Western Sydney coach Alen Stajcic has likened his team's performance in their 1-0 loss to Perth Glory as a car crash, saying it felt like his players were still on the plane.
The Wanderers made a series of horror defensive mistakes early in Friday night's match in Perth and went a goal down in the 30th minute when Sebastian Despotovski scored his maiden A-League Men goal.
Perth went down to 10 in the 40th minute when Trent Ostler received his second yellow card, but they still managed to hold on to the win, thanks in a large part to some goalkeeping heroics from Matt Sutton.
The result came just a week after the Wanderers posted a fighting 1-0 win over arch rivals Sydney - a result which had looked as if would kick start Western Sydney's season.
Stajcic didn't hold back when asked about his team's performance against Perth.
"It's probably the poorest half we've played in the last 15 months, to be honest," Stajcic said.
"One man extra or none, we were poor. We were poor the whole night.
"The first half an hour was a car crash to be honest. It seems like we were still on the plane.
"Maybe they are still celebrating from last week. Maybe it's the jet lag.
"Can't make excuses at this level. All those things are real, but they're just excuses.
"It just wasn't a good enough performance, and we got punished, and we deserve to go back home with nothing."
In the moments after the final whistle, Stajcic - who coached Glory during the 2023/24 campaign - was at the forefront of a heated on-field exchange.
Glory football director and former Socceroos star Stan Lazaridis became involved in a bid to cool the tensions, but it was unclear what had originally riled Stajcic up.
After the match, Stajcic took offence when asked if there had been an argument between himself and Lazaridis - which initially had looked the case before vision later surfaced to show that it wasn't.
"No, nothing. Stan and I? No. Not one thing," Stajcic said.
Stajcic still had two more years remaining on his Glory contract before his shock departure was announced in June 2024.
His exit came just four months after Ross Pelligra bought Glory, with David Zdrilic then appointed as coach.
Stajcic landed the Wanderers role after his hasty Glory exit, leading Western Sydney to fourth spot last season.
