Now or ever for Western Sydney?

Finding themselves two points back of the top-six at the conclusion of Saturday evening’s play, their next three figures now loom as season-defining for de Marigny’s side.

After seemingly righting the ship and getting the Wanderers back into finals contention in his first weeks as an interim, highlighted by a derby win over Sydney FC, de Marigny now faces a murderers row of opponents as he looks to keep his side there.

Sydney, hungry for retribution, will pay a visit to Bankwest Stadium next week, before the Red and Black return to Victoria to take on Western United in Ballarat and then are paid a visit by Perth Glory.

With the race for finals football so tight, an inability to continue to pick up points over the next few weeks – especially against top-six rivals United – could prove potentially disastrous for Wanderers.

“Fair to say every game is like that,” the Wanderers coach said when asked if the three-game run was season-defining.

“It was the same question that we had three weeks ago and the four weeks before that.

“It’s a tight competition. We’re about getting the process right and getting better at what we’re trying to do.

“I think that there’s one area that we can do better in, that’s being able to retain the ball for longer periods of time. That’s something that we’ll continue to work on.

“In terms of where we’re going and what’ we’re trying to do at the football club, that’s obviously one of our goals, get into finals football. That’s what we’ll continue to do.”

C’mon… do something.

Saturday night’s contest was not a good game of football on the eyes.

Both City and the Wanderers displayed a frustrating lack of speed and incisiveness on and off the ball in their attacking movements throughout the 90 minutes; Russell’s 20th minute goal the lone moment of verve.

City’s goal arrived from the penalty spot after a contentious decision, while Wanderers chance to win it through Cox’s second-half chance provided a maddening combination of City error and Wanderer sloth.

Vast swathes of the contest took place with nary a half decent attacking moment presenting itself, City’s movement especially leaving something to be desired as they attempted to break down the Wanderers defensive shape.

“I think the boys did extremely well,” de Marigny said.

“Tactically we showed unbelievable discipline within our structure. We obviously were waiting for moments, we talked about that.

“We had some good moments there, unfortunately, it didn’t happen for us but I’m very proud of the boys and the way they applied themselves throughout the whole game was very pleasing for us.

“It was a great reaction from [Wanderers 3-1 loss to Brisbane last week].”

But whereas Wanderers approach was more by design, City’s performance was definitely not what Mombaerts had in mind when he arrived at the ground.

“It wasn’t a normal week for us,” the Frenchman said.

“I know that because we played on Sunday, we had a long trip and had to recover.

“Our players are not fit enough today. But it’s also like that, the impression is not fit enough and tactical decision making took too long today. One-touch too much today.”