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Now it is

Yes I know when we mention trophies, the list of Melbourne Heart/City's greatest players immediately becomes a lot shorter lol It should also be mentioned that Steph Catley, Aivi Luik and Rebekah Stott also completed the Threepeat. So a quartet of very strong and important players. Nonetheless, I believe Fishlock was named player of the match in 2 of the 3 grand finals, and as @thisphantomfortress said she has scored in most of our finals matches. So in terms of being a big game player, and being directly responsible for bringing real success and trophies to the club, objectively I think we can't go past Jess Fishlock. In terms of what they did produce and could produce at our club, then Mooy may well have been our most talented player ever. But apart from being in (and leading our team to be) the record goal scoring team, Mooy didn't happen to be in a Melbourne City team that picked up silverware. If Bruno can help lead the Melbourne City men's team to a Championship (GF win) or a Premiership (1st), then there's a decent argument for him being our greatest ever club player (especially given where the men's team has had to come from, and all that has to be overcome, compared with the women's team [which had a clean slate. A very good reminder of the advantages of getting stuff right the first time round]). But at present, Fishlock is the clear winner IMO. If you have ever seen the trophy case at CFG Academy in Bundoora, then it would be understood how hugely important it has been that Fishlock and others could directly help out in filling the trophy case. All the players must walk by it all the time, and mostly thanks to Fishlock, the players can now hold their heads higher. I really hope Fishlock continues to play some role in the club going forward, as the final thing a player like her can do to help the club be more successful going forward would be to just stick around, and play some role at the club, to help inspire the next players to win even more trophies.

I hear what you're saying but I'd argue that until the Sydney game, we were unbeaten since the first week of the year and if it wasn't for player brain fades, we would've come back from Perth with another win.

Big call, poor bastard still seems to have a permanent case of vertigo. He'd be more likely to kick someone in the throat.

I wonder why junkies walk so fast and with such purpose, you've got nowhere to be.

My TC respect levels are plummeting every time he opens his mouth at the moment. The crap he's been spurting since he left is simply embarrassing and is only serving to make him look like a bitter, dishonest prick IMO.

Yep it's a real concern isn't it and so very frustrating. It's been happening over a number of years with different players and coaches. I just think it's too convenient to blame coaching in those instances. We're talking about seasoned adult professionals here. Stuff like mouthing off, sliding in recklessly on a yellow, switching off and not concentrating when a team has a free kick deep in your defence.... Cmon, these guys know better than that. So frustrating!

pod cut short?

Fischlock for men's coach!

Not so sure, he's had a lot of injuries and missed a lot of football the past few seasons. If he did get fit he'd just start looking for an another overseas deal. Of course, Wazza doesn't like him so he's gonna go but I'd be more interested in developing and playing Tongyik, who has similar potential and who could get the franchise a transfer fee. I'd take Spira in his prime but that boat has sailed

Fair point on Muscat specifically. Nonetheless, I'd still say that having zero cover for Atkinson was being very hopeful. Having no cover for a kid who's just had a long injury, and expecting him to play 90+ minutes away in Perth, was asking for trouble. Agree on all those points. Looking back, I think much of the optimism over the first month of the season in October had as much to do with our squad (and the potential of all the players in the squad) as the successful/winning football we were playing at that time. However, instead of seeing Fornaroli, Brandan, Carrusca and more integrate into the team together, we are trying to integrate new players mid-season in Delbridge, Vidosic, Bozanic. Apart from Vidosic, the highest amount of mid-season turnover we've ever had is not paying off ATM. And instead of building for the future, I am also concerned that some of these poor decisions- like signing Delbridge for 3 seasons- will definitely hurt us more as time goes on.

You know what to do...

I don't have a specific opinion on Spiranovic because I don't know much about him. Hopefully though, if we are interested, we're putting the necessary thought into these recent signings and not just making them because someone happens to be available. There needs to be some planning behind what we do, not just ad hoc decisions. I'm sure I'm not alone, but I'm not over-impressed by the decisions taken with Brandan and Kilkenny, and I would have thought a good man manager should have been able to make something work with both of them until their contracts expired at the end of this season. If we don't put the necessary planning in place then we could end up in exactly the same situation again next season. I just hope that at some stage before I die that we will have an off-season when we will recruit a balanced squad that is to the manager's liking and matches his intentions of the way we wish to train and play in the following season, including five visa players, and two marquees who are demonstrably of marquee quality, that the squad assembles early and we play 10-12 pre-season matches when we fine tune our play and iron out difficulties. So that we don't find it necessary to release 6-7 players half-way through the season and make opportunistic signings to replace them. Lot's of other specific wishes, but the above would be a good start.

I viewed him as our 3rd choice CB from the start, behind our starting two but ahead of Tongyik. He has performed pretty much exactly how i expected him to: he's a very good A League defender 99% of the time, but he comes up with a total brain fart once every few games that looks utterly unforgivable. For mine he should probably be ahead of Delbridge, but i imagine part of the race to sign Delbridge was putting faith in him and La rocca has fallen down the pecking order based on potential. I'm not actually convinced that La Rocca is out of the side completely, i have a suspicion something else has been going on privately. Please note that is completely speculative and based on nothing concrete, or even a whisper.

That got a lol from me at my desk

Spoke to Ozzie late last week, said he was touch and go for Perth should be back for this. Unsure if he'll start though.

@Thrillhouse is this happening?

$1000 says we wont

Fake Ray Gatt is probably more reliable tbh

Indeed. Seems we've really stuffed up there. Obv they thought Ross was going to be the man and put all their eggs in that basket, then were unable to get a deal done/find an adequate player which tbh seems like a major fuck up to me. I will say though, that once they missed out on Eddari and we were clearly post window, its arguable that you shouldnt sign someone that wont cut it just for the sake of it, esp as you can bank up to 5% of your unspent cap and use it in the following season. Now ideally we would have made a signing that we were all happy with, and its a complete fuck up we havent, but i don't think signing anyone just for the sake of appeasing a few fans is a step forward either. I guess what im trying to say is its absolutely a black mark, but it won't be fixed by signing a Marcel Meeuwis just to keep the wolves at bay.

@Murfy1 We also released John Roberts, another prolific young striker and Scholarship player after signing him only 8 months or so previously, and we should also probably count Anthony Caceres, who had signed for us for 2017/18 and was in pre-season and didn't depart until the end of July 2017. IMO some very poor decisions have been made this season and they are definitely hurting us.

We're going to need to score two or three, because that defence is going to leak. The weakness in the line up we'll have for Friday is all in the back four. Muscat is a superannuated card generating machine, and Delbridge is a carthorse of a player (though I'd be pleased to be proved wrong).

Apparently Muscat picked up a virus matchday, and that's why he couldn't take his spot in side He was in Perth and probably would have started Can't blame anyone for that one, just unfortunate

Im starting to not like attitude from Waz. Maybe La Rocca wasnt english enough for him

Yes, but that market is based, partially at least, on the basis that the team cannot be tipped out of the A-League. IMO the issue with promotion and relegation is not so much the promotion side but the relegation.

I'm almost glad that I lost my NBN internet and VOIP connection (overheight vehicle ripped the cable down) on Friday morning until now, late Monday afternoon, because I'm far less despondent than I would have been if I had followed the minute-by-minute debacle of the Perth match. I don't think we're guaranteed finishing third at all based on the six matches we have to go. Victory, Adelaide and Wanderers are all quite capable of beating us and overtaking us on the ladder. Someone asked in another thread "where are we at as a club?" Well, I'm not sure that we're much different as a club from what we have been all along. It's easy to dissect any particular match and put the result down to a stupid mistake here and a stupid mistake there but IMO we have to look at results in a more holistic way. We need to ask questions such as: Why are we still making these stupid mistakes? Why are we still conceding goals and points in the dying stages of matches? Why are our managers still making mistakes with team selection and substitutions? Why have we taken only 4 points from Perth in two seasons? My support for Joyce is weakening as the season goes on. If we don't finish third then IMO it will have been a season of upheaval for no improvement over the past. IMO seven seasons of underachievement have made us too accommodating of CFG and our local administration. If Newcastle can make such a spectacular transformation (from last to second) in one season then why the hell are we still pretty much the same as we've always been?

Okay Dwight

His first yellow should be more of the problem, im still not convinced his 2nd was even a foul

How could anyone possibly not love Scotty Jamieson?

My feeling at the moment is how sad it is to see someone who has been an icon of our game for so long and who has achieved so much look as though he's going to exit football in such an undistinguished way. Much as I felt when I saw Tommy Sorensen exit the game sitting head bowed on the City bench. Like TC or loathe him - such a shame to see what is happening.

Imo it's easy to get caught out by the much larger hype surrounding the men's game and therefore the mens side. Don't get me wrong, Mooy and Bruno are phenomenal players, and having them at City has been truly incredible. But if a player in the men's team had the same impact as Fishlock has had in the women's side there would be absolutely no question that they were the best player in the clubs history. From an objective point of view, Jess Fishlock is Melbourne City's greatest ever.

The club has played 6 finals matches and she's scored four goals in them. Big stage player. This isn't to mention the countless regular season games she's saved us