Rd. 13 - Wed. 16th January 2019 vs. Central Coast, Gosford, 7.50 pm.

[SF33]

7 minutes ago, citypool said:

We were lucky to win against Brisbane and mariners have improved and at their home it was always going to be tough. I’m so frustrated not only do we not know what’s happened with Bruno we haven’t solved it his still at the club and we haven’t replaced him then he puts de laet in attack. 

Sorry, but as mentioned in that match's thread, that's a very biased way of looking at it.

Sure we could have thrown the game away and Brisbane was a bit stiff with an offside call which should have perhaps at least gone to VAR (though there didn't seem to be much doubt that the Brisbane player actually was offside). But for every chance that Brisbane didn't capitalise on, we had 5-6. The better team won. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it hard to say that we were 'lucky'.

[citypool]

1 hour ago, SF33 said:

Sorry, but as mentioned in that match's thread, that's a very biased way of looking at it.

Sure we could have thrown the game away and Brisbane was a bit stiff with an offside call which should have perhaps at least gone to VAR (though there didn't seem to be much doubt that the Brisbane player actually was offside). But for every chance that Brisbane didn't capitalise on, we had 5-6. The better team won. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it hard to say that we were 'lucky'.

And I had a chance with Sarah Finn in high school. I thought Brisbane were on our ass and could of scored in the last ten mins but yeah we did play well most of that game just frustrated atm 

[rass]

10 hours ago, belaguttman said:

The result we deserved and CCM got the result that they deserved

...

I'm really confused here, so can someone please help me out.

Why is it when we hold on and win, people on here jump up and down whinging that 'we were lucky to win' and 'we didn't deserve to win'.

So when the shoe is on the other foot and we start attacking more but have a loss, people jump on here again with 'we would have been lucky to win' and 'we deserved to lose'.

Huh? Seems to me that a lot of people on here have become so disillusioned that every performance we have, we always deserve not to win and are lucky when we do - whether it's win, loss, boring, attacking...

 

[Bob Latchford]

4 minutes ago, rass said:

I'm really confused here, so can someone please help me out.

Why is it when we hold on and win, people on here jump up and down whinging that 'we were lucky to win' and 'we didn't deserve to win'.

So when the shoe is on the other foot and we start attacking more but have a loss, people jump on here again with 'we would have been lucky to win' and 'we deserved to lose'.

Huh? Seems to me that a lot of people on here have become so disillusioned that every performance we have, we always deserve not to win and are lucky when we do - whether it's win, loss, boring, attacking...

 

Nail on the head there. The agenda against the very club they support is staggering to see.

[thisphantomfortress]

Only way to fix this is torches and pitchforks. Thank christ im at the tennis Saturday 

[AXIOM]

35 minutes ago, rass said:

I'm really confused here, so can someone please help me out.

Why is it when we hold on and win, people on here jump up and down whinging that 'we were lucky to win' and 'we didn't deserve to win'.

So when the shoe is on the other foot and we start attacking more but have a loss, people jump on here again with 'we would have been lucky to win' and 'we deserved to lose'.

Huh? Seems to me that a lot of people on here have become so disillusioned that every performance we have, we always deserve not to win and are lucky when we do - whether it's win, loss, boring, attacking...

 

Cant disagree with you. I think its stems from a combination of things over a few year period that has put a negative spin on the thoughts of most supporters. 

Lack of silverware, game style, player movement, lack of communication, coaching changes, player culture, etc etc. It just seems to me that the club from top to bottom is never settled and speculation will always follow. I understand that its not just our club that these things happen at but when you ask the question of say MV or SFC do you hear the same or as many issues take place?

Then there's the half glass empty or half glass full supporters......which one are you?

[haz]

45 minutes ago, thisphantomfortress said:

Only way to fix this is torches and pitchforks. Thank christ im at the tennis Saturday 

Bring your racquet and sweat bands across the road to the game.

Or do the 'ol back stab

 

[rass]

6 minutes ago, AXIOM said:

Cant disagree with you. I think its stems from a combination of things over a few year period that has put a negative spin on the thoughts of most supporters. 

Lack of silverware, game style, player movement, lack of communication, coaching changes, player culture, etc etc. It just seems to me that the club from top to bottom is never settled and speculation will always follow. I understand that its not just our club that these things happen at but when you ask the question of say MV or SFC do you hear the same or as many issues take place?

Then there's the half glass empty or half glass full supporters......which one are you?

Yep, agree with you. It is just so frustrating to read the same shit week in/week out.

I'm unquestionably glass half full. I'll always try and spin a positive from the most dire situations! 

[fensaddler]

1 hour ago, rass said:

I'm really confused here, so can someone please help me out.

Why is it when we hold on and win, people on here jump up and down whinging that 'we were lucky to win' and 'we didn't deserve to win'.

So when the shoe is on the other foot and we start attacking more but have a loss, people jump on here again with 'we would have been lucky to win' and 'we deserved to lose'.

Huh? Seems to me that a lot of people on here have become so disillusioned that every performance we have, we always deserve not to win and are lucky when we do - whether it's win, loss, boring, attacking...

 

By the time we were backs to the wall against Brisbane (which is the phase of the match which seems to have stayed with a lot of supporters) we had done enough to be 3 or 4 up. We'd bossed the game to that point such that a substantial lead would not have flattered us. TV commentary at about 70 minutes said as much. 

Against CCM we were flat in the first half, but in all honesty the half was not far behind even. Second half we were all over them for a good chunk of time, but our balls into the box were repeatedly intercepted or more often just banjoed off a CCM body. Is that good CCM defending getting bodies in the way, our inept approach play, or the balance of fortune on the day? Depends how you want to spin the narrative, but very few of us are inclined to spin positively at the moment. 

[playmaker]

Let's consider the fact that club politics and power plays are destroying our potential and look at the quality players they have forced off the pitch.

Bruno, MOH and Florin.

Do you think having those players on the pitch would transform our attack?

At the least you could say the manager is doing his best by selecting the best team.

 

[rass]

4 minutes ago, playmaker said:

Let's consider the fact that club politics and power plays are destroying our potential and look at the quality players they have forced off the pitch.

Bruno, MOH and Florin.

Do you think having those players on the pitch would transform our attack?

At the least you could say the manager is doing his best by selecting the best team.

 

What proof have you that MOH and Florin were forced off the pitch by club politics and power plays?

[Dylan]

Has the culture changed yet?

Anyway, in all seriousness. They should just make Joyce head of the Academy when his contract ends, much better suited to there.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Dylan

[jw1739]

Better to focus on what happened on the night. I think you can see things that I hope Joyce is addressing with the players. A lot of poor corners, and selfishness with the ball - Brattan blasting the ball into the wall with a free, and then repeating it with the rebound. The unnecessary penalty given away by Griffiths just a couple of matches after he caused unnecessary strife by a wild tackle for a second yellow. No-one following in the penalty, giving Simon free possession of the rebound. Even at a school team level these sorts of things would result in a bollocking for the player(s) concerned.

It is very hard to be positive when you can see these things.

[Dylan]

3 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Better to focus on what happened on the night. I think you can see things that I hope Joyce is addressing with the players. A lot of poor corners, and selfishness with the ball - Brattan blasting the ball into the wall with a free, and then repeating it with the rebound. The unnecessary penalty given away by Griffiths just a couple of matches after he caused unnecessary strife by a wild tackle for a second yellow. No-one following in the penalty, giving Simon free possession of the rebound. Even at a school team level these sorts of things would result in a bollocking for the player(s) concerned.

It is very hard to be positive when you can see these things.

Only real hope we have is Simon Peirce gets the cap removed and independent league for next season and then we can perhaps start making more of an effort.

[Harrison]

21 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Better to focus on what happened on the night. I think you can see things that I hope Joyce is addressing with the players. A lot of poor corners, and selfishness with the ball - Brattan blasting the ball into the wall with a free, and then repeating it with the rebound. The unnecessary penalty given away by Griffiths just a couple of matches after he caused unnecessary strife by a wild tackle for a second yellow. No-one following in the penalty, giving Simon free possession of the rebound. Even at a school team level these sorts of things would result in a bollocking for the player(s) concerned.

It is very hard to be positive when you can see these things.

Even though I thought we'd win this, it was always going to be a tricky match. Forget that CCM hadn't won in a long time. Their form coming into this was better than it seemed and the emotion surrounding the club and their predicament probably got them over the line. 

These things happen. Good teams lose to poor teams all the time in football. IMO we are a top 4 team, potentially a top 2 team had we sorted out our striker situation sooner. 

I'm not going to write off the season yet because any team in the top 6 can win this league. Unless we finish top 2 and/or win the league, WJ is out and we can enter a new era hopefully with the right coach in an independent, growing league potentially without a salary cap. 

I suppose I'm saying that success will come. I've followed the trend since the takeover and it does give me a lot of hope. Whether we have any fans left to enjoy it is another matter and it's in this area that CFG desperately need to improve. But that's not an insurmountable task. 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Harrison

[jw1739]

11 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Only real hope we have is Simon Peirce gets the cap removed and independent league for next season and then we can perhaps start making more of an effort.

Sydney, Victory, and now Perth seem to be able to assemble a balanced squad within the current rules. The keys are that the majority of the resource has to go into the match-day squad, including five good visa players and your two marquees, with the rest being filled up by young players on the basic wage. IMO we have too many players who do not meet those criteria - I'm guessing, of course, because I don't know exact wages. For example, we have three players - Good, Delbridge and Wales (all on the basic wage as per Joyce) - earning a total of c.$190,000 - who are in the preferred match-day squad, and a marquee on c. $1.4m who is not. I don't care what the minutiae of the reasons are, but it's bad management.  

[Imtellingyou]

Calm down. We lost to Top 10 A-league team.

[belaguttman]

2 hours ago, rass said:

I'm really confused here, so can someone please help me out.

Why is it when we hold on and win, people on here jump up and down whinging that 'we were lucky to win' and 'we didn't deserve to win'.

So when the shoe is on the other foot and we start attacking more but have a loss, people jump on here again with 'we would have been lucky to win' and 'we deserved to lose'.

Huh? Seems to me that a lot of people on here have become so disillusioned that every performance we have, we always deserve not to win and are lucky when we do - whether it's win, loss, boring, attacking...

 

OK, given the history of our men's team and performances over 9 seasons, this was always going to be a high-risk game: CCM has been playing good football at home but have had trouble sustaining it for 90 minutes and become disorganised each time after successive red cards, they haven't lost because their football was generally poor; CCM has consistently started with high intensity, and have attacked with very direct football; Wazza set up the team to counter this but, clearly, we also needed to start with intensity, we didn't. Once CCM scored, we were going to have to score 2 goals to win the game, Wazza brought on Wales when Malik was injured but persisted with de Laet as a 'striker', didn't bring on other attacking options like Najjarine and Berenguer until late in the game. Meanwhile, CCM was consistently getting in behind our defenders, with the possibility that we would then have to score 3 goals to win. We only raised our intensity in the final 15 minutes, too late. We copped a late penalty but never should have been in that position.

Meanwhile, CCM played an intelligent game, counter-attacking and regularly getting behind our defence to create scoring opportunities, they continued to press and played with more intensity throughout the game. They deserved to win more than we did.

I'm happy to say that I'm disillusioned with our performances, I'd be in pathological denial if I weren't. CFG promised us a certain style of football and this isn't it. Irrespective of the facts in the Fornaroli situation, only signing one striker left us very vulnerable in case he lost form or was injured, this is a coaching decision The decision to drop Fornaroli the week after he scored was perplexing, again, we don't know the facts but it's a poor decision from a footballing perspective, especially when there are no other options on the list. Playing an effective FB as a striker lessens the effectiveness of the team in two positions, a poor footballing decision.

38 minutes ago, Dylan said:

Only real hope we have is Simon Peirce gets the cap removed and independent league for next season and then we can perhaps start making more of an effort.

We'd do much better with a decent coach...and a striker

[HeartFc]

If CCM had Bolt we would've lost 2-1 to them. 

[jw1739]

I just looked at the current top four teams versus the current bottom four teams so far this season.

Perth have played a bottom four team six times, for 6 wins and 18 points.
Sydney have played a bottom four team six times, for 5 wins, 1 draw and 16 points.
Melbourne Victory have played a bottom four team seven times, for 7 wins and 21 points.
City have played a bottom four team seven times, for 4 wins, 1 draw,  2 defeats and 13 points.

[fensaddler]

8 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I just looked at the current top four teams versus the current bottom four teams so far this season.

Perth have played a bottom four team six times, for 6 wins and 18 points.
Sydney have played a bottom four team six times, for 5 wins, 1 draw and 16 points.
Melbourne Victory have played a bottom four team seven times, for 7 wins and 21 points.
City have played a bottom four team seven times, for 4 wins, 1 draw,  2 defeats and 13 points.

Our perennial problem. We have a soft underbelly, and we don't kill teams off. And we don't have the ability of Perth to pull ourselves back from behind. 

[HEARTinator]

2 minutes ago, fensaddler said:

And we don't have the ability of Perth to pull ourselves back from behind. 

And this is Popovic's first season in the saddle and they look solid and can score goals. This is Wazza's second season and ......

Edited January 17, 2019 by HEARTinator

[moops]

2 hours ago, playmaker said:

Let's consider the fact that club politics and power plays are destroying our potential and look at the quality players they have forced off the pitch.

Bruno, MOH and Florin.

Do you think having those players on the pitch would transform our attack?

At the least you could say the manager is doing his best by selecting the best team.

 

I don't have a problem with it if it's to change the culture at our club, for a long time now people have said the culture needs fixing.

The problem is that if a creative player or goal scorer get's let go/looses his spot, he needs to be replaced with another attacker, not a defender.

[playmaker]

1 hour ago, fensaddler said:

we don't kill teams off.

You can't kill off teams if you can't score goals.

To score goals you need a good striker and functional front third and we have neither.

 

[fensaddler]

55 minutes ago, playmaker said:

You can't kill off teams if you can't score goals.

To score goals you need a good striker and functional front third and we have neither.

 

I think we agree.

[jw1739]

That's the song we need on Saturday and until further notice. 

"We all agree
We need a central striker"

[neio]

15 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

That's the song we need on Saturday and until further notice. 

"We all agree
We need a central striker"

We've got no strikers

No fucking strikers 

None of us really understand 

We fucked off Fornaroli

We play defenders only

We've got no strikers 

 

Let's sing that for 90 minutes on saturday

Edited January 17, 2019 by neio

[Inchcolm]

4 hours ago, rass said:

What proof have you that MOH and Florin were forced off the pitch by club politics and power plays?

MOH was forced off of the pitch because of Joyce team selection. He preferred to strengthen his midfield with Baccus and kept MOH  on the injury  list. Then he decided to give other younger players an opportunity before him Najjarine as an example. Lastly he was deemed behind Mcgree  Wales and Vidosic in the pecking order. Hence one of the reasons  he left. It looks  like he could be playing along side Ross let's  see what that combination brings

[rass]

3 minutes ago, Inchcolm said:

MOH was forced off of the pitch because of Joyce team selection. He preferred to strengthen his midfield with Baccus and kept MOH  on the injury  list. Then he decided to give other younger players an opportunity before him Najjarine as an example. Lastly he was deemed behind Mcgree  Wales and Vidosic in the pecking order. Hence one of the reasons  he left. It looks  like he could be playing along side Ross let's  see what that combination brings

Right and you know all that for sure?

[bt50]

42 minutes ago, rass said:

Right and you know all that for sure?

Mate thats fuckin proof orite!

[Inchcolm]

31 minutes ago, rass said:

Right and you know all that for sure?

More info. He questioned Joyce why he was not in the squad when he was declared fit. He told Joyce he was wrong to keep Baccus in the squad when he was cleared fit to play. (Berenguer them became the mystical injured player to allow Baccus to stay). He told Joyce he was better than the players in his position (Wales, Vidosic, etc)) and that he should play. This started during the cup games. British mentality tell the coach what you think. The coach handles the situation. However Joyce does not like to be told he is wrong and that was the end of MOH.

[JMSTEP123]

8 minutes ago, Inchcolm said:

More info. He questioned Joyce why he was not in the squad when he was declared fit. He told Joyce he was wrong to keep Baccus in the squad when he was cleared fit to play. (Berenguer them became the mystical injured player to allow Baccus to stay). He told Joyce he was better than the players in his position (Wales, Vidosic, etc)) and that he should play. This started during the cup games. British mentality tell the coach what you think. The coach handles the situation. However Joyce does not like to be told he is wrong and that was the end of MOH.

Saucy

[MCMLIII]

I find this forum more entertaining than watching the game.

[Shahanga]

CCM bossed us in that first half. They certainly deserved their lead, as we were creating nothing and there was a surprising number of mistakes in midfield and defence (I’ve got used to none).

Second half was much better, we created a lot and deserved to get back on level terms. 

In a close game like that though you are always vulnerable and Griffiths brain snap was enough to decide it.

What to make of it?

Well it only confirmed what we all knew. We are one of the better teams in the league but are not good enough to win the main trophy, The premiers Plate. 

The main positive for me was the cameo from Flobb who started to show the talent that presumably got him signed in the first place.

[jw1739]

1 hour ago, Inchcolm said:

More info. He questioned Joyce why he was not in the squad when he was declared fit. He told Joyce he was wrong to keep Baccus in the squad when he was cleared fit to play. (Berenguer them became the mystical injured player to allow Baccus to stay). He told Joyce he was better than the players in his position (Wales, Vidosic, etc)) and that he should play. This started during the cup games. British mentality tell the coach what you think. The coach handles the situation. However Joyce does not like to be told he is wrong and that was the end of MOH.

Those are pretty bold allegations to make. Irrespective of that, however, if you directly challenge the boss you're very unlikely to be successful, and O'Halloran obviously didn't learn from what happened to Cahill.

I think we need to move on from the O'Halloran issue. He's gone, and that's it as far as I am concerned.

[Jovan]

13 hours ago, jw1739 said:

I think we need to move on from the O'Halloran issue. He's gone, and that's it as far as I am concerned.

I'm not so sure.

I still haven't gotten over Kilkenny and Brandan.

And don't get me started on the Sausage stand and the m'ship pins.