HEARTinator

I thought I'd put this here because it goes with the conversation we're having after last nights game. We need no reminding that Joyce was brought in to change the clubs culture and what he ended up doing was causing the exit of experienced players and for what end product???? I keep coming back to CFG and whether they give a rats arse about what's happening down under. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/dec/30/sydney-fc-have-become-an-a-league-first-a-ruthless-serial-win-machine Sydney FC have become an A-League first: a ruthless serial win machine Richard Parkin Mon 30 Dec 2019 04.00 AEDTLast modified on Mon 30 Dec 2019 08.02 AEDT Sydney FC’s star players continue to shine - but their consistent success has its roots off the pitch. Fifteen seasons of the A-League has produced a handful of great teams. Ange Postecoglou’s Roarcelona of 2010-2011, Ernie Merrick’s 06-07 Victory side with that memorable grand final, and Graham Arnold’s 16-17 record points-getters. But few have boasted the creative guile of Thomas Broich’s Roarcelona as well as the fear factor of Fred, Danny Allsopp and Archie Thompson in full flight quite like 2019-20’s iteration of Sydney FC. In a spectacular warning shot to the rest of the competition, on Sunday the pretenders to the crown, Melbourne City, came for the king – and pulled up dramatically short. With a nine-point ladder buffer now established, only a spectacular injury crisis or dismal Asian Champions League campaign will prevent Sydney FC from claiming its third premiership in four seasons. The focus all season has been on the “Fab Four” – the lethal finishing of Adam Le Fondre, the pace and nuisance of Kosta Barbarouses, the sublime vision and skills of Milos Ninkovic and Alexander Baumjohann. But to focus on just these players ignores at least seven other key performers and more importantly disregards the work that has taken place off the pitch – not just this season, but over the last four-five seasons. For three and a half seasons Sydney FC have dominated the competition – boasting 65 wins in 92 matches, averaging 2.3 points per game, with a win rate of over 70%. This isn’t flash in the pan stuff – this is the A-League’s first serial win machine. A team that’s the product of legacy planning, sustained investment and more than anything – continuity and stability – within the board and ownership group, the coaching staff, and the playing personnel. While many clubs have undergone wholescale dressing room change, over the off-season Sydney FC brought in just four new faces – all experienced campaigners and known commodities, all with a proven track record of success. The spine of the team remained, the winning mentality and DNA re-spawned seamlessly. When Graham Arnold departed few outsiders tipped assistant Steve Corica to fill his illustrious boots. After all, the inherited wisdom of the A-League era is that number twos rarely progress to number ones – especially at so-called big clubs with bigger expectations, despite Kevin Muscat’s notable exception. Some wobbles emerged throughout 2018/19 – after all, the Sky Blues picked up seven losses en route to their second place finish. But as 2019 draws to a close Corica’s second-season chargers are threatening to stomp the league like few others. After 11 games Roarcelona weren’t even top – and only three teams have earned 28+ points by this stage of a campaign. Ernie Merrick’s 06/07 Victory, and Sydney FC in 17/18 and 19/20. Former Sydney FC assistant Ufuk Talay’s departure to Wellington Phoenix has already brought the New Zealand club success, as well as being the only team to have denied Sydney FC a run of eight consecutive wins. In an appointment that speaks to the intelligent succession planning and continuity inside the club, like Talay before him, Corica’s present assistant, Robbie Stanton, has also been promoted from within. A NSW Premier League championship-winning coach with Sutherlands Sharks, Stanton’s graduation from academy and reserves coach mirrors Corica’s own progression. And while former coach Arnold famously eschewed young players, it’s the established relationship of coaches like Corica and Stanton that enables Sydney FC to seamlessly incorporate young players like Joel King into their otherwise heavily fixed starting XI. Youngster Cameron Devlin may have followed Talay to Phoenix to greener pastures, but as the travel and fatigue from the ACL campaign begins to bite, expect players like Luke Ivanovic and Ryan Teague to integrate without detriment to the Sydney FC first team. Banana-skin fixtures still abound – Sydney FC face two more derbies, two more Big Blues, a visit from Perth and even nearby Central Coast and Newcastle have a nasty habit of rising to the occasion against their more-vaunted neighbours. On current form though, only two sides look able to stop the Sky Blues. Reigning premiers Perth have overcome their stuttering start and have the collective competitive instinct to force results, while with a seven-game unbeaten streak and Gary Hooper still to return to full fitness, the Phoenix are eyeing a January fixture list that boasts four of the league’s bottom five sides. Gertjan Verbeek’s Adelaide have shown promise but are still gelling. The fortunes of Mark Rudan’s Western United seem dependent on the increasingly fractious relations of his aging squads’ big characters. While outside of Jamie Maclaren, the promise of Melbourne City’s talent-laden squad appears as fickle or fleeting as in seasons past. Having conceded a 16-competition-point lead already, traditional rivals Melbourne Victory will need a January window midfield overhaul to challenge. A championship could still figure – but the premiership is long gone. It’s a cavalcade of unique problems facing the A-Leagues various would-be clubs. But only one club will enter 2020 a picture of near-fluency. The A-League has seen great one-campaign wonders. But it’s never seen a team as ruthlessly consistent as this.

JMac is a one dimensional player. His main attribute is poaching around the box. That's it. If he's not getting service or the opposition is playing tight on him then we have few other consistent avenues to goal. The 3 nil home game defeat against Glory clearly exposed our weakness against teams that can defend but can also counter and bang in a goal or two. Over to you Mombaerts. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/sky-blues-strike-late-to-snatch-points-against-melbourne-city-20191229-p53ngc.html Sky Blues strike late to snatch points against Melbourne City By Dominic Bossi December 29, 2019 — 9.27pm The race for the A-League premiership is already looking like the Sky Blues to lose after a 10-man Sydney FC opened a nine-point lead at the top of the table with a 2-1 win over Melbourne City at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium on Sunday. An 85th-minute winner from marquee Kosta Barbarouses and an earlier strike from Adam Le Fondre increased Sydney FC's lead by another length, capping off a dogged and disciplined display that left City's players kicking and cursing their way back to Melbourne. At the sound of the final whistle, they looked everything from livid, frustrated to dejected. And they only had themselves to blame. City saved a penalty, had an extra man for more than an hour but could barely find a way through Sydney's phalanx that rendered City's top scorer Jamie Maclaren inconspicuous on the field, starved of any quality service. "Going down to ten men, it showed great character from the boys to dig and do what they do out there," Sydney coach Steve Corica said. "We kept Jamie Maclaren quiet at times, we frustrated them and we defended well especially with balls into the box." The Sky Blues' ninth win of the season could be remembered as their most vital, hammering a huge pyschological blow against their nearest challengers. City coach Erick Mombaerts admits "it’s very difficult to come back," in the premiership race after this defeat. With this season's bye format, Melbourne City don't play Sydney three times and their next meeting isn't until the final round of the A-League season. If both sides continue amassing points at their current rate, that round 26 game will be a dead-rubber in the race for the premiership. For a brief moment, City looked to have pulled back into that contest. Youngster Connor Metcalfe put the visitors ahead in the 22nd minute with a close-range header from a cleverly-worked set-piece. It got worse for Sydney immediately after when Grant's evening was finally cut short. A reckless studs-up challenge on Atkinson earned Grant his marching orders after the VAR upgraded the initial yellow card to a red. Sydney were outnumbered but far from outgunned, and their sharpest shooter brought them back into the contest before the half-hour mark. A dropped ball from City goalkeeper Tom Glover sparked chaos in the box that ended at the feet of Adam Le Fondre. The Englishman received a loose ball with his back to goal, and at an acute angle but he finished with perfection and composure to make it 1-1. City should have restored their lead seven minutes later when Craig Noone dribbled his way into the box to set-up a simple finish but somehow failed to hit the target from point-blank range. Fortunately for him, Le Fondre let him off the hook. Some fancy footwork from Ninkovic drew a foul from Delbridge inside the box to win a penalty. The Sydney FC striker stepped up to the mark and thrashed a trademark powerful penalty that deceived Glover but not his trailing leg, putting Le Fondre's shot off course. After that let-off, City went on the hunt after the break by playing wider and throwing numbers forward. Josh Brillante, Rostyn Griffiths and Atkinson joined the attack with chances from deep before substitute Adrian Luna came within centimetres of scoring a stunning bicycle kick before the hour mark. For the most part, City only looked dangerous from distance. Sydney FC's defensive shell did it's job and with six minutes to play, their other marquee did his. Barbarouses pounced on some generous space offered by City, turned his marker and unleashed a powerful, precise and ultimately perfect shot into the bottom corner of the net to seal a win that makes the A-League premiership start to look like a one-horse race.

Mombaerts should do the right thing and resign.

Well maybe change the coach eh?

Possession stat: Syd 48%, City 52%

We have been/are clueless against a well drilled defence.

Noone gets beaten by Retre

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/something-has-to-change-mombaerts-wants-city-s-big-game-frailties-to-end-20191228-p53naz.html 'Something has to change': Mombaerts wants City's big-game frailties to end By Anthony Colangelo December 28, 2019 — 1.36pm If Melbourne City lose to Sydney FC on Sunday and miss another opportunity to cut the six-point gap at the top of the A-League table that separates them, the race for the premiers' plate and grand final success is by no means over or impossible. However, if the Victorian sky blue team put in another underwhelming big-game performance - as they did in the Melbourne derby last round in a meek loss to Melbourne Victory and earlier this season in their FFA Cup final loss to Adelaide United - the long-standing and serious questions over City's aptitude for success will remain. City coach Erick Mombaerts seems well aware of this. "Something has to change," Mombaerts said on Saturday of City's poor run in big games this season, and of the club's history of wilting in high-pressure matches. "As a first way for me is to be more consistent mentally. First thing is always start with the players, they have to understand and now they have also got to agree to change something. To improve. We have to improve this. "If not? OK we have to change the player or the coach. We need to find solution. "Sometimes we are doing so well but sometimes mentally we drop a little bit. If we drop a little bit it is not enough. So we need to work on this. To be more consistent about mental aspects. We failed on this against Victory." Mombaerts flagged changes to his starting 11 for the game against Sydney at Kogarah, against an opposition who drew with Wellington Phoenix last round in a game they could have easily lost. Names like Lachlan Wales, Rostyn Griffiths and Ramy Najjarine are at the head of the queue to come into starting consideration. Najjarine certainly deserves his chance and gives City a Daniel Arzani-like burst of flair. But fundamentally City need to be more aggressive in their press and less easy to break against, Mombaerts said. "I think we can break their block but we have to be very consistent defensively because they don’t need to have a lot of chances to score," the Frenchman, who used to coach Yokohama F Marinos, said. "Against Sydney it is very important to find good balance … you have to be strong offensively … but they can break [you] also. "If we play at our best level we can challenge every team." An Olyroos squad for January's Asian championships Tokyo Olympics qualifying tournament will be named on Monday. Mombaerts said he expected to lose four players, likely current starting goalkeeper Tom Glover, Denis Genreau (pending his shoulder injury), Connor Metcalfe and Najjarine. "My first idea is to play with the players we have," he said when asked if City would need to go to the transfer market to replace his Olyroos. Independent of those player unavailabilities, he said City's squad could use more attacking players - maybe a winger or attacking midfielder - if they were to enter the January market. “We want to score more. We need creative players," Mombaerts said.

Agree. It gets down to the gaffer to design a system around the players we have. It's always been this way in the A-league which operates a salary cap system. Top teams recruit well so your visa players can be the difference between silverware and also rans.

Jamo wasn't the only culprit but the two MV goals came down his side in the first half. For the first goal, we had 7 defenders surrounding 4 attackers with Nabbout finding plenty of space and with no one marking him he had time to whip it in and find Ola ghosting in behind Galloway to head in. Training ground goal and our players momentarily looking like cones. Nabbout was given way tooooo much space on the night. He Jamo's man to mark, that's what a left sided defender is meant to do. The second goal resulted from a shank clearance that on most occasions would have been dealt with easily. Mombearts made substitutions in the 69th and 82nd minutes but it was pretty clear even in the first half that we were struggling to contain the fast forward runs of MV and our in ability to find JMac compounded our problems. He was well held and we didn't have an answer. Poor game from the gaffer and MV well structured.

As lacking effectiveness as we did, I thought the second goal could have/should have been called off side. Nabbout's pass is clearly looking for Toivonen who looks just ahead of the ball. Maybe a 50/50 call but often these kind of calls go against the attacking side. Not so this time it seems. Anyway, Curtis Good who was just trying to have a shit day contributes massively to the goal. His second half was just as poor.

Correct. The Jets defence was like Swiss cheese in that we were able to penetrate it and convert. Against Perth and MV we faced more determined defending that aimed to nullify our attack. Which it did successfully.

Glover has been quite the gloveman tonight

Yep. We needed to show this against Perth, not just against the second bottom side.

We’ve looked excellent against a team that no where near matches Glory’s ability to close down play. I’ll take this result anyway. Glover doing a good job.

Victory can't find a way through United's defensive bus. Where have I seen this before

I too wish we had someone that stood out likes dogs balls. Like a Ninkovic or a Castro. How much better did we look and play when Mooy was pulling strings. Our Visa signings are letting us down and that might just be the difference between top end of the ladder and middle also rans. I hope I’m wrong.

Should have just summarised it as awful crap. Popovic brings out his defensive structure, as he would, and we have no fcuking idea. No fcuking idea. It’s not like we didn’t have time to prepare for the inevitable Popovic brick wall. Bereft of ideas tonight.

Brillante has been a top pickup. Far more effective than Bratts was.

Kudos to the lads. This is a good fight back.

He’s got his shorts on tho’

VARcical but I’ll take it.

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.

It was good for the neutral but it was still shithouse

Noone is having a shit one. He should have put the team in front already