Western Sydney's A-League Men season is in danger of imploding after a 3-1 loss to bottom-placed Western United.
Amid a boycott from the club's active supporter group, the Red and Black Bloc (RBB), Marko Rudan's side slumped to a second-successive defeat at CommBank Stadium on Friday night.
To add more salt to the wounds, captain Marcelo is set to miss their midweek trip to Melbourne City after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season.
Rudan's men have now won just one of their past six games and without the RBB their home ground felt soulless and lacked any atmosphere.
"It happened last week as well and we spoke about it, we knew they weren't going to be there," Rudan said.
"We can't control external factors, we can only control what we can control.
"As difficult and as different as it may seem - and the RBB is so important to us - it's something that we have to deal with."
The Wanderers and the RBB are united against what they see as heavy-handed policing and security staffing at last week's 4-1 derby loss to Sydney FC.
Several fans were thrown out and handed banning orders, with the RBB vowing to not return until all of those bans were rescinded.
And as a consequence of their direct action, vast swathes of the grandstands were left unoccupied, with an official attendance of just 6004 present.
It made for a lifeless atmosphere which was matched on the pitch in one of the most drab first halves of the season.
There was just one shot on target in the first 45 minutes and the only moment of note came when defender Ben Garuccio was left searching for a tooth on the surface after a collision.
After halftime the home side seemed to play with more zip and vigour and earned their reward in the 52nd minute when Nicolas Milanovic weaved his way infield, played a one-two with Brandon Borrello and rifled the ball in from 25 metres.
That brought some noise to the stadium but it was quelled when Matt Grimaldi hit back for United in the 69th minute to kick-start a 12-minute collapse for the home side.
The Wanderers were unable to stem the flow and Western cut through their defence with ease.
Daniel Penha grabbed their second goal before Nikita Rukavytsya broke free and put the result beyond doubt.
John Aloisi's men remain bottom of the table but have now picked up seven points in their past three games and are hot on the heels of Newcastle and Adelaide.
"We got what we deserved and we deserved a lot more from a lot of other games this season," Aloisi said.
"We don't know where we're going to end up but all we can do is try and win every game that we've got left."
