Rudan remains but de Marigny fronts media after 7-0 destruction
Western Sydney has confirmed Marko Rudan remains coach of the A-League Men side despite assistant Jean-Paul de Marigny fronting media following their record-setting 7-0 thrashing by Melbourne City.
A Western Sydney spokesperson has confirmed that Marko Rudan remains coach of the club’s A-League Men side, despite assistant Jean-Paul de Marigny, and not Rudan, fronting the side’s post-game press conference following their record 7-0 defeat at the hands of Melbourne City.
In what was nominally a battle of sixth against seventh, the Wanderers wilted and were put to the sword by a rampant Melbourne City at AAMI Park on Tuesday evening, the defending premiers blitzing their increasingly hapless foes with four goals in 12 minutes in the first half and three goals in ten minutes in the second.
The night was sealed when Terry Antonis, who left Western Sydney for City during the offseason after what City boss Aurelio Vidmar described as “a pretty tough season”, struck from the halfway line, before performing a ‘call-me’ celebration in the direction of Rudan in the Wanderers dugout.
“He probably couldn't have scripted it any better than that,” Vidmar said.
"He was probably dreaming last night of coming on and scoring and that's exactly what he did."
When the dust eventually settled, the equal-heaviest defeat in A-League Men's history and the heaviest defeat in the Wanderers' history had been inflicted, with their season threatening to go into freefall as City leapfrogged them into the playoff places.
But when it came time to put a face to the performance, it was de Marigny who walked into the AAMI Park theatre for the official post-game press conference, with no answers being provided as to the location of the Wanderers' head coach.
"It's pretty simple. I'm here now to [answer] questions,” he said. “I don't think that [Rudan’s whereabouts] is [relevant] at this stage. So ask me questions. That'll be good.
“Let's speak about the game.”
Pressed further for answers on Rudan’s whereabouts at a later stage, de Marigny again moved to bat away the enquiries, only confirming that the coach wasn’t absent due to a health emergency.
“I've already moved on from that. It's great that you've got a lot of empathy, which is nice. He's fine,” said de Marigny.
“I've got no comment about that. I'm here to answer questions about the game. So if you've got that, I'll respond to it. If you don't have it, I'll move on.”
A Wanderers spokesperson confirmed to reporters following the press conference that Rudan remained employed by the club, with the purported reasoning given for his absence being that he was in a team meeting.
Traditionally, A-Leagues press conferences are timed around a coach's availabilities, with it not unheard of for them to take place well after the conclusion of games if immediate meetings or other matters need to be handled by team staff.
After initially taking over as an interim following the sacking of Carl Robinson and then being named the permanent gaffer for the 2022-23 season, Rudan signed a contract extension earlier in this campaign that takes him through to the end of 2026-27.
de Marigny, however, had already needed to step in once this season when Rudan was suspended for three games by Football Australia after it found a post-match broadside against referee Adam Kersey was "offensive".
The head coach returned to the dugout for the Sydney Derby but has seen his side fall to three straight defeats to Sydney, bottom-of-the-table Western United, and now City – shipping 14 goals across that stretch.
“Defending is collective,” said de Marigny. “There are a few things that we need to improve on. I think structurally, we can be a little bit better. Staying connected is important. We can be a little bit more aggressive without the ball and with a ball. So they're the things that we need to work on.”
de Marigny weaved around a question on whether Tuesday represented rock-bottom for the club, as well as bristled at suggestions that players' heads had dropped.
“I never mentioned their heads were down,” he said. “What I said is there's a lot of people hurting, as you can imagine. Right? That's from top to bottom. Our responsibility is to make sure that we're ready for the next game and get a good outcome from it.”
He was then asked if the players still believed.
“Of course, of course,” he said. “They're quality players, right. So it's not foreign to football, alright.
“So now we need to make sure that we've got a good game plan to go within our structure. Then from there, we'll take the opportunities and we'll go forward and we'll get into the finals.”
And with six games remaining on the Wanderers’ season, de Marigny insisted that things could still be turned around, starting with a visit to West Australia to face Perth Glory on Saturday evening.
“Of course,” he said. “That's the beauty of football.
“There's the next game with a quick turnaround, which is great; it's an opportunity for us to work on a few things and get better at it and hopefully get a better performance and get the outcome that we're after.
“We need to stay positive, we need to stay together in that area. Every game from here. We have to have a mentality where we're fighting relegation.
“We're fighting to get into final football and that will have to be the mentality that we have. And that will give us the best chance to go forward.”