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Oh bs JW, cmon now. We're still in the driver's seat. We didn't throw it away. If we have a smidgen of professionalism about us, we'd be preparing for a win on Monday irrespective of tonight's result. I honestly don't see all the fuss. If we don't win, we don't deserve it. Then we can blame PK and Glover all we want.

Fuck Victory they're a bunch of dogs

So victory pumped Sydney to bare minimum finish second in the league. WU won't be able to overtake them on goal difference. The equation is on paper a simple task. Win on Monday evening and it's ours.

We are underperforminng comparing to the last season. This is based on the unconvincing results against the top teams. However, if we look at the ladder and points, the whole situation is a bit controversial. We are exactly where we were last season. We even lost less games. The last season competition was (hopefully) the weakest ever due to Covid. And yet we just won Premiers by 2 points. But there was that undeniable feeling that we can't lose the race. We have weaker squad and the coach is facing better strategist. It's all very confusing.

My personal take. Obviously we’ve significantly improved compared to Heart in terms of success. However, I can’t help to feel the way I do, there is just something missing, an emptiness. The above from Niko and he’s not alone sums up exactly (IMO) what is lacking with the club and needs to be worked in order to grow. The somewhat mediocre Heart like attitude among our fans and even within the club is still well and truly around. Passion and excitement attracts fans, and drives engagement, more importantly passion goes hand in hand with ambition. Without ambition there is no passion. We don’t have the luxury of being a neighbourhood club with a strong fan base and family foundations like in other parts of the world. No, this club will only grow by putting actual intend behind the so called ambitions and how these ambitions come across. Continuous ruthless succes without excuses year after year is our only way forward to form the basis for the next generation of fans. Whilst some of the below statements might be factually correct, it just lacks ambitions and ruthlessness. - Calling the ACL campaign a success, by not having lost a game but failed to progress with a once in a lifetime opportunity. “We are just unlucky” - A tweet from the club listing excuses during the ACL campaign. - Consistently referring to the last season double, “we should be happy as it worked last season”. Even though last season circumstances were complete different. - We’ve missed the mark completely with recruitment and salary cap management, yet we managed to find acceptance in all sort of excuses. We’ve wasted hundreds of thousands AUD this season. Despite perhaps winning the league with a last game effort, I feel that this season we are just underperforming compared to the resources at our disposal. Again all above is my personal opinion.

The Fan-Led Review is being taken very seriously in England. You can read documents pertaining to it on the U.K Government web-site at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fan-led-review-of-football-governance-securing-the-games-future It was chaired by Tracey Crouch, a Member of Parliament (MP) and made 47 recommendations. I haven't digested it all, but if anyone is really interested we can start a thread elsewhere on it. Say in "Australian Football?" Prima facie it is very relevant to the situation that we face here with Melbourne City since Heart was taken over. Edit: The full report can be read and downloaded here: https://thefsa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Football-Fan-led-Governance-Review.pdf The key recommendations relating to Club Heritage are on page 139.

It was originally intended to be "funny", but everyone is so tense on here that it hasn't been taken that way. My apologies if I offended you, and anyone else.

If we win, we WILL be premiers. That's the simplest fact of all. Fuk yeah, Perth was a shit result but c'mon, let's get to the game on Monday and get behind the boys instead of writing your obituaries on here.

I've been saying for a long time that you cannot write off MV. Our club's problem is that we don't have their killer instinct. We fucked up in Thailand, and we fucked up in Perth, and the latter is the reason why we're even bothering to look at the remaining matches for MV and WU. And I see it's 3-1 now. This the way we should play.

Brought across from the City v. Perth thread. I think that you have it right there @n i k o. Heart was us, and we were Heart. It was our club (even though it wasn't!) Support for City was indeed conditional, conditional on success, being the best, being the benchmark, sharing in the resources of City Football Group (then only four clubs I might add). And I think each individual supporter would have their own interpretation of those conditions. Three things have been nominated by the recent fan-led review of football in England as being non-negotiable and not to be changed without the supporters' consent: 1. The club's name or identity; 2. the club's colours; and 3. the site of the club's stadium. It is worth noting that CFG have done two of those, and the third has been raised as possible with the move of club HQ to Casey Fields and perhaps a stadium in Dandenong. Anything that's conditional is, well, conditional. Have the conditions been fulfilled? I think that comes down again to the individual. For me, I don't mind the change in name and IMO our logo is up there with the very best anywhere, I abhor the sky blue and refuse to wear it unless the red and white is there too, and I would reluctantly go to matches in Dandenong (although I think that won't happen, at least for a long time). Have we shared in the resources of CFG? Well, we had one pre-season in Manchester I recall, but never been back, the only CFG club we've played has been Man City and that was on the Gold Coast, and I think we can count one coach (Mombaerts) as coming from CFG. AFAIK James Poole of CFG deals with our visa recruitment so I guess we are using CFG resources there. However, AFAIK two of our best overseas recruits (McCormack and Schenkeveld) did not come via CFG. One Man City EDS player (James Horsfield) spent 6 weeks at Bundoora but didn't play for us (salary cap?) Brattan and Caceres came to us via CFG. Overall a pass mark, but not much more than that, although we must remember that FA/FFA passed "rules" such as Caceres and Lampard to stop us benefiting on the player front. Bit IMO we should be doing much better with our coaching team. A very worthwhile discussion IMO.

and without O'Neill we become even more porous at the back

Well said, that is exactly the problem at the moment - predictability, add to that JMAC is well out of form too to finish any of the opportunities we create. I think where most of frustration comes from, that a club with our resources is unable to cope with Berenguer (who only really lifted this season) pulling a hamstring, which he pulled perhaps in the first place as there is nobody to cover for him and PK just kept playing him. Visas and designated players have been unable to step in. To this date I still claim that Jenkinson was not right recruit for the money he's on. The tandem Atkinson / Nabbout was a whole different dynamic, defenders had to cover for both, creating a lot more space elsewhere on the pitch - now Nabbout is very often just 3 on 1.

I would like to see a visa GK. I can't see any reason why, if we're so fucking parsimonious with the coaching budget, he could also be the coach as well. We've got to do a lot better with our visa and marquee/designated players, and our coaching staff. IMO the problem lies deeper than just Glover and Kisnorbo.