Sydney FC failed to defend their title, despite the fact that the Sky Blues were convincing winners of the regular season once again. It must be said that for the second season in a row the team’s health was very good and apart from the long-term absentee of the right-back Grant Sydney didn’t have any other serious issues throughout the campaign and they were never missing more than two players from their main squad.
Sydney suffered their first defeat of the season in round 6 when poor away display against Mariners brought a shocking 0:2 result, but the Sky Blues responded to that with seven consecutive wins after that and during the regular season Arnold’s tactics and game plans once again worked very well.
Bobo broke the A-League’s record for most goals scored in a season, Ninkovic was at his usual best as a creator, but the really big star of the team was the Pole Mierzejewski, who ended up winning the Jonny Warren medal for best player of the entire season in Australia.
Sydney had some problems in January when they registered three draws in four rounds, this saw their nearest pursuers Jets moving right behind them, but then crucial wins over the two Melbourne sides and their city rivals Wanderers in rounds 18, 20 and 21 re-established Sydney’s dominance.
The armour was cracking though and before the end of the regular season Sydney lost 1:2 both against Jets and Roar, with the second of these defeats their first domestic loss on home turf in three years. This hinted of things to come and the disaster struck in the semi-finals when gutsy performance from Victory saw them eliminating the defending champions with a 3:2 win after extra times.
Sydney over relied on Mierzejewski and Bobo during the campaign and in those matches in which both of them were guarded successfully the Sky Blues suffered. They simply didn’t have plan B and that’s why ended up failing to even make the Grand Final.
