Glory Story: Adam Taggart needs to be involved more, Stephen Peters’ reign begins and Oli Sail’s strong start

Adam Taggart has started the season slowly, but the Glory need to play to his strengths more - but the under-fire Oli Sail has had quite the opposite campaign so far. Taggart iso-ball not the go It was not quite a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face, but Zdrilic’s decision to back off the press against Central Coast hurt Adam Taggart. The fringe Socceroos striker was visibly frustrated with his team’s performance as he was deprived of the ball, and often bested by Brian Kaltak aerially. He had two of Perth’s best chances of the game, but was otherwise left to feed off scraps. If the Glory are to temporarily depart their high-pressing plan, it cannot come at the expense of isolating their best player on the field. Unfortunately, they are not exactly flush with options in the creative midfielder department, particularly with Adam Bugarija and Hiroaki Aoyama yet to make an impact, and Brandon O’Neill and Taras Gomulka not exactly known as deep-lying playmakers. At times in the first-half Taggart dropped deep to link play — something he has shown numerous times in the past he is adept at doing — and it something the Glory should lean more into. If they are going to sit deeper, then empower their captain to come deep, hold the play up, have his teammates feed off him and get the likes of Abdul Faisal, David Williams and Nathanael Blair narrower and running in behind. The last thing you want is your talismanic striker and captain out of the match and looking increasingly annoyed every week. No panic for Perth in the Dub At the 51 minute mark of the Glory’s A-League Women’s opener, it looked as if Perth were going to leave Melbourne with a statement, upset win in Stephen Peters’ first game in charge. Alas, their 2-0 lead became a 4-2 deficit in the space of 20 minutes as the reigning premiers showed their class to tilt the game on its side and capitalise on their possession and territorial dominance. It is hard to extrapolate much from the loss moving forward given most teams are not going to be anywhere near as ball-dominant as City were, and Perth were without their winger Susan Phonsongkham and their two biggest off-season overseas arrivals in Megan Wynne and Onyinyechi Zogg. Perth looked to let City play around with the ball in their own third and looked to bait them into risky passes — which worked and resulted in two Glory goals and a couple of other chances. Unfortunately, as the game wore on, the more Melbourne were able to progress up the field and make their numbers count, and perhaps Perth’s limited pre-season — they did not face another A-League Women’s team before the season began — came home to roost. It should not be panic stations for Perth and Peters as they clearly had a plan for the opposition which came to fruition (for 50 minutes or so) and it is unlikely many teams in the league will be as dominant as City were. Set Sail for success? Glory fans have not been quiet about their desire to see Oli Sail replaced in between the sticks. It will take a lot for some fans to change their tune on this given Sail’s previous high-profile blunders along with previous promising performances by Cameron Cook in goals. But Sail has begun his season the right way, and has been one of the Glory’s most reliable players in their opening three games. Watch back the 6-1 horror show against Macarthur, and all the goals can be chalked up to bad defending leaving Sail on a hiding to nothing, and per Opta, actually saved more big chances (three) and made more saves (seven) than any other ‘keeper in the league in round one. He backed it up last week with a superb, one-handed save which prevented Perth from going 1-0 down in the opening exchanges against Central Coast. While Cook has also enjoyed some good performances during his brief Glory career, he has also made mistakes his backers glaze over. The pair are both contracted until 2026, so it is shaping up to be a fascinating competition between the two over the next couple of seasons — and right now, it is a competition Sail has the edge in, provided he continues to perform at the level he is currently.