In-form Maclaren a threat for Wanderers

Western Sydney Wanderers will need to rectify their defensive frailties to stop in-form Melbourne City striker Jamie Maclaren at Bankwest Stadium on Tuesday night.

Wanderers coach Carl Robinson was disappointed with his side’s defence in their 3-2 weekend home loss to Adelaide United.

Western Sydney has now conceded five goals in their past two games, which isn’t a good sign with City’s Socceroos marksman Maclaren eager to continue his good form.

The 27-year-old attacker has scored five goals in his past five matches, including a brace in City’s 3-2 win over champions Sydney FC last Tuesday night.

Maclaren also has a great individual record in meetings with Western Sydney, netting 13 goals in 13 games against the Wanderers.

“We do need to tidy up our defensive play because in Saturday (against Adelaide) we just got our little details wrong and decisions wrong,” Wanderers boss Robinson said.

“You can’t defend like that. If you defend like that in any game of football, you leave yourself open to losing games of football and that’s what happened.”

Last session before City tomorrow.#WSW#WSWvMCYpic.twitter.com/hyjeBOd38K

Robinson is wary of a City side that after a below-par start to the season under new coach Patrick Kisnorbo perhaps turned the corner by defeating Sydney in the grand final rematch.

“Their performance against Sydney was very, very good,” he said.

“They’ve got good players, You don’t get to the final last year if you’re a bad team.

“They changed their manager, so it takes a little bit of time to get used to his methods, his tactics, and I think the Sydney game showed what they’re about.

“They’re a very dangerous team, they’re a very good team with the ball, but there are areas where I think we can hurt them as well.

“One result doesn’t define a season. Hopefully, it’s a good game of football because you’ve got two teams that want to pass the ball, move the ball, have lots of possession, lots of transitions, and then it comes down to players and individual roles within that (about) who comes out on top.”

City’s win over Sydney moved them to nine points from seven matches and to 10th spot on the 12-team table.

Kisnorbo said: “I don’t look at the table at all. I take it game by game.

“It’d be nice to be up the top but the reality is we’re not. We’ve got a lot of catch-up games, and it’s up to us to go to every game and try to do our best to get the result that we want.”

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