Improving Sydney please Farina

Sydney FC coach Frank Farina says his side are heading in the right direction after drawing 1-1 with Melbourne Victory on Saturday.

The Sky Blues fell behind in the third minute via a Mark Milligan goal but created multiple chances throughout before Yairo Yau scored the equaliser five minutes from full-time.

“We’ve gotten better,” Farina said.

“We’re playing 90 minutes without any problems at the moment and we’re improving.

“We’ve come up against a lot of adversity this year and I think the way the players have responded has been fantastic.

“We’ve still got two games to go (against Western Sydney and Brisbane away) and we’re still in with a chance.”

The draw leaves the Sky Blues inside the finals bubble in fifth, but they could finish the weekend in seventh spot if Brisbane and Perth both win on Sunday.

“We’re a little bit disappointed to be honest in the dressing room,” Farina said at the post-match press conference.

“We gave away an early goal which was a combination of mistakes from us and put us behind the eight ball but I thought after the goal we were well and truly in the game and in the second half I thought in large periods we dominated.

“We knew we were going to get caught on the counter because we needed to push forward and get a goal, we got the penalty and we should have had one in the first half as well.

“After we missed that I thought we showed good character coming back but at the end of the day we’ll take a point because I thought both sides had good chances throughout the game.”

Farina praised shot-stopper Ivan Necevski after he was a late replacement for Vedran Janjetovic, who was dropped to the bench after arriving at the ground 20 minutes late due to a traffic jam.

“I thought Ivan did well, he’s been waiting for an opportunity and it happened tonight and he didn’t really put a foot wrong I don’t think,” Farina said.

Pressed on his decision to dump Janjetovic, Farina said: “Yeah look he was late but there’s no need to discuss it here.

“It’s a thing for the club, for the team and for me. I made a decision so it doesn’t need to be aired out in the public.”

The coach stopped short of criticising Alessandro Del Piero after the Italian maestro had a rare off night.

“He’s been wonderful for us and again tonight he could have had three goals but it just wasn’t to be for him tonight,” he said.

“You can see that he’s a little bit down on himself at the moment but that’s no dramas, it happens to the best but still I thought he was very effective.”