The Iraqi international - who is now also out of the Asian Cup - is the second Sydney FC player to go down with an ACL injury in two weeks after Corey Gameiro was ruled out for the year after suffering the same injury whilst away with the Young Socceroos. Sydney coach Graham Arnold said Abbas was "devastated" and knew as soon as the tackle occurred that he was in serious trouble. "It looks like an ACL and an MCL. It's terrible," he said. "I don't want you to ask me about commenting on [the tackle] because I haven't seen it on TV but I was close to it and it looked terrible. "He's devastated. Devastated. It was the second [tackle], he got smashed twice in two minutes – and there was no yellow card." Arnold said he would now look to see if he could bring in reinforcements to boost squad numbers.

"We lost Corey to an ACL when he was away on national team duty so we're down on numbers a bit," Arnold said. "Hopefully my CEO will allow me to get an injury replacement player." Abbas aside, the night was a lucky escape for Sydney, who had to survive a first-half onslaught from the Wanderers before scoring a brilliant equaliser through Bernie Ibini before steadying the ship in the second half to claim a point. "Bernie scored a bomb of a goal to make it 1-1 but in the first half they were definitely the better side," he said. "You've got to be honest about it. They had chances, they hit the post, we've cleared one off the line and we've scored one. We [improved] once we were able to change the system at half-time – we were playing too wide and too open. "In the second half they didn't create too much and if anything we had a couple of decent chances in the second half to take the game." The Sky Blues now have a short turnaround before Thursday night's match against Perth Glory at Allianz Stadium, where Arnold is expecting to regain Milos Dimitrijevic and Sasa Ognenovski.

"It's a great point away from home and if you get a point every time you go away from home, it's good," he said. "But we have to recover quickly and get ready for Thursday night." Western Sydney coach Tony Popovic was left bewildered how his side had the better of another match but couldn't win, taking their winless streak to the seven matches. "To perform like that in a derby, thinking back, I'm not sure a derby has been so one-sided as that," he said. "But we're playing great football, it's getting better and better, but the players didn't get he reward they deserved. That's all that's missing at the moment." Loading Popovic was again left to lament his side's inability to convert a raft of chances, the same problem that prevented them from taking recent wins against Central Coast and Newcastle.