89 min: This is going to be Wanderers’ sixth straight defeat on the road – the longest streak in their short history. Three minutes of added time is signalled.

87 min: Covic has made five saves tonight; Galekovic… none at all. Says it all really. Torpor-Stanley should have some explaining to do to his team-mates back in the sheds at full-time.

85 min: Adelaide are trying to walk the ball into the back of the net now, Mabil being the prime culprit in this instance.

83 min: This is tiki-taka at its best! If ever a one-touch passing move deserves a goal it’s now. But Jeggo’s final effort is more messy than Messi and the ball balloons high over Covic’s bar.

81 min: Mabil lacks a bit of composure when it counts as he flashes a shot off target… and a third for Adelaide is surely only a matter of time.

80 min: Haliti enters the fray as Baccus makes way for him.

79 min: But this one, played back to Goodwin, is blasted over the bar.

78 min: Cirio holds off two Wanderers defenders to get the byline before seeing his cross put behind for Adelaide’s 11^th corner of the match. A 12th follows shortly after...

76 min: La Rocca blows up in the face of Carusca as the frustration really sets in for the Wanderers. He looks like he’s a liability now, another sending off in the making.

74 min: Still Adelaide press forward and they are only denied a third by a big Covic hand that diverts a dangerous cross away from Sanchez! Wonderful stuff from the Reds, even if it shouldn’t be forgotten that it’s against 10 men.

72 min: Time now for Adelaide to make another change as a rather unhappy-looking Ferreria is brought on, and Mabil is sent on.

71 min: Just brilliant from Adelaide! They put together a fantastic passing move, but there’s no cherry on the cake at the end of it as Cirio strikes the upright and then can’t slot home the rebound!

70 min: Juric’s night comes to an end as Poppa hauls his striker off, bringing on Saba instead.

68min: Adelaide are again toying with their opponents, who have adopted a rather beleaguered look now. Juric is the most lively for the visitors, but the Wanderers haven’t got luck on their side tonight – as an offside decision that goes against Rukavytsya proves. Poppa goes mad on the sideline, but that’s not going to change anyone’s mind.

65 min: Covic comes to Wanderers’ rescue with a cracking stop to deny Ferreira at the near post. But even the stoic keeper, so heroic in Asian competition this season, won’t be able to save his team this time.

61 min: Josep Gombau decides to make his first change of the night – there won’t be any goals for Djite as he is replaced by Pablo Sanchez.

58 min: This should be a third but a wonderful block by Spiranovic denies Djite after the ball was played into him, six yards out, by Cirio.

56 min: If it were not for the manner that their numerical disadvantage came about, you’d have to feel sorry for Wanderers– after their brief forays into the Adelaide half soon after the break, they’re now getting hammered again. But Torpor-Stanley’s two rushes of blood to the head mean there’s no sympathy at all.

52 min: Here’s a snapshot of Adelaide’s superiority in the first half: they had 71.8 per cent possession. That’s truly incredible.

In case you missed it: Wellington Phoenix blitzed Newcastle Jets with three goals in five minutes to come from behind and record a 3-1 win at Hunter Stadium earlier today. Read the full match report here.

49 min: Er, it’s not supposed to be like this. But credit to Wanderers, who have come out for this second half all guns blazing.

48 min: And Juric again gives an indication that the visitors have a bit a fire still burining in their bellies, this time a long-range effort that Galekovic watches sail past his upright!

47 min: Hang on a minute… here come the Wanderers on a rare (very rare, we’re talking blue here) counter. But Tomi Juric doesn’t really trouble Galekovic in the end.

46 min: And the second half starts in much the same fashion as the first ended – with Adelaide on the attack. This time Ferreira gets the ball with space and time in the Wanderers box, but his eventual effort is weak and easily claimed by Covic.

43 min: Another factoid for you:

• No player has created more chances on their home turf than Cirio (12 now) this campaign.
  

40 min: Ooh! Another lovely move by Adelaide as Jeggo prises open the Wanderers defence with a beautiful dink… Hamill is there to mop up though. Home fans are enjoying this at the moment – the pressure is relentless and Wanderers just can’t get out of their own half.

37 min: That had been coming, no doubt. And you fear the floodgates might well open now.

35 min: I was setting it all up for something of note to happen from that corner, but it didn’t. Boogaard got his head to it, but it was straight at Covic. No dramas.

34 min: Carusca! It opens up for the Argentine as he latches onto Djite’s knock down, but Spiranovic sticks out a boot to deflect the shot for a corner. Nothing comes of it but Adelaide soon win another one...

31 min: Half an hour gone and Wanderers are down to 10 men and under the cosh, but the only figures that count are those up on the scoreboard. And that’s still reading 0-0.

30 min: 7-0. That’s the goal attempt count so far. Do I need to say in who’s favour?

28 min: Golec is next in line to struggle to contain the Reds as they surge forward yet again. He has a nibble at Ferreira and Adelaide have another free-kick.

25 min: The backlash against Torpor-Stanley is beginning, with some suggestions that he got sent off on purpose. That’s clearly rubbish, even if it looked that way, so petulant was his duo of offences.

24 min: Real chance for Adelaide as first Cirio sees Covic repel his effort and then Carusca blazes the rebound over the bar!

21 min: You get the feeling it’s going to be one-way traffic from now on. Ferreira puts in a ball, which is claimed this time by Covic, but it’s going to take an immense performance from the keeper and the remaining Wanderers players if they are to take something other than a total shoeing out of this game.

18 min: Well, whatever hope the visitors may have held before kick-off must surely now have disappeared. Or at least waned significantly. That was silly from Torpor-Stanley, very silly.

16 min: The ball’s in the back of the net! Rukavytsya slots home but it won’t count, the flag is up for offside. Good decision.

15 min: Torpor-Stanley is next to go into the referee’s notebook for what Simon Hill describes as a “clumsy chop at the legs of Carusca” and what I would call a “cynical act of desperation” as the Argentine scampered away from him.

14 min: Isaias looks for the run of Cirio but Covic is there, standing right on the edge of his box, to collect. Adelaide are certainly looking the better of the two sides so far.

12 min: Spiranovic does a little pirouette on the ball when he really shouldn’t be doing anything of the sort. He gets away with it this time though and Wanderers can play the ball out of defence.

10 min: Oh dear, that’s a bit nasty from Bridge, who is terribly late on McGowan. He deservedly sees yellow. That was borne out of frustration, methinks – he’d given the ball away cheaply and was looking to get it back at all costs.

8 min: “The game has started really promisingly,” says Harps on the telly. And he’s right, especially for Adelaide, who I think he was referring to.

6 min: Ferreira attempts a Ronaldo stepover – it’s quite a decent impersonation to be fair – and buys himself a bit of space on the right wing. He delivers a decent ball into the box, but Wanderers manage to survive the danger.

4 min: What a run by Djite! He muscles his way through the Wanderers’ defence, beating Spiranovic and Hamill before unleashing a shot. It ends up flying into the fans behind Galekovic’s goal, but a positive run from the US-born striker nevertheless.

3 min: Lovely touch from Jeggo before he ruins his hard work by giving the ball straight back to the Wanderers.

2 min: It looks like a beautifully manicured pitch out there tonight. Made for playing football, which is handy because the Reds like to play along the deck.

The teams are out on the Coopers Stadium pitch, Adelaide in all red, Wanderers in their away strip of all white. We’re about to get under way.

Facts are sacred, declares the Guardian’s guidebook to data journalism and data visualisation, so here are some facts on tonight’s match-up, courtesy of the good people at Adelaide United.

• This fixture has seen an average of three goals per game in its six occasions, though just one goal has been netted in the two fixtures between the sides in 2014.
• Adelaide have kept successive clean sheets against Western Sydney Wanderers (W1 D1).
• Adelaide are currently unbeaten in 13 home games; a run which stretches back to December 2013 (W8 D5).
• Western Sydney Wanderers are without a win in nine games (including play-offs); their worst run ever in the Hyundai A-League (D3 L6).

Poppa slapped with ban

Getting slapped is far from a pleasant experience at the best of times, but given Wanderers’ current plight, the two-match ban that Tony Popovic has taken today must sting more than even a wet fish. The AFC has handed out the sanction for Poppa’s role in an on-pitch altercation during the Asian Champions League quarter-final with Guangzhou Evergrande, a ding-dong that had already seen the Chinese club’s coach Marcelo Lippi banned. But if it has been a bad day so far for the Wanderers coach, spare a thought if you can for the AFC themselves, who were not only forced to discipline their coach of the year, but also their player of the year Nasser Al Shamrani – for eight games – following his spit-spat with Matthew Spiranovic in the second leg of the final in Saudi Arabia. Embarrassing much?

Talking of farmyard animals (those calves of Malik and Izzo, in case you were somewhat confused), ever wondered what would happen if a goat made it onto a football pitch? No, me neither. But here’s the answer anyway:

Tonight’s man in charge is Jarred Gillett, while Nathan MacDonald will run the lines with Mathew Cheeseman - no relation to the great Gareth, but worth making the tenuous link to ‘justify’ airing this:

And Rick Schneider is the fourth official, for those of you interested.

Mike will be here shortly to host tonight’s blog, but before he arrives, have a read of Paul Connolly’s preview, in which he ponders whether the Wanderers’ woes will ever end.

It’s not as if Tony Popovic’s team are playing badly —although they seemed to forget where the goal was on Wednesday night— but still, here we are, eight games into the season and they don’t have a win to their name. Worse, the Wanderers’ past four matches have all been at the home ground, an erstwhile fortress, yet they’ve generated just three points from them and, for the first time in their short and gilded history, a grumble of discontent from their fan base who are not accustomed to the drawn-out suffering of the football fan. Popovic is stretching things with his claim that his team have been the better team in the past four matches, but they certainly haven’t been outplayed in any of those fixtures. Popovic has argued that the ball is just not dropping their way. That’s football, that’s life, but they simply have to find a way to make their own luck here or else the top six will move so far out of sight that however much they rally they won’t catch up.

Fortunately for them, they are not the only strugglers, and sixth spot (occupied now by Brisbane) is just four points adrift. Unfortunately, however, their next match is against Adelaide at Coopers Stadium on Saturday night. The dynamic Reds will be smarting after shooting themselves in the foot against Victory last start and they should be up for it like kites on a windy day.