Nicolai Muller was the hero for Western Sydney, scoring a delightful brace with a glancing header for the opener, then a brilliant lunging header from range for the go-ahead.

Those strikes came either side of Al Hassan-Toure's first goal since Round One, with the youngster pouncing on a tap-in after an emphatic run and cross from Nikola Mileusnic.

The Wanderers assured an important three points - which moves them inside the top six and assuages the pressure building on Markus Babbel - through an unlikely source in Mo Adams.

The seldom-starter capped off a resurgent performance by bouldering his way through Paul Izzo before finishing into an open net.

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But the majority of the excitement in a high-tempo match that was a mile-a-minute from the opening whistle was somehow saved for the final 10 minutes, in a hot-house heatwave Hindmarsh Stadium. Credit to the players for that one.

First, Patrick Zwiegler brought down Toure in the box with a stupid, but fairly undoubted penalty. George Blackwood converted. Adelaide back in it.

Then, in the dregs of extra-time, Daniel Georgievski was adjudged to have conceded an extremely contentious penalty. 96th minute stuff. Just another night at Hindmarsh.

Georgievski stormed from the field in protest, Blackwood blazed right over the bar.

"No, (I've never played anything like it) it's unbelievable," said Muller.

"I don't know why but it takes so much time, every single decision, I don't know, it's unbelievable. This is not good for me.

"At the end we have luck and we get the three points which is so important for us because the last few weeks have been shit.

"At first I needed to play stronger and now I'm close to 100% and I need to keep going but I'm happy to be here."

Mo Adams was elated to score his debut A-league goal and what turned out to be the winner, as a late inclusion.

"It's a great thing to score my first A-League goal, shout out to the team, I can't believe it," he said.

"It was the day before I found out I was playing, they gave me the call up and I'm happy to take it with both hands."

Meanwhile, Nikola Mileusnic was understandably gutted, appearing entirely shellshocked, despite his own sterling performance.

"I know we had a few slow weeks and we needed to come out firing, we came out, conceded, got back in the game, but it got away from us," he said.

"I got a lot of confidence from the team, they believed in me. Hopefully in the coming weeks we can make more of those opportunities.

"In the moment it was a bit confusing, it didn't end up going our way. Penalties are a lottery, scored one and missed one today.

"I feel for Blackwood, missing one sucks, but he hasn't missed many in his life. He'll have to come back."