Fornaroli has won 27 fouls so far this season but speaking after the 1-1 draw away to Western Sydney Wanderers on Friday, the Dutch coach felt A-League referees were letting far too many challenges go unpunished.

Referee Chris Beath officiated the draw.

Fornaroli was criticised on social media for spending an excessive amount of time on the ground however van’t Schip saw it differently.

 

 

 

“It’s something that the referee has to control," the coach said. "I think that they’re not taking any action that are making fouls on Bruno.

“Now it’s becoming something that everyone can get Bruno down to the ground and it’s play on. I think that’s strange because he’s getting fouled and kicked and the referee’s just saying play on.

“I don’t understand why that is, it’s something… there’s an overall 'let’s make sure Bruno doesn’t get into the game’.

“It’s Bruno’s way of playing. He’s working with his body and defenders try to pull him back and to the ground and he doesn’t get free kicks. I think it’s a strange thing and the referee should have a good look at that again.”

Goal scorer Tim Cahill managed 65 minutes and has pulled up well according to van’t Schip while goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis is in doubt after being substituted at half-time with a rib injury.

City looked destined for the three points before conceding a 92nd minute equaliser from Neil Kilkenny own goal.

The Dutchman was less than impressed after squandering the one-goal lead.

“It’s something we have to identify, when you keep the ball and coming in those areas you can go for the second goal,” he said.

“Otherwise every time you’re leading you’re trying to outplay the opponent but not really finish them off.

“It’s about getting into areas where you are dangerous and score a second goal, it makes it a lot easier than leading 1-0 and knowing that anything can happen when you get into awkward situations like we did at the end of the game.

“We put ourselves under pressure by not making the right decision when defending. We’ll talk about it but we’ll move on because it’s another game we knew was going to be difficult. Western Sydney needed the result and were fired up.

“In the end you concede like that. We were in control of the game and leading 1-0 and didn’t finish it off. They could have gone up 1-0 and then we had to chase the game. It’s disappointing of course, we played some good football in the second half. The first half was not what we were looking for.

“The second half we did a lot better and went up 1-0. In the last few minutes we didn’t organise enough and didn’t make the right decision defending. We went under pressure and it resulted in the goal.”