John van `t Schip has taken some issue with officiating, but concedes Melbourne City's lack of an answer to Western Sydney's physicality was ultimately what cost them top spot on the A-League table.
City could have leapfrogged the first-placed Wanderers with a win at Pirtek Stadium on Friday night.
But despite a manic late comeback from 3-0 down, including two goals from Harry Novillo and Bruno Fornaroli inside a minute, they could not stop their hosts from sealing the 4-3 thriller.
Along with seven quality goals, the game had its fair share of fire.
Novillo and Alberto quite literally went head to head in the first half as tempers started to flare, while Andreu was booked for hauling down Aaron Mooy above the shoulders.
"They were very physical, and as we can expect were targeting Bruno, Harry and Aaron," van `t Schip said.
"We maybe didn't have the right answer for that, so they clearly wanted it more.
"In the end, they were aggressive and really wanting to get a good result, and we didn't have that enough."
However, van `t Schip felt hard done by over some of referee Shaun Evans' decisions, including new loan signing Anthony Caceres' second yellow card that saw him sent off with five minutes to go.
"It was very soft," the coach said.
"He already had a yellow, and this was actually nothing if you see what happened in the game.
"In the beginning there was also a big situation where Harry could have gone one on one with the goalkeeper, but (Nikolai) Topor-Stanley was clearly holding him - but the referee didn't do anything.
"That could have been a very important moment in the game, but he didn't give a yellow.
"In my opinion it could have been a red card - that could have changed the game."
Not working in City's favour was a forced defensive reshuffle.
Aaron Hughes withdrew on Friday morning with soreness following a tight turnaround from Monday night's win over Wellington, making way for new Adelaide recruit Osama Malik to make his starting debut at centre-back.
Compounding the problem, skipper Patrick Kisnorbo limped off after just four minutes with an Achilles problem, leaving Jack Clisby to plug the gap on the left and shifting Jacob Melling to the right.
Van `t Schip said Kisnorbo had not had a prior injury, but would determine its severity over the weekend ahead of City's visit to Newcastle next Sunday.
