Newcastle Jets fall to late goal against Sydney

The Jets suffered a third consecutive loss, going down 2-1 to Sydney FC at Jubilee Stadium after two second-half goals for the hosts cancelled out a fortuitous opener for Newcastle.

A howler from goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne gave Luka Prso, who was promoted back into Newcastle's starting side in place of Ali Abbas, a golden chance to score his first A-League goal in the 21^st minute.

Redmayne kicked the ball straight to Prso just outside the penalty area and the 20-year-old showed poise to move forward and curl it past the keeper.

Sydney took back control through three substitutions in the 54th minute. Bobo and Milos Ninkovic, who started in the midweek win over Western United, came on with Patrick Wood for Luke Ivanovic, Alex Baumjohann and Kosta Barbarouses.

In the 64^th minute, Wood made a surging run before finding Ninkovic, who drilled a shot across keeper Jack Duncan and into the far corner.

Captain Alex Wilkinson then scored the winner in the 80^th minute with a downward header off a Luke Brattan corner, bouncing it over Duncan and two defenders. It was his first goal in the A-League since 2010.

The defeat for Newcastle followed losses to Wellington (2-0) and Adelaide (2-1) in which Najjarine's influence in midfield had also been missed.

Deans hoped Najjarine would be right to return from a second ankle injury this season to play against Adelaide at McDonald Jones Stadium. The 6.40pm match follows a 4.05pm game between Brisbane and Wellington at the venue.

"He trained fully with the team on Friday morning for the first time so we'll push him a little bit harder next week and if he can get through a full week of training with no restrictions or modifications, he'll hopefully come into the mix for the squad against Adelaide," Deans said.

Regardless of Najjarine's fitness, Deans said his squad needed to improve their attack. Newcastle are 11th on 11 points after 12 games and their 10 goals remains the worst return in the league.

"Ramy is a big loss, there's no hiding that, but when he's out of the team we need to be better, we need to find solutions to him not playing," he said. "We can't rely on one person and he's a 20-year-old kid. We've had a few changes due to personnel and injury and things like that, but we just need to keep working at training.

"We spend a lot of time on scoring goals and attacking and keeping the ball and all those sorts of things, but when you get under pressure in a game, you have to be good enough to execute and we're not doing that."

Jason Hoffman (groin) and Ben Kantarovski (nerve damage) are also on the comeback trail but remain unlikely for next round.

On Saturday, striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos was given a first start for Newcastle, coming in to replace Valentino Yuel, while import Liridon Krasniqi debuted for the club off the bench in the 85th minute.

"In the first half we were reasonably comfortable, we caused ourselves a few little problems, turning the ball over early, but we settled into the game quite well," Deans said.

"At half-time we were in a good position but Sydney came out like we expected them to and were more aggressive. Obviously, the substitutions, you bring in Bobo and Ninkovic off the bench, it's going to be difficult to keep them out and that was the difference in the end. I think they changed the game."

"It's disappointing, because we didn't play poorly. Just for all the possession we had in the first half we probably didn't create enough chances. And the ones we did we were a little off with the finish or being a bit more positive with our attempts to score goals.

"We didn't create enough chances again. At the start of the season we created lots of chances and we weren't taking them.

"At the moment we need to get back to creating them and be good enough to take them when they come.

"The last few games it's been little individual errors that have cost us and we need to be better in that regard and make sure we are a bit more ruthless in the way we defend at times."

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