Melbourne City beat Western Sydney Wanderers in 7-goal thriller

Updated: May 17, 2023, 05:25 am

Melbourne City's Bart Schenkeveld has scored an injury time winner to stun 10-man Western Sydney Wanderers 4-3 in a pulsating A-League encounter at AAMI Park.

The Wanderers trailed 2-1 at half-time on Tuesday night but goals to Tass Mourdoukoutas and Jaushua Sotirio after the restart gave the visitors a surprise 3-2 lead.

Then Markus Babbel's side was reduced to 10 men in the 66th minute when Keanu Baccus was given his marching orders after being shown a second yellow card for an ill-advised tackle.

City peppered the visitors' goal from that point with Ritchie de Laet levelling the sides with a superb low shot in the 84th minute. Then Schenkeveld secured all three points when he brilliantly headed home a corner in the fourth of five minutes of injury time.

"I don't think we stole it ... we dominated the game but we gave horrendous goals away tonight," City coach Warren Joyce said. "It was down to ourselves, which we haven't done all season.

"We would have been disappointed to come out of the game with nothing ... I think if you look at the game as a whole we deserved to win it and win it comfortably."

Bart Schenkeveld scored his first goal for Melbourne City to win the match against Western Sydney Wanderers.
Getty

Just days after they failed to generate a single shot on target in a lifeless 0-0 draw against Perth Glory, City were on the board 31 seconds after the opening whistle. De Laet latched onto a horrendous back pass then left the advancing Nicholas Suman stranded before side-footing home.

The goal sparked the Wanderers who deserved their equaliser when Roly Bonevacia converted from the penalty spot after Curtis Good sent Sotirio sprawling. But Luke Brattan put City back in front with a stunning strike from outside the box in the 38th minute, the midfielder's thunderbolt finding the top left corner.

Western Sydney enjoyed a bright period after the restart, with Mourdoukoutas heading home his first-ever A-League goal in the 49th minute and Sotirio silencing the 5,149-strong crowd with 54 minutes gone. But the visitors were left to rue a lost opportunity as City pressed home their late numerical advantage to consign the Wanderers to their sixth successive defeat.

"What can I say? The game was there to win," Babbel said. "We can't do it.

"We do too many individual mistakes at the back. Even if we score three, we concede four then if we score four we concede five."