Melbourne Victory’s unbeaten run has ended at three matches, after Western Sydney Wanderers import Shinji Ono struck a brilliant brace in the new club’s 2-1 win at Parramatta Stadium on Tuesday.
Melbourne Victory’s unbeaten run has ended at three matches, after Western Sydney Wanderers import Shinji Ono struck a brilliant brace in the new club’s 2-1 win at Parramatta Stadium on Tuesday.
Victory went down to an Ono goal in the 42nd minute, before a brilliant left-foot strike from range by substitute Spase Dilevski brought the visitors right back into the contest.
But it would be Ono with the final say, as he curled a perfectly-placed shot into the right side of Nathan Coe’s net.
The loss sees Victory slip into fourth spot on the A-League table, but still level on points with the third-placed Wanderers.
And rubbing salt into Victory’s wounds was a knee injury to influential midfielder Gui Finkler, who was forced out of the game after just seven minutes, and replaced by Andrew Nabbout.
Melbourne’s best opportunity of the first half fell to the in-form Marco Rojas 10 minutes prior to the interval, but his shot from the edge of the box was comfortably saved by former Victory custodian Ante Covic.
And Ono would make Victory pay moments later, when he took two neat touches before swinging a low volley past a desperate Coe.
After an animated team discussion with coach Ange Postecoglou, Victory came out of the change rooms with intent – and they would reap the results of their pressure on 72 minutes
Dilevski was given plenty of space outside the area, and after creating an angle to his left, he swung a brutal low strike across the face of Covic and into the bottom right-hand corner of the net to bring the visitors right back into the contest.
And while the boys in blue pushed to find a winner, they were hurt down the other end of the pitch by Ono – who produced a classy finish to earn Wanderers all three points.
Melbourne Victory 1 (Dilevski 72)
Western Sydney Wanderers 2 (Ono 42, 79)
Crowd: 13,659 @ Parramatta Stadium