Jump to content
Melbourne Football

Seasons over. Was it a pass/fail? Discuss.


Jovan
 Share

Recommended Posts

Obviously still a little raw but I'm interested in others opinion on this season. 

I've got this nagging feeling that this was our best opportunity to get into the granny and it may be a few seasons before we get another chance. 

Edited by jw1739
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

C+, if we get the play off spot, then B.

 

If we made Grand Final A, if we won A+

39 minutes ago, Jovan said:

I've got this nagging feeling that this was our best opportunity to get into the granny and it may be a few seasons before we get another chance. 

I don't think that's the case, if Newcastle didn't suddenly become amazing, we would have been 2nd.

Next season I expect Sydney to drop off due to contracts and a new coach, and I think Newey will be dismantled.

Joyce will have a full preseaon (yes yes I know we always say his) with a number of players off contract he couldn't get rid of during he season. I expect us to finish 1st-3rd next season.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Defenders
6                       Osama Malik                  31/5/18
2                       Manny Muscat               31/5/18
21                     Ruon Tongyik                 31/5/18
22                     Michael Jakobsen (V)   31/5/18
34                     Connor Metcalfe (S)       31/5/18
--                       Christian Cavallo             31/5/18 
Midfielders

13                     Stefan Mauk (L)               31/5/18 
26                     Luke Brattan (L)               31/5/18 
--                       Oliver Bozanic                   31/5/18 

Forwards
7                       Nick Fitzgerald                 31/5/18
11                     Bruce Kamau                    31/5/18

 

That's the list of players out of contract. I think I'd be keeping Malik (though played as a CDM), Brattan (does he still think he can make it to Europe?) and perhaps Fitzy, as he is a decent Australian back-up winger. Jakobsen is starting to break down and Bozanic is a nothing kind of player. Mauk has a few tickets on himself and probably doesn't want to stay another season. Tongyik, Kamau and Muscat are hopefully done. 

There are a few that are on longer-term contracts that I'd be cutting too but that ship has sailed. 

Another big squad turnover is on the cards and Joyce has the ability to build the squad with his preferred players. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

100% pass. Looking forward to see what Joyce can do next season

Season by season record[edit]

Division Season A-League FFA
Cup
ACL Top scorer
P W D L F A GD Pts Pos Finals Name Goals
1 2010–11 30 8 11 11 32 42 –10 35 8th  –  –  – Australia John Aloisi 8
1 2011–12 27 9 10 8 35 34 +1 37 6th QF  –  – Australia Eli Babalj 9
1 2012–13 27 8 3 16 31 40 –9 27 9th  –  –  – Australia Richard Garcia
Croatia Josip Tadić
6
1 2013–14 27 6 8 13 36 42 –6 26 10th  –  –  – Australia David Williams 12
1 2014–15 27 9 8 10 36 41 –5 35 5th SF R32  – Australia Aaron Mooy 7
1 2015–16 27 13 5 9 63 44 +19 44 4th SF SF  – Uruguay Bruno Fornaroli 28
1 2016–17 27 11 6 10 49 44 +5 39 4th QF 1st  – Uruguay Bruno Fornaroli 20
1 2017–18 27 13 4 10 41 33 +8 43 3rd SF QF  – Scotland Ross McCormack 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If there is a big turnover, I'd say it's a fail. If we go into next season with a pretty similar core and a new marquee that the coach actually wants, it's a pass.

I think the squad is very talented, but I'm so sick of us finishing the season with more or less a completely different senior team to the one we started the season with. 

Cahill, Brandan, Carrusca, Kilkenny, La Rocca, McCormack (in fairness, that's a bit different), Tongyik, Kamau, Galekovic, Budzinski...all players that were entrenched in the team or expected to be major components and were out the door, on the way out, or relegated to afterthoughts on the bench (if they were lucky).

Wasn't Fitzy getting a bit of buzz by the Fox Sports crew as potentially one of the players of the league early in the year? By the end of the season, the same commentary team was openly deriding a decision to put Fitzgerald on for Arzani, as though Fitzgerald was Iain Ramsay or something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, SF33 said:

If there is a big turnover, I'd say it's a fail. If we go into next season with a pretty similar core and a new marquee that the coach actually wants, it's a pass.

I think the squad is very talented, but I'm so sick of us finishing the season with more or less a completely different senior team to the one we started the season with. 

Cahill, Brandan, Carrusca, Kilkenny, La Rocca, McCormack (in fairness, that's a bit different), Tongyik, Kamau, Galekovic, Budzinski...all players that were entrenched in the team or expected to be major components and were out the door, on the way out, or relegated to afterthoughts on the bench (if they were lucky).

Wasn't Fitzy getting a bit of buzz by the Fox Sports crew as potentially one of the players of the league early in the year? By the end of the season, the same commentary team was openly deriding a decision to put Fitzgerald on for Arzani, as though Fitzgerald was Iain Ramsay or something.

The big turnover (bar Cahill, Brandan etc) was all due to contracts signed by JVS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

C+  with occasional forays into B-

Negatives:

The Budz affair, from go to whoa, whichever way you want to cut it.

Ross called back to do nothing back at Villa,  and today still our highest scorer

No (other) goals threat up front with Bruno out for most of season. And Ross was s-l-o-w....

Kamau just wilting after promising so much on arrival

Fitzy on bench too much

Tongyik getting the arse...I liked his physical presence and thought he was good.

The fizz has gone out of the Melbourne derby, low crowds 

Arzani hype - too many people in the media dribbling at HIM

Positives:

Arzani breaking through.  Good start, much to do.

Bart in defence.  Awesome

Bruno good as ever on his return

Joyce doing things his way, right or wrong (mostly right)

Vidosic adding steel

Cahill departure - a fine man, refuses to acknowledge his time is up, laughable comments afterwards when on bench at Millwall. Good riddance (sorry)

Atkinson breaking through - another good lad, worked hard

Best season yet but still felt like a letdown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by CityWildcat
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was comforted by the potential ACL playoff spot after the Jets loss but then remembered:

- Victory will most likely pull an absolute rabbit out of their ass and edge us out like just about every other season.

- If we do get the ACL playoff spot, we will somehow bottle it against the Myanmarese fourth place side who will seek political asylum in the away leg.

I miss the ice wheelie-bin days :lol:

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pass if you look at improvements over the years in the regards to ranking. Every season one spot higher higher up the ladder is acceptable.

Big fail on player movement and management. From Ross to Cahill there’s just to many too list here.

Big fail on boring game tactics and substitutions, even in the final games of the season we still don’t get. Joyce is confused with the term consistency and applies that game tactics and substitutions.

 

Edited by Mr MO
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd give us a fail, if I graded it, it would be aE+ grade fail. The report would be annotated "should do much better with your talent" (Hmmm... it reads like my school reports)

Positives:

3rd place finish. we shouldn't be happy with 3rd place however, especially when it doesn't get us an ACL spot

Missed the full extent of our customary end of season collapse, but only just.

Arzani and Atkinson, bringing out a better version of Brattan and Mauk.

Getting McCormack.

The Women's team and the Youth team, as usual, but then we almost expect success from them.

 

Negatives:

Wazza's man management drove away the players that he didn't like rather than finding a way to create a cohesive team with the talent that he had. Many managers do the same thing but overall we lost more potential ability than we gained.

Budzinski. A poor signing that never played in his preferred position, no impact beyond a derby goal and didn't seem to improve at all over the season.

Losing McCormack and then having no Plan B. We finished the season down a 'marquee' (Cahill) and a visa player, both required for success in big games like finals. Just look how poor our bench was for that last game.

We still have a poorly defined playing style and don't seem to have recruited the players to deliver 'it', whatever 'it' is.

Wazza's match subs are poor, as are tactical adjustments during the games.

We still exited the finals with a supine performance, the repeat of every other semi-final, the team culture problem has still got a fair way to go for me to be happy. Merrick has corrected the Jets culture in 1 season, we can't seem to do it in 8 seasons so we don't deserve success. It suggests that there are important contributing factors within the men's team that still have not been addressed.

Our uninspiring football has resulted in a drop in attendances over the season. I accept that they are down across the board apart from the team that does play inspiring football, and there's little else to do in Newcastle apart from going to the football when Centrelink is closed anyway. Despite this, the franchise is offering packages at prices for next season that would presume booming attendances and a premium product on offer. There aren't and there isn't.

The visit0rs showed us how to fight for a win, not to fold under pressure like a bunch of soft-cocks

No sausage stand:mellow:

Edited by belaguttman
updated assessment
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A Pass because of our highest-ever league finish. However, IMO still much work to do before we are going to be genuine contenders for any further silverware.

IMO there are two main areas for improvement.

First recruitment, particularly of visa and marquee players, but also too many ageing local players such as La Rocca and Carrusca who can't last the distance. We had far too many changes during the season  - six departures - Cahill, Brandan, Carrusca, Roberts, Kilkenny and Crowley - shows the disconnect between recruiting and the manager's player requirements.

Second is the palpable mental fragility of the team in various situations, which, IMO is the reason behind our inconsistency.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, belaguttman said:

We finished the season down a 'marquee' (Cahill) and a visa player, both required for success in big games like finals. 

An EXCELLENT point there. 

Also, I did forget, departure of Brandan was a big negative for me.

Edited by CityWildcat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, CityWildcat said:

An EXCELLENT point there. 

Also, I did forget, departure of Brandan was a big negative for me.

Basically we shot ourselves in the foot with our visa and marquee players this season. Look at the semi-final for example. Schenkeveld in defence, Bruno up front and Budzinski on the bench. You can't expect to win silverware using less than 50% of your visa/marquee allowance.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Basically we shot ourselves in the foot with our visa and marquee players this season. Look at the semi-final for example. Schenkeveld in defence, Bruno up front and Budzinski on the bench. You can't expect to win silverware using less than 50% of your visa/marquee allowance.

...Jakobsen injured, Brandan on fire... in Argentina.

Cahill suspended in UK

McCormack on permanent holiday

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, playmaker said:

Well there goes Asia.

Fail

Agree, I've amended my assessment. The visit0rs show us how you fight as a team for a win, even when you fall behind, you don't stop. We don't deserve the ACL spot, we'd probably lose the qualification game against a team from Bhutan because there'd be an expectation that we should win

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Newcastle win, we're still in Asia, but I feel as though automatic qualification is really what we should be aiming for. And knowing us, we'd probably lose to a third division Indian side. As for whether this season has been a pass or fail, ignoring ACL qualification, it's been kind of a mixed bag for me. The good was getting our highest ever finish, and seeing Arzani and Atkinson come through. I hope that we get to the point where one day most of our Aussie players have come in through our academy. The worst part of the season however, was our recruiting of visa players. The McCormack situation was unfortunate, but not entirely unforeseeable, and Cahill was bound to leave once Joyce came in, in my opinion. However, the decision to let go of Brandan is still baffling to me, and Budzinksi, well... It is easy to see that he was our third choice {Remember that Croatian bloke?). The club doesn't seem to really want him here. I would be okay with him being let go tbh. Bart was our only good foreign signing this season, and it wasn't even our scouts that found him, it was JvS. So, whoever's in charge of recruitment gets a solid F from me.

As for Joyce himself, I am somewhat willing to give him some benefit of the doubt, it mustn't have been easy to deal with so many squad changes in the middle of the season, so I am giving a tentative pass. We will see if this season was just a building block towards something better, or just another 'meh' season. Like most seasons since CFG came in.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Thrillhouse said:

if the mongs win then its a big fail 

Our fate is out of our own hands, that's a fail. It'll be barely deserved, if that

4 minutes ago, xXJawsaXx said:


As for Joyce himself, I am somewhat willing to give him some benefit of the doubt, it mustn't have been easy to deal with so many squad changes in the middle of the season, so I am giving a tentative pass. We will see if this season was just a building block towards something better, or just another 'meh' season. Like most seasons since CFG came in.

 

With the talent and resources at CFG's disposal, Joyce has been an utterly underwhelming choice as coach. The only thing that he had going for him was who he followed into the position, he was bound to initially look good. He's no better than many local coaches and was often out-coached during games. CFG should have more ambition

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

With the talent and resources at CFG's disposal, Joyce has been an utterly underwhelming choice as coach. The only thing that he had going for him was who he followed into the position, he was bound to initially look good. He's no better than many local coaches and was often out-coached during games. CFG should have more ambition

Oh for sure, I agree. His appointment just seems like such a bizarre choice. CFG want all of their teams to play the same brand of exciting football, yet, they hire Joyce, an old school English manager? As I said, those player changes in the middle of the season couldn't have been easy to deal with, but of course, that doesn't excuse things like being seemingly inept at substitutions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, xXJawsaXx said:

Oh for sure, I agree. His appointment just seems like such a bizarre choice. CFG want all of their teams to play the same brand of exciting football, yet, they hire Joyce, an old school English manager? As I said, those player changes in the middle of the season couldn't have been easy to deal with, but of course, that doesn't excuse things like being seemingly inept at substitutions.

We have played some good football though this season?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We could all think of mitigating circumstances that have affected us during the season and make it seem that we did ok. However, as a club in a ten team league where you have access to an abundance of choices for your manager, players, facilities, resources and for 4 seasons you can't manage to get near top spot or make a Grand Final, let alone win the whole thing? Yeh to me that's a fail.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, GreenSeater said:

I think it's a pass. But just barely. I kind of feel like we're heading in the right direction, which I haven't felt in a long time. Lot of mitigating factors this season, let's just hope we build on it next year. No excuses with a coach in his second season.

 

What are the mitigating circumstances ? most of them feel self inflicted 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd give it barely a pass, only if we achieve an acl play off spot through jets winningg the final

Based on the fact of looking at what havent we achieved in the past. May not be as high as winning the FFA cup final last season but finishing third (our highest so far?) and we may be rewarded an acl spot for this.

only small positive steps. Next season will be a pass for me if we secure a top 2 spot to guarentee an acl place and a grand final spot as well

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It’s a fail if we lose the ACL spot. What a fucking shit week.

I loath to compare again but 8 years of crap with the last 4 years of having (what is a majority opinion on here) a title winning squad. Yet the rabble over there fall ass backwards into another GF.

There is no way they deserve to be there.

Yes I put the blame at Wazza’s feet. He had 6 months of pre season, made all of the pre season signings, then apparently he waited until the season had started to chuck his toys out of the pram and started making wholesale changes because he couldn’t act like an adult and work with what he had, but decided to banish players. 

Apparently his main job was to change the culture. But when we get to the final hurdle, yet again we fell over. 

How many times have we had a team go from bottom to top in one season? Yet we are supposed to be happy with ‘building for the future season after season’.

I enjoyed last season much better, at least we won silverware.

now we are going to have another 6 months of shipping off half the squad and then sign yet another pathetic marquee that can’t even make the XI

Edited by Dylan
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Dylan said:

I loath to compare again but 8 years of crap with the last 4 years of having (what is a majority opinion on here) a title winning squad. Yet the rabble over there fall ass backwards into another GF.

 

3

I think they do deserve to be there. They fought hard, didn't stop when they fell behind, didn't crumble when they conceded a last-minute own goal, and won. We had our chance against a team we had beaten away twice this season and we collapsed...as usual

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very difficult to judge this season. On achievements alone, we won a cup last year and nothing this time around. So you can definitely see it as a failure.

...but if you think we didn't improve on last season or think last season was more enjoyable, then you're talking shit there also. The way we finished last season was a fukn nightmare.

Not sure what to think really. As always, we are very close. Can we do it with Joyce? Even though I thought he did OK, I'm still not certain he's the man. Can appreciate the role Mauk played, but it sacrificed our creativity, which in this league is vital. 

Plenty of decisions to be made over the off season, that's for sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

I think they do deserve to be there. They fought hard, didn't stop when they fell behind, didn't crumble when they conceded a last-minute own goal, and won. We had our chance against a team we had beaten away twice this season and we collapsed...as usual

I was talking about their season as a whole. It has been a season of luck for them. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...