Younis haunts Wanderers as City close in on finals
Marcus Younis' busy night ended in a red card but, before his exit, the 20-year-old added another ignominious moment to Western Sydney's season-to-forget, as well as kept City's finals hopes alive.
If one needed a further reminder of the mire that the Western Sydney Wanderers have fallen into, the latest in a deluge of grimy momentos as they hurtle towards a first wooden spoon in club history, then it was the performance of Marcus Younis at AAMI Park on Saturday evening. Before he was sent off in the 67th minute, anyway.
Here we had a Western Sydney native, one who joined their youth ranks at age 12 and with whom he made his professional debut at 17, whose father, Ray, was quite literally on the touchline serving as the club’s strength and conditioning coach. This is a lad that should bleed Western Sydney, who should never come close to another club while he’s in the A-League Men. But as he scored and registered two assists on this evening he didn’t do so in red and black but, instead, sky blue: spurring Melbourne City to a 3-0 win that keeps their finals push on track but adds further pain to his former side.
Younis only played 201 A-League Men minutes for the Wanderers before heading overseas, itself a tale of suspect utilisation, but he could have come back to Wanderland in January. After making a permanent move to Brøndby over the offseason, a lack of minutes in Hovedstaden had spurred him to explore a return Down Under and the Wanderers, undoubtedly, would have loved to have him. Instead, though, he signed for City, the same club that he’d made his debut against back in 2023, but whom, especially with the benefit of hindsight, provided him with a better platform.
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He’s now got nine goal involvements across all competitions since returning, with his play of a sufficient quality that, if it’s maintained, you wouldn’t be surprised to see him pushing for involvement in the Socceroos setup by the time next year’s Asian Cup rolls around.
“It was a good performance for Marcus,” City coach Aurelio Vidmar said. “He’s been really good for us since he’s been here. He’s powerful, he’s strong. He can take people on. He’s got a great cross. He’s got a very good shot on him. We’re pleased with the way he’s performing.”
With seven points from their last three games, he’s helped lift City to sit just two points adrift of the top six, and they’ll be able to leapfrog Macarthur for a spot in the playoff places if they win their game-in-hand against Central Coast on Tuesday evening. Saturday was a must-win for them in the finals race and, thanks to their lad from Western Sydney, as well as goals from Andreas Kuen and Albasan Rashani, they got it.
“I didn’t draw up all the first 15 minutes with all the transition moments that were killing us,” said Vidmar. “[But I’m] very pleased, at the end. A nice win. 3-0. Kept a clean sheet. It should give us a lot of confidence. It was always going to be a tough game. They’re very quick in the transition moments. We didn’t really handle that well in the first 15 minutes; they probably should have scored a goal, to be honest.
“Once we scored, we settled and then for the first time in a long time, we got the all-important second goal. Because that’s what’s been hurting us a little bit, not being able to get that second goal to really calm us down. We did that, and then early in the second half, we got the third and put it to bed.”
The Wanderers, conversely, sit twelfth on the table, the same number of losses they’ve now racked up this season, and are three points back of next-worst Perth Glory. They have just three games remaining to salvage something, anything, that they can use to build on next campaign as they welcome yet another new coach, the latest in a string of would-be saviours following the departure of Tony Popovic, in the form of Ufuk Talay.
The first of those games will come against Sydney FC in the latest iteration of the Sydney Derby but, with what was once was one of the league’s proudest fanbases recedes in the face of mediocrity becoming outright ineptitude – the Wanderers women’s team earlier on Saturday secured another wooden spoon – one wonders if the crowd in Parramatta next week could push for the lowest non-COVID turnout in the rivalry’s history.
“It’s well known that we need to have an overhaul,” said van Egmond, who presented a far less apoplectic figure than he was after their loss to Adelaide. “You’re in a position that you’re, you’re last on the table, you need to have a strong Western Sydney Wanderers, in regards to the landscape of Australian football. We’re in a really rich vein of football territory, as far as Sydney is concerned. So the amount of juniors that are playing there, the juniors that we want to be able to develop and bring through into the first grade squad, they’re things that are definitely on the list, and are paramount for the club.”
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Maybe this whole narrative, or at least Saturday’s, isn’t quite as morose if van Egmond can call upon Ryan Fraser, Kosta Barbarouses, Hiroshi Ibusuki, Brandon Borrello, and Jacob Farrell for the trip to Melbourne – all of whom he said post-game were late outs with injuries. All are chances to be back for the Derby bar the on-loan Farrell, who may be done for the season with a groin injury. The narrative is almost certainly different if Jai Rose, Angus Thurgate, or Dylan Scicluna convert their early looks on the goal of James Nieuwenhuizen, who was making his A-League Men debut after Patrick Beach tweaked his quad with the Socceroos. But alas.
They were the highlights of what was a good little early patch for the Wanderers and, given the turmoil that had gripped City in the week following reports of a dressing-down delivered to Daniel Arzani by senior members of the squad, could have kick-started a spiral for the hosts had they struck true.
“That’s the title of the tape, isn’t it?” said van Egmond. “ When you look at the beginning of the game, we started quite sprightly. We’ve had two or three really good chances, and then it goes down the other end, and we probably don’t defend it as well as we should. Both boxes were areas in which we were definitely less than what they were.”
Instead, Vidmar’s side was let off the hook. Then they started to grow into the game, with Arzani, who started, fluffing two good chances of his own to put City ahead. Then Kuen then pirroureted beautifully atop the penalty area after being found by Younis and drove an effort into the bottom corner of the net to put the defending champions ahead.
Two wicked deflections, the first to send an Arzani ball intended for Nathaniel Atkinson into his path and the second coming off Anthony Pantazopolos to completely wrongfoot Lawrence Thomas from his resulting shot, then allowed Younis to make it 2-0. His second assist was then delivered when he drove a cross to a waiting Rashani just after halftime, and, to cap off an eventful evening, he received his marching orders in the 67th minute after picking up a second yellow card.
He’ll now miss City’s must-win game against Central Coast on Tuesday, a game after which the loser will likely have a line drawn through their finals aspirations. Ryan Teague, who limped off at halftime, will also be under a cloud heading into the game, while Beach will miss once again.