Matchday 6: v. Brisbane Sunday 17th November 4:00 pm Redcliffe

[Mr MO]

57 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

IMO this is a big problem for us if we try to play "the City way" throughout an Australian summer. Mombaerts needs to think this through and modify his approach accordingly.

Agree.

For us to be at our best we need several players to rise above themselves. If too many of them are having a poor game it’s always going to be difficult and we need a little luck to pull out a win - which obviously we didn’t have.

Delbridge, let’s be honest it’s no Curtis or Bart. He has his qualities (in the air) but struggles with the ball on the pitch, he seems to struggle with players like Toure and Holloway. Youth dynamics? Consistent high level is required for the Socceroos.

Luna, no workrate. You would think that Brillante and Griffiths could cover for this but he was still invisible.

Griffiths, one of his usual clumsy games, he’s got them once or twice a season - always comes with a bonus penalty giveaway!

Jamieson, is coming short in all aspects of the game speed, agility, smarts and skills. Perhaps it’s time we look for a backup.

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by Mr MO

[jw1739]

35 minutes ago, fensaddler said:

I still feel physically sick from watching yesterday's match. And I think there is a deep underlying problem across the club. A couple of months ago I watched our youth team cough up a 4-1 lead to go down 6-4 against Manningham. I spoke to the Manningham coaching staff afterwards. Their analysis was in effect, our boys wanted it more. Yesterday the first player to be interviewed was JMac, and he said, in effect, they deserved to win, they were desperate to win. And the bottom line is, I think, that we weren't. In Geelong, they were backs to the wall and fought back even in the worst circumstances. But yesterday they believed their own publicity too much, they felt they were good enough to win, and that with JMac back they would have enough to win. They were complacent and not hungry. That's our cultural problem, and that's why we lost. It's also why, in the wider sense, we don't win anything. We're not desperate enough. 

Well, that's what Joyce was brought in to fix. That "soft underbelly" in the club. Perhaps, indeed, Joyce was right - he saw that the only way he could fix it was to remove the players that he didn't think were hungry enough. What you're saying, I think, is that we've slipped back into the bad old ways - conceding in the last minutes of matches and hanging on when we should be romping home - we've done it several times already this season.

Yesterday isn't the end of our season, but I agree that the nagging doubt is there.

[Imtellingyou]

One of these crazy games... We were unlucky with penalties but we have to improve defending in the box. City depends too much on JM. Still, the wait is over.

[n i k o]

I was working during the whole game.

My thoughts as I looked at my phone 3 times....0-1...great.....0-2..... we're the real deal....4-3.... wtf, are we Melbourne heart? Is jvs hiding behind Mombaerts whispering sweet tales of beautiful attacking football ideologies? 

This game would have confirmed in my mind that we are the real deal. Back to the drawing board. 

[Tommykins]

I think our structure just went kaput when McLaren went off, I think in those situations I'd probably prefer we actually brought Wales on because he at least gives us some attacking structure when we're going forward (I don't think it's a great structure, mind you), we looked aimless with Luna up front and I think it probably prompted the worst 15 minutes I've seen this year. 

[Imtellingyou]

For those who actually didn't see the game, it was the game of two halves affected with a very strong wind factor.  We played first half down the wind and scored (only) twice. Roar couldn't clear the ball long enough. It was writing on the wall that the second half situation will aid their playing style. End of the world. 

[kingofhearts]

1 hour ago, Imtellingyou said:

For those who actually didn't see the game, it was the game of two halves affected with a very strong wind factor.  We played first half down the wind and scored (only) twice. Roar couldn't clear the ball long enough. It was writing on the wall that the second half situation will aid their playing style. End of the world. 

I'm sorry, but that is a shit and simplistic way of looking at what was a team implosion by us yesterday.

We were cruising the whole game when in 15 minutes of madness in the second half we lost our defensive shape (as well as our composure) and compeltely lost control of the game. To concede 4 goals in a half regardless of conditions just isn't good enough.

Brisbane did make changes but as a team we switched off. Players weren't running back as hard to mark players, our back 4 was all over the place and it doesn't help when our goalkeeper has little to no control over his box.

Bouzanis can make a decent one on one save but when it comes to whether he should stay or come off his line 9/10 he'll stay back and pray the defender's save him with the 1/10 time he'll come out and get caught in no man's land (see the first goal from O'Donovan as the example) bouzanis has been getting away with his shit play for weeks now but it is time to bench him and give someone else a go.

Such a dissapointing result considering we should've won but we will just have to redeem ourselves on Friday. Lose on Friday, and we are pretenders

[Embee]

As much as I enjoy the fact that we're constantly looking for goals, I think we need to occasionally be flexible enough to change up and defend a lead.

As we've seen with even our convincing wins, we're very open right until the end and as a result we've almost always conceded late. Once we were 3-1 up yesterday we should have been a little more compact, especially with the wild wind we were experiencing. 

[Torn Asunder]

O-N-E  O-F  T-H-O-S-E  G-A-M-E-S ... write it off and move on.

[fensaddler]

2 hours ago, Torn Asunder said:

O-N-E  O-F  T-H-O-S-E  G-A-M-E-S ... write it off and move on.

One of those games that teams like Sydney don't have in seasons when they win things. This was a mess of a performance, for a team with serious title aspirations. Far easier to win than Fridays match in front of a partisan Parramatta crowd. 

[n i k o]

3 hours ago, fensaddler said:

One of those games that teams like Sydney don't have in seasons when they win things. This was a mess of a performance, for a team with serious title aspirations. Far easier to win than Fridays match in front of a partisan Parramatta crowd. 

I think what really matters is whether a game like this defines our season. I don't think it has to. We can still get better. We lost 4-0 to Adelaide and have done superbly since and until this game. 

[Imtellingyou]

Until we went interstate. 

[HEARTinator]

It's not a calamity but we definitively switched off defensively for their second goal, then Griffo lays on a clumsy challenge to gift them a penalty and Genreau protects his face from getting smashed by a ball hit from point blank range and gets a penalty awarded against him. Like you can't make this crap up.

But the key was the intensity with which Roar came at us in the second half. Fowler needed a reaction from his players and he got it. We didn't match that and as has been said, a touch of panic set in when cooler heads could have settled things down. I also agree with comments that we seemed to have been opened up in the second half with longer balls played into our defence that we didn't handle well. We exploited this opportunity ourselves in the first half. That how our first goal was constructed. In fact all our goals were quality.

[moops]

No post match interview from le chef, I think he might have been a tad bit angry, they showed him throw his pen on the ground in disgust at one point.

Shouldn't have been a pen against Genreau imho, otherwise his face would have eaten it.

Poor second half, I thought Griffith's dropped, he had a good first half but deserved to come off in the second and it wasn't the best game by Delbo.

The wind obviously had an impact, but they should have been aware of it.

I thought we missed Metcalfe, he is a player who is deceptively effective.

Still first, onwards and upwards

[Missing_Moy]

I reckon we lacked a leader in the midfield to get the ball slow things down and hold onto it in the second half. 

[fensaddler]

11 hours ago, n i k o said:

I think what really matters is whether a game like this defines our season. I don't think it has to. We can still get better. We lost 4-0 to Adelaide and have done superbly since and until this game. 

It doesn't have to. Last year's away loss to Sydney 3-0 did do that, and I'm fearful this one could. We've given ourselves a big task to come back from this at Parramatta. Two things worry me. Why do we need a wake up call monthly? Why have both of these failures occurred as soon as we played outside Victoria? 

But I do hope you're right. I hope this isn't season defining and we finally resolve whatever it is that is the problem. 

[jw1739]

54 minutes ago, fensaddler said:

It doesn't have to. Last year's away loss to Sydney 3-0 did do that, and I'm fearful this one could. We've given ourselves a big task to come back from this at Parramatta. Two things worry me. Why do we need a wake up call monthly? Why have both of these failures occurred as soon as we played outside Victoria? 

But I do hope you're right. I hope this isn't season defining and we finally resolve whatever it is that is the problem. 

Is this a trend through CFG clubs I wonder? Do the people employed at CFG clubs just get a teeny bit too comfortable? 

[Mr MO]

6 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Is this a trend through CFG clubs I wonder? Do the people employed at CFG clubs just get a teeny bit too comfortable? 

Maybe we just aren’t as good as we would like to think? To put it in perspective - it’s not like we completely battered opposition in the previous rounds.