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I feel that it will definitively tell us where the team is at.

Slightly off topic but had to come on for a vent.. this league is just proving how dead in the ass it is and how the league clearly is against fans and active support.. There were a group of kids. Yes that's right kids probably 6-8 years of age throwing red, white and blue balloons around near the active. Security just came in and told them to stop. Took the balloons and popped them all whist the other 2 security guards stood there laughing. I swear there is an agenda to completely kill this league off. It has been dead for a few seasons now but seeing this tonight just made me go wow.. what has this league come too?? When they should be encouraging fans to come, especially kids to games and you get in trouble for having a couple of fucking balloons.. I went to my first ever NBL game a few weeks ago.. it was loud.. they were handing out hand clappers and continually encouraging the whole crowd to make noise and in particular when the other team had the ball. The atmosphere was incredible and it made me look around going "wow the NBL knows how to put on a show" meanwhile the league is on it's knees, has security guards litteraly patrolling all areas and if you dare let out a fart you'll be kicked out.. end of my rant but I'm just getting fed up to be honest!

Two incidents in my life does not give me great optimism: me selling car radios (as a hi-fi enthusiast) and hearing "I don't care what it sounds like, as long as it looks good" & second being at a professional wine tasting (as a budding alcoholic) and me getting a bollocking from another drunk after tipping a disgusting wine down the sink which was also the most expensive wine on the night only to find out a few minutes later that the wine was so poor that the marketing guy recommended to get a designer label and charge like a wounded bull so that most people thought that the price meant it was good. I feel the same way about people who watch European football, they get told that it is the best and how expensive it really is so they assume that it must be good. But have an in-depth talk about football tactics, team cohesion, what each player brings to the team and sports psychology and watch them run away.

Yes, I quite liked Ugarkovic playing full back. He's solid there and it frees up space in midfield for more creative options.

Why was this guy signed? He's been average at best. He's taken Ugarkovic position and our managers, with all their badges, pushed Urgakovic forward in a position that isn't his. Urgakovic has had some of his worst moments as he's stuffed a number of front third scoring opportunities. Simply because it isn't his natural position. Get rid of Jeggo, hes useless. Happy to keep Urgakovic even as a bench player if we can find someone better to replace him.

Also, if Nisbet misses match time for whatever reason, he can play against the kids at half time to get his fitness or form back

quite a few outcomes, and that's not even taking into account that we could still finish higher than 6th. sad that we have been so fucking inconsistent and injury prone all season. then again, the three big wins we have had this season has really skewed our GD. take the 7-0, 8-1 and 8-0 out we have played 22 games for 6 wins with 25 Goals Scored and 36 Goals Against. makes think we will win this and then lose to Western Utd

I always have. Sometimes I watch European games and wonder why we consider our product to be so inferior. Sure the top four are several notches above the rest, but the rest are not that impressive.

Interesting. Certainly we're inconsistent but neither Brisbane nor WSW are weak sides, Brisbane latterly but not so much at the time we beat them. And we beat Wellington only a few weeks ago. We're just plain inconsistent. Capable of being good one week and bloody useless by comparison only days later.

8 year deal coming up surely

Well said. Players and staff should be assessed on performance, not reputation. As they say in golf - "You're only as good as your next shot." And I think if we don't excise the cancer, players such as Caputo and Arslan will move on as well because staying here is not helping them in what is a short career. And staff will move on as well. As they already have. IMO people denying the situation that exists in the club are burying their heads in the sand. I still cannot get any information from the club on our FRG....

Hopefully CFG learns from this season that you cannot eviscerate a squad and then expect results, regardless of who you bring in. We should always be in a rebuilding/strengthening phase. Not good enough to have been caught out by roster issues ...

For the sake of next season not making the finals is a blessing. Don't want anything to paper over the cracks of this season.

Best coach in the league vidmar that’s why his at city we only take the best lol

Have officially reported to the club via membership@. Suggest anyone else who saw it does the same.

Game Day Caputo to score a hattrick and Antonis to score from inside his own 18 yard box.

Will Talbot and Beach be back. I'd probably prefer Ugarkovic to remain at full back and Lecks in midfield than have Talbot back doing his usual

How can we have equaled the highest winning margin in leauge history multiple times, then break the record and still not be sure if we're even going to make the top 6?! Ffs this club!

I like this new formation, eg Urgarkovic at right back, and Leckie joining Arslan in the midfield.

HT: 5 - 0. I don't want to put the mozz on us; I know that it's early, but even with our regular last 10 minutes of the game, snooze... we are likely to get a point from this game.

Yep second this... We don't deserve to make the top 6.

Wonder whether there's a "club room" where Members would be welcomed, meet each other, meet players and staff, watch videos, get a coffee, even have a meal, etc.? Of course, Heart did that in the early days - the Westpac Meeting Room was it? - fans could go up there after a home match and meet the lads. It's on one of the early threads here. Very common, at least with smaller clubs, elsewhere - and of course at NPL level in Australia with the long-established clubs. My home town club still does it, even though we lost our old home ground years ago, and there's still a Supporters' Bar and welcome for visiting supporters, and the website even gives them details on local bus services to and from the ground and the latest time they should catch a train from London to make kick-off time. They really work hard to get spectators to the match. To our knowledge, does any other A-League club do this? With City, "fan engagement" just does not seem to be on the agenda.

Always there when I can. And I'm aiming to be at this one and the WU match in two weeks. Then start planning for next season.

We're not suggesting that City should lie. Merely that the club is short on meaningful information to members, and has been lacking in this respect for some while now. Always asking people to buy something, or enter a competition, or register for something, but not treating us like adults capable of interest and understanding, or, let it be said, of actually contributing meaningful opinion and ideas.

I’ll take Joel Matip. Free agent end of season, wrong side of 30, centre back and currently nursing an ACL injury he suffered this year.

Let's be honest guys.. our season was over weeks ago.. Surely Vidmar has to go! He can't stay on after this shit season!

0-2, 2 jeggo own goals

Not a penalty in a million years. Fernandez barged over. Just a joke.

Heading off to this one with my son as for a change he hasn't got a shift. Win this and it will tell us where we are at, hopefully 5th if Sydney lose against Mariners and Mac beat WSW both good chances of happening. After a couple of weeks, will Vidmar play Caputo from the start or revert to Jmac? Will Reis an Soup partner as CBs or will he bring back Good? Are any of our injuries back yet? Some interesting questions here

I'm looking forward to next season and some personnel changes, a frustrating game to watch, even though overall there's improvement, there's zero cohesion at all. Football has been under attack in this country and certainly in Vic for the last 100 years. I mean it was a point of discussion in Vic parliament at one stage, because it threatened to be bigger than AFL.

Saw this. Security were utter arseholes. And the rest of them laughing while it happened. Those kids might not come again. It's these fuckwits who are killing the game. Adult that was with the kids was I think filming it all on his phone. Hopefully results in a complaint and a few sackings.

Great win - bottom of table team. Would be happy with a 1-0 win for the last two games. Jakolis still cannot score or shoot on target... Jeggo - cannot see what is adding to the team , poor...

we secured the 7th place with this win....

More Glory away supporters than City active.

Some thoughtful and well argued stuff here. Thank you. I suppose the problems we've had (apart from a behind the scenes cultural one which we can only guess at) have been that we built a team with some young players who were very good, and then left all at once, and that we had an issue with good overseas players leaving before their contracts were up (and Van der Venne, Lam and Sakhi feels more than a coincidence, even if it could have been one, overseas players do fail to settle). Difficult reliably to sign younger players who are good enough, but not good enough to leave for better options overseas. But this season we've definitely struggled with signing several sub par players, and with an ageing squad that definitely all looks a year too old all at once. Could we have foreseen the latter? Maybe not. But we've often been too slow to give experience to younger players who might cover for them.

Every club anywhere in the world will hire players that don't work out for one reason or another. Ageing players are also an issue everywhere. The problem gets highlighted in the A-League because of the squad cap size which is a feature rather than a bug. Hence any club should only have two players that don't quite fit in. We have too many.

This is exactly what Petrillo would be thinking…hmmm the players aren’t that bad, it worked in the previous seasons, head scratch, head scratch. I understand that many fans think the same without looking into the details perhaps but essentially we are just looking for excuses. It’s complacency and being the oblivious/blind to the strength of your competition. Not making finals is just inexcusable. We’ve also missed out on some good money by not getting out of the CL group stage. Coaching certainly plays a factor but a big group (too many to compensate) of our players just miss top 4 quality in skills, strength and agility. Think about Talbot’s final ball, Urgakovic or Jakolis finishing, Jeggo tackles - that’s not recruitment? We can rave about Arslan all we want but he is limited in defensive capabilities, cannot run out games and needs a lot of defensive support - that’s not recruitment? This year with all the CFG tools available was the time to show your recruitment skills, some key players left and a stronger league but he failed. Yes we had injuries and player fall outs but not finishing in the top 6 without consequences, no I think it’s time for him to move on now.

Now that it's effectively season over; 1 point from the last three matches, I'd like to see our two other keepers get some game time, we'll be relying on them next season

Petrillo gets one more go at it. I don't think the players we have brought in have been bad (Natel aside) I just don't think they all fit in together and is that a him issue or a coaching issue. Soup has been alright, Arslan is a baller, Sakhi was looking solid before he fucked off, I can see why Jakolis was worth a punt as a non visa player. Before this season he has been nearly flawless in who he has got it, he deserves to try and fix it. If next year it's still no good, then by all means let's look elsewhere

Disappointing, but expected. Despite taking the lead from Arslan's clever interception and finish, we looked second best from the first minute, and it was only the visit0r's poor finishing that prevented the scoreline from reflecting the true difference. Victory have progressed, we haven't.

Nah. Rather develop Caputo as a single striker - with two upfront maybe.

Heart-esque loss

We would be 4th if we could put away our chances in the last 2 games. Too bad we're awful

Our big issue is in front of goals: we have been far less efficient in converting chances this season, mostly down to JMac's form slump, related, I think, to giving him the captaincy and to the near-total absence all season of Leckie, Nabbout and then Tilio. Jakolis is good, in parts, but inconsistent. I'd put Natel on the plane back to Brazil unless we are paying him a low wage

Awesome win this arvo to secure the premiers plate. A week rest now before finals.

There goes our finals chance, and, really, we don't deserve it. That game really encapsulates our season: sterile possession; struggled to break down deep sitting organised defences. We are still to play our first choice starting XI this season, so injuries have also been a factor. The most important off-season task is to find a good Le Patron-level coach for next season

Yes, your summary checks out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Goodwin IIRC Heart fans were equally surprised that he didn't sign for us after his successful debut in the A-League. Just looking at Papas' career it may be that Papas was instrumental to Goodwin going there. He's "one that got away." There have been others, but it seems inevitable under our system. Probably at all clubs if we looked closely enough.

I think one point that I'm trying to tease out is that it does. And two members are named in the APL FRG minutes. One I think is with Talking City, but the other? - I have no idea who she is. So APL, if it is genuine, is receiving comment from people who may just be club stooges. It's another example of ballot-stuffing. I do not see what City hopes to gain from this secrecy.

They can play more games by having more rounds. As it is we have two and a bit which is uneven and unfair. We had three rounds the first season of Heart. I don't know what stopped the introduction of the domestic transfer proposal. The PFA? Again, it's all down to top-heavy administration. Too many fingers in the pie and too many toes to not tread on. All these things are possible. It's just that we stuff around at the administrative level squandering money right, left and centre. How many of the top suits at APL got the pink slip after the $140m waste debacle?