City Football Group (CFG) [Owner of Melbourne City]

[n i k o]

13 minutes ago, playmaker said:

I think the real issue this season was 2 fold.

1 we lost Bruno and Ross that created a disjointed attack, 

2 Joyce underestimated the value of good visa and Marquee players.

The former was down to bad luck, the latter was down to stupidity from Petrillo, Munn and Wazza.

Very well there's some truth there but I'm wondering what Munn had to do with our choice of a good visa and marquee players (besides being indirectly connected due to the hiring of both Wazza and Petrillo)? 

[jw1739]

16 minutes ago, playmaker said:

I think the real issue this season was 2 fold.

1 we lost Bruno and Ross that created a disjointed attack, 

2 Joyce underestimated the value of good visa and Marquee players.

The former was down to bad luck, the latter was down to stupidity from Petrillo, Munn and Wazza.

Now, it may be Marwood just covering his backside, but according to The World Game https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2018/04/20/warren-joyce-backed-continue-city  he is quoted as follows:

'Visiting CFG heavyweight Brian Marwood said Joyce was "absolutely" the man to continue the job after leading City to a club record third-placed finish.

"He came in to work with a lot of players and staff he didn't know and that takes some time to adapt and work out where everybody fits," Marwood said.

"As we saw for the first four, five months, there were some ups and downs. It wasn't a smooth transition.

"I look now and I see a manager who's really managing in the way that we wanted him to manage."

The bolded sentence suggests that Joyce came into the job pretty cold.

[belaguttman]

1 hour ago, jeffplz said:

He role was to turn losers into positive thinking winners. Joyce’s role was much harder, deal with huge personalities and entitled individuals, and turn whingers into hard workers. 

Yes, that's why we needed a coach who could use huge entitled personalities, not turn them away

[n i k o]

1 minute ago, belaguttman said:

Yes, that's why we needed a coach who could use huge entitled personalities, not turn them away

Well except one particular flog who was beyond salvaging 

[belaguttman]

6 minutes ago, n i k o said:

Well except one particular flog who was beyond salvaging 

That particular flog was an entitled pain but he did win us the FFA Cup. It would have been useful to have him on the pitch during the semi, they are exactly the sort of games where he delivers. I agree that he's a pain though

[playmaker]

50 minutes ago, n i k o said:

Very well there's some truth there but I'm wondering what Munn had to do with our choice of a good visa and marquee players (besides being indirectly connected due to the hiring of both Wazza and Petrillo)? 

Because I think we would have been in a much better position with someone that would have made the hard decisions years ago. To me it seems that he has been blind-sighted throughout his tenure or has not been critical enough on key personnel making poor decisions.

[Embee]

35 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

That particular flog was an entitled pain but he did win us the FFA Cup. It would have been useful to have him on the pitch during the semi, they are exactly the sort of games where he delivers. I agree that he's a pain though

Surely that's part of building a winning culture though.

The biggest clubs don't allow individual players to force the club into corners regarding playing time or personnel decisions and are always willing to cut ties if necessary.

Nobody's bigger than the club, even Tim Cahill.

[jw1739]

6 minutes ago, playmaker said:

Because I think we would have been in a much better position with someone that would have made the hard decisions years ago. To me it seems that he has been blind-sighted throughout his tenure or has not been critical enough on key personnel making poor decisions.

I'm not anti-Munn as some are, but he is the CEO of Melbourne City, and a member of the City Football Group Leadership Team - https://www.cityfootballgroup.com/Our-Business/Leadership-Team - so he has to take some responsibility in decision-making, whether he's directly involved in a particular decision or not.

[n i k o]

1 minute ago, Embee said:

Surely that's part of building a winning culture though.

The biggest clubs don't allow individual players to force the club into corners regarding playing time or personnel decisions and are always willing to cut ties if necessary.

Nobody's bigger than the club, even Tim Cahill.

Exactly. And it's your last sentence that is the truth in the matter. For Tim he was the bigger of the two. Fucking flog (can't help myself). 

[belaguttman]

13 minutes ago, Embee said:

Surely that's part of building a winning culture though.

The biggest clubs don't allow individual players to force the club into corners regarding playing time or personnel decisions and are always willing to cut ties if necessary.

Nobody's bigger than the club, even Tim Cahill.

Yes, I agree, but the skill is to work with each player and incorporate them into a cohesive working group. A compliant group is easy to work with, but it's a dependent group and will ultimately fail. Look what Hiddink did with the Socceroos when he took over, a group with lots of big personalities, and he didn't kick the big personalities out, he found a way to incorporate them into a cohesive working team.

Edited May 1, 2018 by belaguttman

[Embee]

9 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Yes, I agree, but the skill is to work with each player and incorporate them into a cohesive working group. A compliant group is easy to work with, but it's a dependent group and will ultimately fail. Look what Hiddink did with the Socceroos when he took over, a group with lots of big personalities, and he didn't kick the big personalities out, he found a way to incorporate them into a cohesive working team.

In theory that's excellent, but you're assuming that every player is ultimately reasonable enough to fall into line and that any case where they don't should fall upon the club's shoulders, this simply isn't a realistic way of viewing the situation.

I haven't been behind every personnel move the club has made this season but I'm well and truly behind them with Cahill.

[rass]

On 01/05/2018 at 9:45 AM, belaguttman said:

Yes, that's why we needed a coach who could use huge entitled personalities, not turn them away

There's been plenty of comments on here over the season about Joyce's inability to manage ego players, which probably has a fair bit of truth to it.

But I think people need to understand why he was brought here in the first place, which was all because of our soft cocked playing culture, which caused one of the most pathetic endings to a season which started so promising.

So we now have a coach who is hard arsed, no frills, builds a team from defence, expects every player to listen and do it his way. Probably why he was highly regarded as a youth coach.

Now you can argue that this type of coach should also be good at managing ego players, but I don't think that's quite the case in reality. Well perhaps in Europe, but to bring a coach all the way to our backwater with all those qualities would be very difficult I imagine, especially when we're all screaming down here expecting to play the attacking way we did 2 seasons back. Very difficult to get someone who could do all of that to come down here...

So especially in his first season, I could see he's not going to spend any time trying to get every ego on board. His way would be to stick with players who will do what they're told and try and build a cohesive and consistent structure and style around them, based on defensive strength foremost. The rapid development of Arzani was a bonus and gave us at least some sort of creativity.

So for a first season, he's probably achieved what he's needed to. Yeah we bowed out in another SF, but it was vastly different to previous years. As ugly as it looked, we were well on the way of achieving it, in front of 20000 vocal opposing supporters, until a freak goal changed it all. Despite the disappointment, not sure anyone can say we didn't give it our all.

Season 2 is going to be a completely different story, with a very aggressive set of goals. He's had a year now to understand the league and build his core and ideology. I'd expect a more attacking and creative mindset still built around a strong, consistent, defensive appoach.

Yes there will be players going, that's normal for here, but I don't think his core will be touched. It needs to stay similar so he can build the bells and whistles onto it.

I'd expect the club will aim to win everything next season. That's not an overestimation at all, but where we need to be. I'd see anything else a failure and would think that's what most of us should expect too.

Edited May 3, 2018 by rass

[belaguttman]

1 hour ago, Embee said:

In theory that's excellent, but you're assuming that every player is ultimately reasonable enough to fall into line and that any case where they don't should fall upon the club's shoulders, this simply isn't a realistic way of viewing the situation.

I haven't been behind every personnel move the club has made this season but I'm well and truly behind them with Cahill.

Yes, we don't know what went on behind the scenes, but I'm concerned at the turnover this season, in particular, the loss of good players, the reports of yet more turnover and yet more recruitment. Each player released is an opportunity lost, the playing group is constantly reforming, the culture never becomes established within the playing group, it's owned by the coach. Culture needs to come from the top but also from the bottom

[n i k o]

11 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Yes, we don't know what went on behind the scenes, but I'm concerned at the turnover this season, in particular, the loss of good players, the reports of yet more turnover and yet more recruitment. Each player released is an opportunity lost, the playing group is constantly reforming, the culture never becomes established within the playing group, it's owned by the coach. Culture needs to come from the top but also from the bottom

What will be interesting this off season is to see whether the players that are turned over are signings Wazza made or JVS made from his tenure. If you look at the situation closer you begin to see a pattern emerging. So far Kilkenny, Cahill, Brandon have all been previous JVS signings that Wazza has let go. The players that have been rumoured to be going such as Kamau, Tongyik, Fitzy,  Jakobsen are also former JVS signings. These are all signs that Wazza is removing who he doesn't want which is fine.

[jw1739]

21 minutes ago, n i k o said:

What will be interesting this off season is to see whether the players that are turned over are signings Wazza made or JVS made from his tenure. If you look at the situation closer you begin to see a pattern emerging. So far Kilkenny, Cahill, Brandon have all been previous JVS signings that Wazza has let go. The players that have been rumoured to be going such as Kamau, Tongyik, Fitzy,  Jakobsen are also former JVS signings. These are all signs that Wazza is removing who he doesn't want which is fine.

Who do we actually include as being signings that Joyce has made? I would nominate Delbridge, Vidosic and Bozanic as being "his" but he probably didn't have much knowledge of the earlier ones. Of those three only Bozanic is out-of-contract at the end of May.

Edited May 1, 2018 by jw1739

[n i k o]

19 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Who do we actually include as being signings that Joyce has made? I would nominate Delbridge, Vidosic and Bozanic as being "his" but he probably didn't have much knowledge of the earlier ones. Of those three only Bozanic is out-of-contract at the end of May.

Basically anyone that joined the club from July last year.

[belaguttman]

1 hour ago, n i k o said:

What will be interesting this off season is to see whether the players that are turned over are signings Wazza made or JVS made from his tenure. If you look at the situation closer you begin to see a pattern emerging. So far Kilkenny, Cahill, Brandon have all been previous JVS signings that Wazza has let go. The players that have been rumoured to be going such as Kamau, Tongyik, Fitzy,  Jakobsen are also former JVS signings. These are all signs that Wazza is removing who he doesn't want which is fine.

Again, we don't what has happened behind the scenes, but there appears to have been little effort to include those players in the team, they've been frozen out from the beginning. This creates sub-groups within the larger group and it's difficult to create a cohesive working group

[Embee]

13 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Again, we don't what has happened behind the scenes, but there appears to have been little effort to include those players in the team, they've been frozen out from the beginning. This creates sub-groups within the larger group and it's difficult to create a cohesive working group

You open the post with 'we don't know what has happened behind the scenes' yet immediately go on to spin your own narrative about the squad moves, making assertions about sub-groups and players being frozen out from the beginning when that wasn't the case in all situations.

Cahill was in and out of the club due to international call-ups for the best part of the first couple of games and was involved really as much as you could justify, hell he even got a start against Sydney. Kilkenny was involved in the first few cup games (and maybe the first league game, I can't remember) until he went down with injury, upon which time Brattan and Malik were holding those spots and dropping them clearly wasn't justified in the manager's eyes. Brandan is the one that annoys me but he was injured for the first few months and was seemingly moved to clear room for Ross, which as I've mentioned before on this forum I believe could've been handled a lot better.

55 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Who do we actually include as being signings that Joyce has made? I would nominate Delbridge, Vidosic and Bozanic as being "his" but he probably didn't have much knowledge of the earlier ones. Of those three only Bozanic is out-of-contract at the end of May.

People are basically picking and choosing these based on whichever narrative they are choosing to push at the time. For me, I feel like Joyce had input on almost every signing made in the previous window after he joined the club, if not the specific player then the type of player he wanted to sign. He mentioned having seen Budders in the past (maybe he was bullshitting, but it's on the record) and when interviewed on TC Bart specifically said the Melbourne City manager wanted him, now, maybe that's Bart operating through a language barrier but again, it's on the record and it isn't a massive leap to take it at face value..

Edited May 1, 2018 by Embee

[n i k o]

9 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Again, we don't what has happened behind the scenes, but there appears to have been little effort to include those players in the team, they've been frozen out from the beginning. This creates sub-groups within the larger group and it's difficult to create a cohesive working group

You may be right, not arguing that you're not. However I dont see how on one hand you can say ' we don't know what has happened behind the scenes' and in the same breath indicate there was 'little effort' to include those players. 

[belaguttman]

20 minutes ago, n i k o said:

You may be right, not arguing that you're not. However I dont see how on one hand you can say ' we don't know what has happened behind the scenes' and in the same breath indicate there was 'little effort' to include those players. 

Without meaning to be pedantic, I did say "appears to have been", that's more qualified than "there was". All we can go by is appearance. I'd be very happy to be wrong on this.

Tongyik didn't even get a minute on the pitch during the A-League season, Neither did Brandan -  after he was fit he was released. Kilkenny I think, had a few minutes as a sub after he was injured, and that was it for the season. Cahill was away on International duty and had his dummy spit soon after he returned. I'm not saying that there weren't good individual reasons for each of these, but what happens in groups is that you get sub-groups forming in these types of situations and this creates problems. Wazza solved the problems by getting rid of the players or permanently sidelining them, but this has come at a cost to the team: a likely effect on cohesion, less competition for starting places. Effectively we were playing with a smaller list and that must have an impact on team performance.

[jw1739]

Kilkenny was in the City match squad for four A-League matches - the four that we played in November. He didn't come off the bench against Western Sydney, which we drew 1-1, he had 14 minutes at home against Sydney, 45 minutes away to Brisbane, and 12 minutes at home to Perth - we lost all three of those matches. He wasn't selected again.

[n i k o]

2 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Without meaning to be pedantic, I did say "appears to have been", that's more qualified than "there was". All we can go by is appearance. I'd be very happy to be wrong on this.

Tongyik didn't even get a minute on the pitch during the A-League season, Neither did Brandan -  after he was fit he was released. Kilkenny I think, had a few minutes as a sub after he was injured, and that was it for the season. Cahill was away on International duty and had his dummy spit soon after he returned. I'm not saying that there weren't good individual reasons for each of these, but what happens in groups is that you get sub-groups forming in these types of situations and this creates problems. Wazza solved the problems by getting rid of the players or permanently sidelining them, but this has come at a cost to the team: a likely effect on cohesion, less competition for starting places. Effectively we were playing with a smaller list and that must have an impact on team performance.

Ok I get that sub groups happen and can cause problems etc. But are you saying that inspite of them being good decisions Wazza should still have appeased/included those players? Sorry I'm just struggling to get exactly what you're trying to say as each post you seem to contradict whatever point you're trying to make. 

[belaguttman]

4 minutes ago, n i k o said:

Ok I get that sub groups happen and can cause problems etc. But are you saying that inspite of them being good decisions Wazza should still have appeased/included those players? Sorry I'm just struggling to get exactly what you're trying to say as each post you seem to contradict whatever point you're trying to make. 

I'm saying that one way to deal with sub-groups is to eject them, another way is to break down the sub-groups by creating an inclusive group. For whatever reason, we went down the former route, but that route doesn't create group cohesion, and, of course, it leaves you with a smaller group. You don't create an inclusive group by appeasing one group over the other, that exacerbates the problem and almost certainly would have made things far worse with no real benefit. The real skill in working with groups is to find a way to incorporate the disparate personalities. Of course, not everyone can always be included, sometimes people do have to leave, but we've had a particularly high turnover of experienced key players this season and this will come at a cost. Top managers at top clubs routinely have to deal with big egos and yet find a way to meld them into a functional working group

[Jovan]

23 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

I'm saying that one way to deal with sub-groups is to eject them, another way is to break down the sub-groups by creating an inclusive group. For whatever reason, we went down the former route, but that route doesn't create group cohesion, and, of course, it leaves you with a smaller group. You don't create an inclusive group by appeasing one group over the other, that exacerbates the problem and almost certainly would have made things far worse with no real benefit. The real skill in working with groups is to find a way to incorporate the disparate personalities. Of course, not everyone can always be included, sometimes people do have to leave, but we've had a particularly high turnover of experienced key players this season and this will come at a cost. Top managers at top clubs routinely have to deal with big egos and yet find a way to meld them into a functional working group

I agree with this. That what may seem as the "tough" call (getting rid off) is infact the easiest option and trying to resolve and manage through is much harder and sometimes impossible. 

For me Cahill situation was untenable and he had to go.

Kilkenny and Brandan should have been worked out.

Carusca I'm undecided

La Rocca if not legitimately injured should also have been managed.

But ultimately its part of Wazzas mantra and his tenure will be judged on his decisions. Like many his first season will be decided by the result of the granny which in itself is a weird conundrum. 

Time for the Simpsons only posts.

[n i k o]

40 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

I'm saying that one way to deal with sub-groups is to eject them, another way is to break down the sub-groups by creating an inclusive group. For whatever reason, we went down the former route, but that route doesn't create group cohesion, and, of course, it leaves you with a smaller group. You don't create an inclusive group by appeasing one group over the other, that exacerbates the problem and almost certainly would have made things far worse with no real benefit. The real skill in working with groups is to find a way to incorporate the disparate personalities. Of course, not everyone can always be included, sometimes people do have to leave, but we've had a particularly high turnover of experienced key players this season and this will come at a cost. Top managers at top clubs routinely have to deal with big egos and yet find a way to meld them into a functional working group

Yes creating inclusive groups is the preferred way. Fwiw I think each player has their own individual reasons for not being played so I wouldn't include all of them in the one sub group. I'm ok with Wazzza doing things his way for now. Personally I will reserve judgement on this side of things until next season. If we settle on a core group of players and Wazza is able to top the table then all will be understood. If we continue to see mass exits next season and struggle to improve anymore on top of this seaosn I'll be right there next to you with a flame and pitchfork. 

[jw1739]

FMD Bela, that's a long-winded way of saying that we had a few wankers on the books who didn't like their new boss (and/or vice versa) and had to go.

[belaguttman]

2 hours ago, jw1739 said:

FMD Bela, that's a long-winded way of saying that we had a few wankers on the books who didn't like their new boss (and/or vice versa) and had to go.

He isn't there to be friends or to be popular, he's there to develop a Premiership winning team. If there are wankers that can contribute to this then it's his job to find a way to incorporate them smoothly into the team. I'm sure that there are wankers in every team on the planet.

[haz]

I wonder how CFG feel that a club with a newer owner (Newcastle) that also has aspirations to play in Asia and promote his company in the region, has done better then Melbourne already.

Do they even give a shit?

 

[n i k o]

1 hour ago, haz said:

I wonder how CFG feel that a club with a newer owner (Newcastle) that also has aspirations to play in Asia and promote his company in the region, has done better then Melbourne already.

Do they even give a shit?

 

[haz]

22 minutes ago, n i k o said:

Dude calm down, Saturday night after the GF we will start

 

 

(But this is great hahaha!)

Edited May 3, 2018 by haz

[n i k o]

1 hour ago, haz said:

Dude calm down, Saturday night after the GF we will start

 

 

(But this is great hahaha!)

[Shahanga]

On 01/05/2018 at 9:55 AM, belaguttman said:

That particular flog was an entitled pain but he did win us the FFA Cup. It would have been useful to have him on the pitch during the semi, they are exactly the sort of games where he delivers. I agree that he's a pain though

Yes let’s bring in a heap of NPL players who’ll salute Wazza before every training session. They’d be better than egotistical stars.

(IMO it’s his non use of the bench is the biggest worry though.)

[jeffplz]

It was 50/50 with Ernie Merrick. A shit team inherited the coach of another shit team, but his only resume booster was his experience. Complete luck that hes done so well with the current crop of Jets. 

[belaguttman]

On 01/05/2018 at 4:30 PM, jw1739 said:

FMD Bela, that's a long-winded way of saying that we had a few wankers on the books who didn't like their new boss (and/or vice versa) and had to go.

In the words of Gui Finkler (from an article on The Guardian website today

Quote

Gui Finkler, reflecting on the differences across a career played in Brazil, England, Belgium and Australasia, once explained how the squad-size limit and salary cap made the A-League a fundamentally different competition. 

“In Brazil, it’s totally different,” the former Melbourne Victory and Phoenix player said. “A new coach comes into training and bang, 14 players leave. Everyone is always moving, you don’t make friendships in the locker room, you don’t make lasting connections to people or places. In the A-League, you can’t do that, the squads are capped. You work with what you have. So to win the A-League it’s not about tactics, it’s about how you manage the players.”

 

City have always just moved on players

[jw1739]

53 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

In the words of Gui Finkler (from an article on The Guardian website today

City have always just moved on players

I don't deny that Merrick has done a great job. But if we had won the Premiership or Championship there would have been an article extolling the virtues of moving players on.

[belaguttman]

It's much harder to build on a culture when you are constantly reforming it.

[jeffplz]

So we would've won the semi-final if we'd not moved on players?

[belaguttman]

Just now, jeffplz said:

So we would've won the semi-final if we'd not moved on players?

No, we may be able to start building on a solid culture without starting again every season

[jeffplz]

1 hour ago, belaguttman said:

No, we may be able to start building on a solid culture without starting again every season

What's Joyce doing? Starting all over again? He's gauged his players season one and now is looking for better ones.

[Embee]

37 minutes ago, jeffplz said:

What's Joyce doing? Starting all over again? He's gauged his players season one and now is looking for better ones.

@jeffplz, don't know why you're bothering.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Embee