Western United FC have won three of their four A-League matches against Brisbane Roar FC (L1), including each of their last two meetings – they have kept a clean sheet in each of those three victories.

Brisbane Roar FC have drawn their last four A-League games played at Moreton Daily Stadium, including two nil-all draws.

Western United FC have won only two of their last nine A-League games played outside Victoria (D2, L5), with each of their last two such fixtures ending in a draw.

Brisbane Roar FC are the only team yet to win or concede a penalty in the 2020/21 A-League season, while Western United FC have conceded two and won one.

Melbourne Victory (11) are the only team to have made fewer shots per game this A-League season than Western United FC (12); although, Western United FC (+3) are one of only four teams to have outperformed their Expected Goals this campaign (Perth Glory, Adelaide United and Wellington Phoenix).

Western United FC (6) have scored the joint-most goals within the opening 15 minutes of games this A-League season of any team (also Adelaide United), while Brisbane Roar FC (1) have conceded the joint-fewest goals in this period (also Melbourne City FC and Wellington Phoenix).

Jay O’Shea (Brisbane Roar FC) has created 15 scoring chances for teammate Dylan Wenzel-Halls this A-League campaign, the second-most of any player for a teammate in the competition (16 – Noone for Maclaren).

its going to be another swimming match today with rain forecast all day. hopefully it misses dolphins as drainage is an issue. 

Good news - the rain has cleared eastwards, should be good football conditions.

Yes, not expecting much of a crowd. Disappointing as Diamanti is worth seeing. Fun fact to the above, we have had the least defeats of the season to date. I am hopeful of a grinding 1 - 0 victory to keep the form guide in tact.

IF Dimanti can feed Berisha it will be a WU win, if not a possible BR win.
WU 2-1.

Should be interesting Brisbane have such a strong defense 

well ? that 6goal diff between them is Young IMO.
He has saved their bacon many times as we've seen this season and before.

Brisbane need to tie Diamanti up. He is the danger and one of best in league. 
If Brisbane can do that they will have a chance. 
WU will have seen how dangerous Champs can be and will have a plan for that. 
Brisbane will be feeling it towards end of game as Field is still wet and has been just 3 days off since Saturdays game in extremely wet conditions.
Perias seems to be causing problems to do it'll be interesting how that matches up with Champs to likely be on same side of the pitch.

Whats going on with Pasquali? He came back from injury, played a little bit then disappeared. Anyone know? 

I can't work out why WU have 5 CB's starting when they have a few midfielders fit and not playing.

Save of the round contender there by Ryan Scott

Another good save but if the pitch wasn't so shit, that goes in. The mud patch took all the pace off.

That was a really bad challenge and Berisha could be seriously injured.

It looked very intentional too, send the grub off.

Wow I just rewound and paused that tackle and if that's not a red then nothing is

I can't believe VAR isn't looking at that. Disgraceful.

Absolutely disgusting.

And so is fucking Andy Harper

He is schizophrenic 

There were shades of Muscat in the scissor tackle  

Wow now a blatant dive by a Brisbane player.


I've got it on mute but assume Harper is going mental about diving yeah? Let me guess... Not this time?? 

Turned on the sound. Heard speed even kine that mauk would have heard about it a d Harper changes the subject ahaha fuck you baldie 

Yeah I heard that too.

I guess Speedy is anti-Adelaide as well.

Wales scores less than a minute after coming on. He's in great form atm.

Risky tackle but not red by laws of the game.

studs were not angled up on contact. 

Still risky all the same. 

On the other hand Berisha goes to ground to easy, always had and always will.

Not true at all.

"SERIOUS FOUL PLAY

A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality must be sanctioned as serious foul play.

Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force or endangers the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play."

https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct

Yes you are absolutely right, but key words are excessive force, and neither the referee or VAR concluded it was excessive force. 

But it IS up for human judgement. 
2 people may come to a different conclusion on the observation of "excessive force" .

now if you are or were at the stadium you would see how soft it is. Are we to say don't challenge too much boys it's very wet. 
No coach is going to say that!

Id suggest any ref would understand that.

I actually think the challenge was exaggerated by the fact his right foot seemed to get caught into the heel of Berisha. Then he he was reaching for the ball with his left foot. 

I didn't think it was a red either. I can see why people can argue that it was though. Originally I thought Gillesphey slipped as he challenged Berisha, it looked awkward/clumsy. 

That’s how i saw it. 

Exactly.

I don't need to be at the ground to see it was soft because I saw it live on tv as well as numerous replays and it was the complete opposite of soft. Gillespey had no chance of winning the ball, lined up Berisha and got him good. To me, he clearly tried to injure Berisha and Bes was fortunate to be able to get back up again.

Besh also overplayed the injury; was up and running freely once his over acting was being ignored, and played most of the game as well. He would have had a feint smile if it were a red. 

Nevertheless good referring getting the yellow out quick before he actually gets there to contain the situation. 

Right place, right time.

1-1

Good work from DWH. 2-1.

Oh no, that's a handball.

Good goal.

Ah... Maybe not.
So fox have a second camera there after all

Said it on many occasions this season, Danzaki is Brisbane's best player. Underrated. 

Good young player, but not our best. That was a great run and finish, but up until then he hadn't done much and turned the ball over a few times with poor passes. Definitely been great having him in the team though, he works well with DWH & Joey up front. I hope they sign him on a permanent deal

Sure he may have the odd game where he is a bit sloppy but I would say he has been the most consistent overall through the season. Good engine, can break up play, links up well and your best goal scorer this season. Majority of his goals ended up being the match winner.  

Roar on a good run here, Moon is doing a fantastic job so far. Will be interesting to see how the remainder of the season plays out with the tough schedule. 

Geez, Western will feel very hard done by.

Roar deserved the points imo. Should have been up before the break. 

Riku is a star. Can see him stay in the hal for a while 

He's only on loan so he'll be in Japan next season.

And joey 

I thought this was one of the best performances from the team this year. Very pleased that we did a ROAR! and got the win it deserved. Was surprised how negative Harper was on our play. Whereas in other games we have sprayed our shots everywhere, Scott had to make 4 good to great saves to keep his team in it. I thought Jamie only made one similar save until the free kick at the death.
Really good timing to see how we fare against City this wekend.

Was interstate and only watched the game on Kayo now.

Akbari's exaggeration in the box was exactly the sort of play that Mauk sold the ref on, Davide. He maintained his direction of run into the defender and made sure that there was contact before going to ground. There was contact that was not a foul, he chose to go to ground from that contact, and the ref ignored it (as did VAR). I wish the first Mauk incident had ended the same and maybe the game would have moved on without all the shit storm that followed (and the success of the first effort by Mauk encouraged more of the same that game).

Akbari did not dive in the sense that there was contact - but he did exaggerate it (which I do not like as you know). The ref gave it the lack of respect it deserved as he should have. Same as another clip on Pierias and another on I think DWH - all legitimate contact with players appealing and being waved away - good refereeing.

Gillesphey is an odd one to me. I thought he just ran too close before trying to stop, caught Besart's ankle, then slid in a tangle in the wet. Besart does the cheesewheel when he is exaggerating the impact of an incident - I see it as one of his tells when he is playing it up - and I think there was a level of skepticism about the impact of the contact because of his history and histrionics. The comment about it being soft may have been a reference to the ground being soft rather than the incident? I don't know. Reckless seemed the right call to me and a yellow was deserving.

A good game despite the wet and heavy conditions, relatively even with both sides putting together quality possession coming forward. Plenty of chances created by both sides, and for all the 'Young keeps Roar in games' you would be a bit one-sided not to acknowledge that Scott was the only thing keeping Western in it by the end of the night.

I am enjoying our constructive play - patiently building from the back but advancing at the same time so we end up with our backline near halfway and in a great position when we then start to apply pressure further forward - but with plenty of good and bad long balls to stop the defenders knowing what to expect and being too comfortable.

I think Moon is deliberately slowing our pace and absorbing opposition pressure in the first 20-30 minutes of games before opening up. I have seen what I consider a trend in the aleague this season that teams who come out firing on all cylinders and dominating in the first half hour are often being beaten over the course of the game. A more defensive minded first half hour followed by a significant change in tempo has been a pattern of our play in my eyes.

Apologies for not spamming the airwaves with positive orange vibes over the last few days - lucky I am back to derail pessimism, balanced consideration tempered by realism, and any other less orange perspective.

Great result for us - especially pinching the goal at the end like WU did to us.

Brindell-South continues to improve and I would go so far as saying he is shining now. Danzaki has been as energetic as DWH and having the two up front adds a level of pressure on opponents coming out that adds more value than the occasional mistakes they make resulting in turnovers. Again, both of them running around dangerously and constructively also complements Champness' more crafty attacks. Who do you choose to defend in numbers if you are our opposition? Leaving any of them unmarked results in attacks on goal.

I actually think we are progressing past O'Shea as our main playmaker too - with more random attacks coming from anywhere. I want O'Shea and what he adds to our team but we are far from toothless now when he has an off game.

Deserved win on balance, and a great win in perspective. Beating both the team emerging as our most even arch enemies and Rudan.

On a footnote about numbers at Wednesday games - two of my group train on Wednesdays - that is surely not uncommon and as much a factor in attendance as wet weather and work the next day.

Not exactly the evangelical anti-diving criticism I "expected" from you ;)

Honesty in my view was more important than scoring easy points by damning it with venomous outrage. My problem with diving is initiating contact that is not otherwise there or the worst case of simply diving without contact.

I do not like seeing it in my side ever, and I do not like the ongoing protestations and shin rubbing that followed - but the contact was there and I think did sting; just that he was to blame for it.

Akbari clearly got his leg snagged - but to me he also clearly allowed his momentum to head that way to make the contact rather than sticking his leg out sideways to make contact. Very similar to how Diamanti in that game (and any number of other players in every game) tripped over a protuding leg because the opponent was silly enough to stick it out.

It was not a yellow card dive despite crappy theatrical behaviour - it was just contact that did not warrant a freekick.

Had a penalty been awarded I would have been outraged by rewarding that behaviour.
Had he tried it again I would have damned him for a diving cheat.

If that makes me less than evangelical, then so be it :)