Werribee City’s deficiencies were exposed by a more polished Dandenong Thunder in a 3-0 FFA Cup fourth round defeat at George Andrews Reserve on Saturday night.
In attack, the Bees are struggling to make their impressive build-up play count, with the goals starting to dry up since an injury to Domenico Marafioti.
On the back end, their defence has been at sixes and sevens, not dealing with dead ball situations and coughing up cheap goals on the counter, prompting coach Dom Gangemi to implement a new defensive system barely a month into the season.
“We’ve been copping so many stupid goals this season,” Bees assistant coach Rick Piccinelli told Star Weekly. “I would say every single game we’ve played this season, the first goal has been conceded with an inactive ball, so it’s through a free kick or a corner.”
“We played a different system, a bit less exposed, but still one silly mistake.
“We have to learn from it and we are slowly learning from it.”
Werribee City’s strength lies in its midfield stocks.
Delfin Mosibe Esara, Jonathan Voulgaris and Bobby Vidanoski have been creative in possession and constantly feeding the forwards, but the flow of play is breaking down when it gets to the front line.
The absence of Marafioti, one of the Bees top goal poachers, has left the team thin up front.
Marafioti went down with a shoulder injury in the second round and the Bees have been unable to find a suitable replacement within the squad.
The rest of the strikers are young and inexperienced, not ready to fill such a key role on a full time basis.
“I would say he is the most gifted player in our squad,” Piccinelli said. “He’s been our leading goalscorer throughout preseason and scored the first goal against Whittlesea Ranges [in round one] and set up another one.
“Ever since he got injured, we’ve stopped scoring goals. We’ve got a problem forward, a big problem, we keep creating chances and don’t put them away. We don’t have that many centre forwards this season and the ones we have a very young.”
Werribee City will return to league action on Saturday.
The Bees will entertain the other half of Dandenong when Dandenong City visits Galvin Park for an Easter showdown.
With only one point in four games, the Bees will be desperate to defend their home turf and strive for all three points.
