Ufuk Talay while pleased that his side didn’t lose at home to Melbourne City was disappointed to not come away with all three points.
The Sky Blues had more possession than their opposition and had almost double the number of shots at goal but weren’t able to find a way through other than Jordan Courtney-Perkins’ first half rocket into the top corner.
The reason behind that, he couldn’t quite put his finger on but the Head Coach did want to give credit to Melbourne City who set up well to counter the attacking prowess of Sydney.
“I would say we maybe lacked that cutting edge at times inside the box but they defended the box quite well so I gotta give them a bit of credit.
“We want to win all of our games at home so I am disappointed that we dropped the two points but for me the performance that the boys put out there I was quite happy with,” Talay said.
“Their full backs normally step out which they didn’t against us and they tried to stay with the back four which meant our full backs had it in wide areas rather than our 10s making forward runs so they have done their homework on us.
“Saying that though, we still got into some good areas but just lacked that clinical final pass which let us down at times.”
Based on where the team was during the first match under Ufuk Talay compared to where they are now is quite the progression and the Head Coach can also see the change in his side especially in regard to their fitness levels.
Next up for the Sky Blues is a visit to CommBank to take on the Wanderers and Talay isn’t going to waver from his identity.
“You can see that the boys are getting fitter and stronger and we’re creating an identity of what Sydney FC looks like.
“We are way ahead of where we were in that first game and we are going to go there to try and win the game. We’re not going to sit back and defend. We are going to go and attack their goal.
“The loss here [Allianz Stadium] still hurts me as I think when we conceded we were starting to get on top and just didn’t capitalise on those chances,” he said.
For this clash against the Wanderers, Talay will be without his captain who picked up his 5th yellow card of the season but will have to wait on the check of another of his starters.
“He [Luke Brattan] was pretty gutted in the changeroom and disappointed that he will miss the derby but these things happen within games.
“With red cards and suspensions comes opportunities for other players,” Talay added.
“Fabio has a cork. I’ve not spoken with the medical team but we will find out soon how he is.”
Finally, Talay wanted to highlight the back four that played brilliantly and also highlighted Jordan Courtney-Perkins who has been playing out of position.
“I thought Hayden [Matthews] and Jakey [Girdwood-Reich] were very good again and I don’t think Jamie [Maclaren] had a sniff and he’s the leading goalscorer in the competition.
“Rhyno [Rhyan Grant] did very well too and I thought Jordy had a cracker of a goal which was great but the build up was quite exciting too.
“Jordan says at training that it’s unpredictable where the ball will go and that was definitely unpredictable,” he joked.
“He isn’t naturally a left back, he is in fact a centre back and he’s come in due to an injury and done a fantastic job. Everything that we ask him to do he tries to do and that’s now his second goal of the season and what a cracker it was.”
