Central Coast Mariners' week just got worse thanks to a 5-0 flogging at the hands of South Korean club Seongnam Ilhwa.
The A-League minor premiers were dumped out of the 2011/12 finals race with a penalties loss to Perth Glory on the weekend and followed that up with a poor performance at the Tancheon Sports Complex on Wednesday night.
First-half goals from Lee Chang-hoon and EvertonSantos gave the Pegasus a nice lead at the break before Kim Sung-hwan, an EvertonSantos penalty and Vladimir Jovancic added to the score in the second term.
The loss leaves the Mariners at the bottom of the Group G on table on three points with two matches remaining and forced an apology from head coach Graham Arnold.
"But there is one very good reason behind our performance. We had to play on Saturday night 120 minutes in a finals game, plus a penalty shoot out.
"The older players were quite physically tired because of the heavy schedule and we played with four 19-year-olds and an 18-year-old ... so yes I am disappointed with the result but I am very proud of the effort that my players put in after what they have been asked to do.""First of all I'd like to congratulate Seongnam for the victory, but I want to apologise if I may for our performance tonight," he said.
Central Coast will get the chance to respond to the heavy defeat when they take on third-placed Tianjin Teda on May 1, the same date as top two Seongnam and Nagoya Grampus meet.
