Western United has made its best ever start to an A-League Men season, with four wins through the first six games leaving the Green and Black in third on the table.
John Aloisi has had an immediate impact at the Club in the early weeks of the campaign, with United enjoying some of its best football to date.
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While the season is still young, United is challenging at the top of the league in a number of key statistical categories, with a host of individual stars leading important metrics to their positions.
Defensively is where Aloisi has had the biggest impact on the side so far, with just four goals conceded in the six matches after United had the second-worst defence last season.
Acquisitions at the back and a resolute system under Aloisi and Hayden Foxe have contributed to United having a league-best four clean sheets so far.
Equally, United’s record of 0.67 goals allowed per 90 minutes (P90)* is the best in the division, according to FBRef, and only Perth Glory has conceded less goals (three) – though the West Australian side has played two games fewer.
While the players in front of him have had a big part to play, Jamie Young has also excelled in goal with 17 saves (third best in the league) and an 81% save success rate.
Josh Risdon is leading Western United in defence
Josh Risdon has made 25 successful tackles this season which puts him well ahead of any other player in the league, while Leo Lacroix is equal-ninth among his colleagues with a total of 12 interceptions.
Further forward, Alessandro Diamanti (fourth) and Neil Kilkenny (seventh) both rank in the top 10 in the A-League Men for crosses attempted, with Risdon, Lachie Wales and Connor Pain also all featuring in the top 50 of that statistic.
Enjoying a consistent role on the right-wing, Wales’s delivery and eye for a pass has seen him register three assists so far this season, second-best only to Marco Rojas’ four.
Pain has seen himself more involved in front of goal having scored twice already, and United’s No.11 ranks eighth in the entire league for total shots with 16 so far.
As a team, United has taken 85 shots in total at an average of 14.17 shots P90, but has some work to do to improve its shots on target percentage, with only Western Sydney Wanderers below United’s 27.1%. This indicates that United is creating shooting opportunities but not working the goalkeeper as much as it would like.
That is through no fault of Dylan Wenzel-Halls, though. The No.9 has already struck twice with his new club and leads the league in shots on target P90 with 2.03, and finds himself in 10th across the competition in total shots P90.
All this stands Western United in good stead to attack the remainder of the campaign, with a spot in the finals and competition for silverware the aim of Aloisi and his players.
Though nobody will be getting ahead of themselves, and the hard work will continue to ensure the group is in the best position to achieve its goals come seasons end.
*Per 90 minute stats are a way of standardising player statistics to average them out over a full match duration. This allows players that have had varying amounts of playing time to be compared more evenly in statistical analysis.
