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RD 4 V Adelaide Saturday 28 October Coopers stadium KO 7:50


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Great win. 

Defending really well this year. Galekovic is a rock. 

Muscat was very poor tonight though. Everything dangerous from Adelaide came through him, caught in no-man's land a lot and is still too accident-prone. 

Would like to see Schenkeveld at right back and Jakobsen back in the centre of defense once Jamo is over his injury. 

Other than that, very happy. They had some half chances and Eugene was very good but we also created the best chance of the second half, Mauk should have scored. 

The Malik yellows were two of the softest ones ever and Bruce's at the end was even worse:, he cleared the ball, Adelaide guy got him late and a yellow to Bruce!! Ref was poor in that regard. 

But happy with the three points! Would love to beat Sydney in the battle of the two boring defensive teams ... :)  

 

 

Edited by dr lime
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 A very good game to win but next week will be a real test of our bona fides.

Positives:

We won.

We won away.

We won ugly.

We didn't crumble under pressure, kept our shape and defended well.

Another clean sheet

Fitness levels are good

We have Killer to come in for Malik.

 

Negatives:

we should have scored at least 4

We rode our luck at times and Manny Muscat is a red card waiting to happen. Sydney won't be as wasteful as Adelaide was

Ugly football, we are relying too much on individual brilliance rather than an attacking system. We struggle to keep the ball in midfield and are winning back the ball too deep

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8 minutes ago, Shahanga said:

Well people see what they want to see. 

For mine it's a new Brucey this year. Works so hard, fights for every thing.

Has no vision, is responsible for stuffing up a majority of our attack, and plays dumb. Absolute unforgivable for a RW. 

Edited by playmaker
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1 minute ago, belaguttman said:

Negatives:

we should have scored at least 4

We rode our luck at times and Manny Muscat is a red card waiting to happen. Sydney won't be as wasteful as Adelaide was

Ugly football, we are relying too much on individual brilliance rather than an attacking system. We struggle to keep the ball in midfield and are winning back the ball too deep

F... me Bela. We won 2-0, away from, 10 men and a juvenile ref. We're sitting top of the ladder, 4 from 4 and have conceded only once.

Not sure how you can find negatives in that performance, especially given the above. 

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3 minutes ago, Forever City said:

Will Killa or Brattan start vs Sydney.

Think they both will. Big question mark over Jammo now.

Joyce obviously has Brattan ahead in that race, however I have to confess to sbring a member of the Neil Kilkenny fan club. Can't remember a bad game and every time I looked st where he was in s game last year, his positioning was perfect. 

Edited by Shahanga
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1 minute ago, belaguttman said:

We can improve

We should improve

We will improve.  But it's a bit much getting stuck into our style of play, in particular midfield retention when we're 1 man down away from home. That was always going to happen. 

What's more important is how we dealt with that and to win it 2-0 has shown that so far, there is something very different about this team.

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Just now, rass said:

We will improve.  But it's a bit much getting stuck into our style of play, in particular midfield retention when we're 1 man down away from home. That was always going to happen. 

What's more important is how we dealt with that and to win it 2-0 has shown that so far, there is something very different about this team.

Even in the first half we only had 75% pass completion, 55% in the second half, that just keeps us under the pump. Our saving grace this season has been our high scoring efficiency. I can't find the figure but we have been very potent.

We do need a good defence but we need to improve so that it isn't under such constant pressure. I'm enjoying the wins but we need to attack as well as we defend especially if we want to do well in the ACL

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2 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Even in the first half we only had 75% pass completion, 55% in the second half, that just keeps us under the pump. Our saving grace this season has been our high scoring efficiency. I can't find the figure but we have been very potent.

We do need a good defence but we need to improve so that it isn't under such constant pressure. I'm enjoying the wins but we need to attack as well as we defend especially if we want to do well in the ACL

We haven’t even qualified for the ACL - so the beautiful football can wait until were solid enough to win our own league before worrying about that!

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18 minutes ago, Jovan said:

Same here.

Not sure what you're talking about?

pre-season @Dylan yourself and I were Wazzas strongest supporters.

Anyone who knew anything about football (like us 3) knew that that Sydney game was a total aberration and that we were well placed to take the A League by storm.

(now best get to editing old posts)

Edited by Shahanga
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14 minutes ago, Missing_Moy said:

We haven’t even qualified for the ACL - so the beautiful football can wait until were solid enough to win our own league before worrying about that!

No, but if that's the plan we should have the structures in place and a plan to work towards it. Individual brilliance will score for us in the HAL but not in the ACL. If we want to be successful and ambitious we should enjoy the wins but always strive to be better

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4 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

No, but if that's the plan we should have the structures in place and a plan to work towards it. Individual brilliance will score for us in the HAL but not in the ACL. If we want to be successful and ambitious we should enjoy the wins but always strive to be better

We have got a plan and structures in place and it's called defensive counter attack but it's unfortunate that we haven't got the attacking quality on the pitch to execute it correctly or we would have been 4 up by the 70th minute.

Again we displayed a Defensive Master-class and the system is as clear as day but we need better players with better vision and smarts to execute our attacks quickly and direct. 

That being said, we are 4 wins 0 losses so using results as the ultimate measure of success we are doing everything right.

Now let's kick those dirty smurf pretender's arses next match and put real fear into this competition. 

Great win Wazza, Come on City!!!!

 

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26 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

No, but if that's the plan we should have the structures in place and a plan to work towards it. Individual brilliance will score for us in the HAL but not in the ACL. If we want to be successful and ambitious we should enjoy the wins but always strive to be better

Well the wanderers won the acl playing almost exclusively on the counter attack 

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I agree that we are well structured defensively and it's very good to see. The problems start after the ball leaves our back 4. Defensive counter-attack still requires effective possession, and that is arguably missing. I'll agree with the argument that we scored 2 goals and AU scored none, therefore our possession must have been effective, however, I'd worry if the plan were to play like this all season. Teams like the smurfs are more efficient with their scoring opportunities and also have a more effective defence.

Wanderers did win playing counter-attack and did it with a much less talented squad because they had an attacking plan.

I'm worried that our current plan (kick it long to the striker) won't be as effective when Bruno returns as he's a different type of player. I really hope that we can find a way to keep McCormack and effectively play both but we still need a more sophisticated plan. I'm somewhat hopeful as we still have Marcin, Brandan, Carusca and Bruno to fit into the starting XI and they are all more creative, but we also need the attacking plan and strucure

Edited by belaguttman
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Lack of a good #10 has hampered us going forward. Mauk does good work closing down but is largely a workhorse and doesn't really create an outlet  target, hold the ball up, create chances with good through balls, etc. Not sure why we are waiting so long to play Polish there. Perhaps next week. 

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1 hour ago, playmaker said:

Has no vision, is responsible for stuffing up a majority of our attack, and plays dumb. Absolute unforgivable for a RW. 

 

31 minutes ago, playmaker said:

We have got a plan and structures in place and it's called defensive counter attack but it's unfortunate that we haven't got the attacking quality on the pitch to execute it correctly or we would have been 4 up by the 70th minute.

Again we displayed a Defensive Master-class and the system is as clear as day but we need better players with better vision and smarts to execute our attacks quickly and direct. 

That being said, we are 4 wins 0 losses so using results as the ultimate measure of success we are doing everything right.

Now let's kick those dirty smurf pretender's arses next match and put real fear into this competition. 

Great win Wazza, Come on City!!!!

 

We've got Muscat at RB and play a defensive style.

The fact he got away with so much / didn't get sent off must mean either god's finally listening or some one on the right side is helping a shit load

If only it we had a RW who could do everything (particularly in a salary cap system) 🤔🤔🤔

Or may be we should find a team who who wins 10-0 each week.  You make it sound so simple 

 

PS the funny thing is I didn't highlight / bold a single thing from quoted posts. Funny how (as others have nicely pointed out) some see what they want to see

Edited by mattyh001
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If I had to offer a criticism, I'd say that we should at least give Kilkenny a spot on the bench. He'd be an asset to bring on for the last 5-30 minutes in a range of match situations (including the last 2-3 games) and I think there's a 0% chance that Joyce doesn't call on Killer as that second or third sub if he'd been given a spot on the bench in the past two games.

He hasn't bothered to use that third sub in the past fortnight, because it's questionable what value Budzinski and Carrusca would have in that situation. Which probably means it's unnecessary to have both on the bench.

Edited by SF33
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29 minutes ago, SF33 said:

If I had to offer a criticism, I'd say that we should at least give Kilkenny a spot on the bench. He'd be an asset to bring on for the last 5-30 minutes in a range of match situations (including the last 2-3 games) and I think there's a 0% chance that Joyce doesn't call on Killer as that second or third sub if he'd been given a spot on the bench in the past two games.

He hasn't bothered to use that third sub in the past fortnight, because it's questionable what value Budzinski and Carrusca would have in that situation. Which probably means it's unnecessary to have both on the bench.

Our bench so far this season has looked as though its main purpose is to chase a game. Budzinski Cahill Brattan and Carusca for example. And because we haven't been behind yet the bench hasn't really been needed in that sense. 

 

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42 minutes ago, SF33 said:

If I had to offer a criticism, I'd say that we should at least give Kilkenny a spot on the bench. He'd be an asset to bring on for the last 5-30 minutes in a range of match situations (including the last 2-3 games) and I think there's a 0% chance that Joyce doesn't call on Killer as that second or third sub if he'd been given a spot on the bench in the past two games.

He hasn't bothered to use that third sub in the past fortnight, because it's questionable what value Budzinski and Carrusca would have in that situation. Which probably means it's unnecessary to have both on the bench.

Agree with this I think. Understand the bench is there to chase the game if we need, but we probably don't need 100% attacking players there. 

Could do with Neil in situations like last night where it felt like we were just holding on.

 

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1 hour ago, Jovan said:

Our bench so far this season has looked as though its main purpose is to chase a game. Budzinski Cahill Brattan and Carusca for example. And because we haven't been behind yet the bench hasn't really been needed in that sense. 

 

Football is always about balance, currently, the balance has tilted quite a way towards defence. The bench structure reflects an acceptance that there will be games where we will likely be behind and need to chase the game. In a way we have a similar problem to that under JVS where the balance was tilted aggressively towards attack, it reduces our flexibility in our approach to games and adjustment during matches. Teams worked us out quickly under JVS who remained inflexible in his approach, they'll work us out eventually under Joyce as we are just as predictable (in a different way).

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Wowee. What an unbelievable start to the season. After our display in the FFA cup I really wasn't getting my hopes up, even after going three for three last week. 

Last night was a cracking effort. Didn't go into our shells when put under the pump. Held firm and came away with all three points in a game we would have probably drawn or even lost in previous seasons.

Shout out to everyone who was defending JVS and blaming the squad over the past few seasons.

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5 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

Football is always about balance, currently, the balance has tilted quite a way towards defence. The bench structure reflects an acceptance that there will be games where we will likely be behind and need to chase the game. In a way we have a similar problem to that under JVS where the balance was tilted aggressively towards attack, it reduces our flexibility in our approach to games and adjustment during matches. Teams worked us out quickly under JVS who remained inflexible in his approach, they'll work us out eventually under Joyce as we are just as predictable (in a different way).

Agree with this but what we have now is the flexibility to increase the attacking side to our game given the bench we have and with Bruno and Brandon yet to come back in. If Joyce recognises this, and I can see why he wouldn't if he has any nous about him, then we're in a pretty good position now with 4 wins under the belt. As you say, it's about flexibility but for now I'm just soaking it all up :D

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The difference is a defensive-minded team won't LOSE as many. 

The A-League lacks quality in the front third-very few attackers can beat their man, very few strikers can punish teams with the few chances that are created.

So a strong defensive teams is more likely to be successful.  Ideally we would have the best of both worlds, but quality attacking players are not easy to find on the cheap.

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