Western Sydney Wanderers manager Markus Babbel says his side is finally coming together after dismantling Brisbane Roar 4-1 at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.
A double to marquee man Oriol Riera as well as strikes to Mitch Duke and Roly Bonevacia capped off a bright result for Western Sydney in what has largely been a bleak campaign.
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Babbel said the addition of forwards Duke and Kwame Yeboah as well as time to work with the youth brigade had meant the team had come in leaps and bounds since Round 1.
“To be fair, I expect it because we have quality with Mitch and Kwame in the window and also our young players, they’ve improved,” Babbel told reporters post-match.
“They’ve been working eight or nine months with us now. If you see Keanu Baccus today, unbelievable game for him. It is great to see how they improve, how they play now and they are really helping the team.”
The Wanderers’ last loss came back in Round 17, a 5-1 mauling by Newcastle Jets, and the German coach revealed what was said to the playing group with their hopes of finals action well and truly dashed.
“I’m not looking that much forward because I said with 10 games to go we can’t give up now because all the other teams expect something from us,” he said.
“And also our supporters, they want to see a team every weekend who is giving everything and we had a good chat about this and said 30 points are still there and we have to try everything but [also] think game to game.”
The Wanderers are second in the Hyundai A-League for shots (336) despite lying in eight position on the ladder.
Babbel said he always knew his side had goals in them but that they had to focus on not letting the opposition back into the game.
“Of course, it was a frustration because there weren’t many games where we didn’t have a chance,” Babbel said.
“A lot of games we had a lot of opportunities to win but we couldn’t take it and now we are taking our chances and if you get one or two up it is more difficult to come back and we get more confident.
“I think that this was the biggest problem to begin…we couldn’t score and if we did start scoring we conceded too many and now there is a much better balance in our game, we defend well……now we start to score again and then comes the result.”
