Dane Ingham revealed the ‘hurt’ of Perth Glory’s late collapse in midweek motivated them to battle to a determined 3-1 win against Melbourne City.
Richard Garcia’s side were leading Melbourne Victory by a single goal with four minutes to play on the same AAMI Park pitch on Tuesday night, before Jake Brimmer’s dramatic late double crushed Glory’s spirits and piled more misery on the A-League’s leakiest defence.
Daniel Stynes had given the Western Australians a dream start on Sunday night, scoring his first A-League goal, but after Jamie Maclaren had equalised, City’s high-power offence put the away side's defence under intense pressure.
But unlike in the loss to Victory, or the 5-4 reverse against Western United a week ago, Glory dug deep and delivered a gusty second-half performance to shut the home side down. That resilience meant headed goals by Ingham and substitute Nick D’Agostino proved decisive.
“It’s been pretty crazy but a top performance from the boys under fatigue,” said Ingham, who has started all four of Glory’s games in the past 11 days.
“Credit to City, they came at us all game but we held strong.
“I think, last game, when we were up 1-0 and we concede twice, it hurts, so it’s good to bounce back after that performance.”
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Garcia has shown no fear of making bold substitutions in recent weeks and, following Maclaren’s equaliser, he replaced Callum Timmins with Brandon Wilson in the 36th minute.
The switch seemed to solidify Perth’s midfield as Wilson came on to make four clearances and add energy in the engine room as Glory tightened up across the park.
“I think sometimes when you start the game, it’s not your day,” Garcia said.
“Cal [Timmins] kept plugging away and trying to find his feet but I thought we needed to make an impact in that area. Brandon [Wilson] came on and did a fantastic job.”
Ben Garuccio was selected to captain City ahead of benched veteran Scott Jamieson and the starting left-back admits his team were left ruing their missed first-half chances.
“We knew that they had played a few games on the spin so we thought they would be tired,” Garuccio said.
“I thought we had enough chances in the first half to win a couple of games but that’s unfortunately what you get.
“You cop an unlucky goal with a deflection and then two set-pieces. If you let in goals like that it’s always going to be hard to score three goals every game.”
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Next fixtures
Matchweek 6
Central Coast Mariners v Melbourne City
Wednesday, 3 February 2021
Venue: Central Coast Stadium
Kick-off: 7.05pm AEDT
Match Centre
Matchweek 7
Adelaide United v Perth Glory
Friday, 5 February 2021
Venue: Coopers Stadium
Kick-off: 7.05pm AEDT
Match Centre
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