appear to have dried up, as they have returned just eight from their past seven games, and this is despite having the league’s leading goalscorer, Adam le Fondre, who has scored 14, four of them from penalties.

The Sky Blues’ past two goals, in the draw with the Mariners and the 1-0 win over Wellington Phoenix, have come via le Fondre and the penalty spot.

And that has had a knock-on effect, because Sydney have totalled just seven points from two wins, two losses and a draw from their past five games.

It is instructive that they managed a single point from successive games against the bottom two teams in the league, Brisbane Roar (a 2-1 loss) and Central Coast Mariners (1-1).

Certainly, this is going to be a test for Steve Corica, who is in his first season as a senior coach after taking over from Graham Arnold, the man who helped the club set all sorts of records during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.

While some will say he has inherited a quality squad, Corica has nonetheless made a good fist of the job so far given it wouldn’t have been easy to walk in Arnold’s shoes.

He has handled the pressure and appears to have won the trust of the players.

But now the hard part comes because Sydney need to rediscover their mojo.

Corica has an ageing squad and there are doubts whether marquee attacker Siem de Jong can stay injury-free. The situation is not helped by the fact that the Sky Blues will also have to contend with an Asian Champions League campaign, and with playing two games a week.

It’s all set up, then, for an intriguing finish to the season.

You’d be foolish to write off a team with the quality of le Fondre, Milos Ninkovic, Alex Brosque, Alex Wilkinson, Rhyan Grant, De Jong, Brandon O’Neill and Josh Brillante in their line-up.

But the time has come for the team to stand up and that could well start tonight against Adelaide United at inner-Sydney Leichhardt Oval.