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It drives me nuts... and TBH its probably the best indicator of the quality of the league and its engagement with the Public. The player movement around the same league is something that belongs in a Semi-Professional League, where players want to stay in the local area but can still earn decent playing wages so they move from one local club to another on two year contracts when teams save up money to win a flag. This does not belong at the highest tier... the rules of the A-League are reminiscent of Command Economics and they have ultimately yielded the same results in having some very obvious built in flaws. Things like the Salary Cap, Player quotas only work if you own the game like AFL, NBA and NFL they dont when your one of many participants.

Exactly. City has every year distanced itself from MHFC and created stronger symbolism with Man City every year. Carlton SC were very successful on the field but off the field could never get the support they needed to continue, now how many EPL fans are going to chose a club which is a replica of Man City if they support another UK club which almost all Australian footballs fans do. Man City are not that well a supported club and also as club even in Manchester, they are a side that has become a dominant side in the EPL purely due to Foreign Money that are heavily disliked by most EPL fans. For PPL who live in the West and dont support Man City - Its a pretty simple conclusion which side they will follow.

It drives me nuts too but I don't believe it due to the model of the A-League, I think its the majority of blame lies with the clubs. Constantly changing owners, football philosophies and coaches because they don't know what they want to be. I could use any club as an example but I will use Adelaide. They spent 4 years under ex-Barcelona coaches, implementing a distinct style of play and philosophy and won all 3 domestic trophies. Then they changed tack completely and appointed Kurz who turned them in to a super disciplined counter attacking team that gave limited opportunities to youngsters. Then ownership changed (now 75% Dutch and 25% Chinese owned) and the new chairman , Piet Van de Pol, has appointed a fellow Dutchman and aims to turn the club into a developer of youth. WSW pulled the same shit, trying to replace Popovic with Gombau (whose philosophies and football are polar opposites) and we've seen it with JVS replaced by Joyce replaced by Mombaerts. Every new coach sees the game differently and rebuilds the squad with players capable of playing their style of football. I argue its the high turnover in A-League coaches that leads to the high turnover of A-league players.

https://www.melbournecityfc.com.au/video/erick-mombaerts-citys-first-pre-season-hit-out

Is this really as bad as you're making out? This season we have signed Scott Galloway and Josh Brillante from other A-League clubs. Looking down our senior playing list I can only see one other - Lachlan Wales - signed direct from another A-League club, and you can hardly say he's done the rounds of other clubs because he's too young to have done so.

I have quit being a MCFC fan a while ago... the Digital Red and White Away Kit was the last straw for me. I only come on here at work out of habit to really post in the Club Room. I dont think I will call myself a supporter of Western United, but I probably will have more interest in them. As I support Man United, love the color Green as a Celtic Fan and my AFL side is Geelong. I also live in a North West direction to the City these days. In saying that as I have posted a bit on here the A-League needs to make some big changes to become interesting for a lot of people of which I am one... as it is really hard to see the League as one of Club Tribalism when you have a pool of Australian players who take two year contracts at a new club every two years. The League needs to lift its standard and have Players the fans can become more attached to and I see lifting the amount of Foreign Players at clubs is the only solution. Otherwise we will continue to watch the same mediocre players move from club to club being guaranteed positions as Professional Footballers as long as they can sit among the best 200 odd Australian players based in Australia. I feel the restrictions on foreign footballers has actually been a major reason on the obvious dip in the quality of the domestic side as our players are not being made to work hard enough to earn a decent wage as domestic footballers. When you had to be among the very best in the NSL or more likely play overseas to be a Professional Australian Footballer, our players worked a lot harder on advancing themselves as players. Still today young players who have to play NPL at Top NPL clubs before being noticed for A-League squads continue to improve at a greater rate than those who have been gifted spots in Rep Sides and A-Leagues lists since being teenagers.