Sydney FC have shot right back in to finals contention as two late goals gave them a valuable 2-1 victory over Melbourne Heart at Allianz Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Melbourne Heart absolutely dominated the early stages and it seemed like the trend of Sydney failing to score against Heart was destined to continue.
Fred had an early chance for the visitors as his 14th minute shot went just wide, but ten minutes later Heart got their goal as Sydney FC’s poor defending continued.
Sydney FC were lax at a set-piece again allowing Nick Kalmar to play a neat one-two with Fred allowing Kalmar to cross for Richie Garcia who leaped above Rhyan Grant who headed home.
Frank Farina responded to his teams’ poor performance as he took off Ali Abbas who struggled to have an impact and brought on Blake Powell, that substitution lead to ugly scenes as Abbas argued with Alessandro Del Piero on his way from the field.
That incident seemed to inspire Sydney FC and they could well have come back on level terms just before half-time as Jason Culina sent in a perfect free-kick for Seb Ryall who headed the ball in to the back of the net but timed his run poorly and saw the goal disallowed for offside, giving Melbourne Heart a 1-0 half-time lead
The nasty incident between Abbas and Del Piero continued at the break, which forced goalkeeping coach Zeljko Kalac to separate the two as they headed to half-time.
Sydney struggled in the second half to break down Melbourne Heart who were solid defensively as Sydney started to come in to the match more and more as the half wore on.
It seemed Sydney were destined for another loss when Brett Emerton missed a golden opportunity in the 70th minute after Yairo Yau’s superb run down the right set up the chance for Emerton who sent his shot wide from eight yards out.
In the 85th minute Brett Emerton made amends as a Terry McFlynn through-ball sent Emerton through to slot home an equalizer.
Deep in to stoppage time Sydney FC stole all three points as Del Piero sent in a perfect cross for Grant who sent a glancing header under Andrew Redmayne to steal all three points.
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