Carl Robinson insists that the decision to award a penalty to Sydney FC in the recent 1-1 derby draw was a “very harsh” decision for Western Sydney Wanderers.
The match began with the Sky Blues showing early dominance by forcing goalkeeper Daniel Margush to make a couple of early saves to keep his side in the game.
But while the Wanderers came back into the game and showed good intent and creativity in the second period, a contentious penalty decision ended up with them going a goal down just after the hour mark.
Milos Ninkovic had combined well with Paulo Retre for a one-two as he made his way into the box, but ended up running into James Troisi and the referee immediately stopped the game to point to the spot. Replays showed that the former Melbourne Victory man had predominantly stood his ground, but had only slightly moved and had been adjudged to have blocked the Serbian midfielder’s run in.
Kosta Barbarouses walked up to take the spot kick and sent Margush the wrong way to calmly slot the ball into the right-bottom corner to give his side the lead.
When quizzed about the decision to award the penalty to Sydney FC, Robinson laughed and said: “Trying to get me in trouble?
“My thoughts on the penalty. Okay, a very harsh decision. I don’t think it is a penalty.
“Is it a mistake? In my eyes, yes. That’s a very, very harsh penalty, which obviously we had to deal with and accept.”
The derby was a game of two halves as Sydney controlled most of the possession in the first-half, created better opportunities, and pressed well when they did not have the ball.
But to the Wanderers’ credit, they managed to come back strongly after the break, particularly more so as they came from behind to capitalise on a rare howler from the Sky Blues’ shot-stopper Andrew Redmayne as Troisi slotted the ball home to score the equaliser.
Robinson admitted that words had been said during the half-time team talk, which had the desired effect on his charges.
He added: “Yeah, I thought we were exceptional in the second-half. I thought they were probably the better team in the first-half, which sometimes you have to accept.
“I thought our ball decisions were not quite right. We were making silly elementary mistakes when we didn’t need to. We corrected that at half-time.
“Full credit to the boys. They took that on board and we played through them a lot better and a lot cleaner in the second-half and if there was another 10 minutes, I fancied us to go and nick the winner.”
Western Sydney Wanderers are now unbeaten in their last five games against Sydney FC, and will take on Central Coast Mariners in Gosford on Tuesday.
