mattyh001

Commentary on Fox during the Derby says the Jets game is slated for this coming Friday

the sad part for me is there is no crowd, so we have no chance ourselves to present a wooden spoon to the tards. given our use of the 6-0 paper last time, i would have found it funny rocking up in the active bay with wooden spoons (probably would have been kicked out for having a "weapon" but). game day bitchesssssssss. pumped.

the fascinating fact / part when you compare Wellington this season to the teams finishing fifth in the prior 9 seasons (the team who rounds out the top 50%) is that Wellington would have been on par to still finish in the finals. twice (Sydney 11/12 and Brisbane 12/13) have worse records so Wellington would have finished 5th. on 4 occasions (Sydney 13/14, Perth 16/17, Adelaide 17/18, Western United 19/20) the team in fifth have played one more game to only finish 1 point ahead. that's right only 1 point ahead despite playing one more game. you also have us in 18/19 (Joyce year two) where we finished on 40 points (two points clear from one more game). we can speculate about the net result of playing one less game, IMO you would expect Wellington to get something out of one extra game more times than not. hence, they can count themselves a little unlucky to not get more out of this season. and FFIW, Wellington's +10 Goal Difference has only been matched once by a team in fifth in the last 9 seasons (no teams in fifth have had a GD above +10). Ironically, it was in 14/15 when it was Wellington itself - having amassed 46 points on their way. It is worth noting that this was the season where Perth amassed 50 points but got kicked out of finals for salary cap breaches.

the teams in the middle of the table have been so close the last few weeks its more of a crab shoot than anything else. you don't know who is going to turn up in terms of whose in form and who is not (and even then those teams seem to misfire every other game anyway) the bigger concern is that JMac has scored half our goals and we lack a solid back up number 9.

more than anything, I'm hoping this makes it easier to keep Maclaren long term. They will get to train together every day, play together every week - as they are locked in for Socceroos when fit then that connection is gonna be massive. Could also help to keep Nabbout, but we can only have two marquees (and all three are worthy of that money)

i think that they have had an amazing season given the hub life they been in all season. Their point tally would have seen them qualify for finals almost any other season over the last 9 season (and have played one less game to boot). really adds to the sentiment that they deserve to be in the league.

over the previous 9 seasons (prior to this one) where there have been 27 games for each team, the team finishing 6th (bottom spot of the finals) have earnt 37 points on average. The team finishing 7th (the team "unlucky" to miss out) have an average of 34.3 (where only one of the nine seasons had a GD above 0) for Wellington to miss out this season, having only played 26, be one point above a typical season, having to be based away from home (nothing any other team has had to do) for the bulk of the season and with a GD well above the norm for a team in 7th is amazing. really glad we don't have to face them in finals TBH.

We face Chinese Taipei next, who have lost every game so far. They've have lost by an average of 5 goals, including their game this morning 2-0 to Nepal (second worst team in the group). A win locks in top spot (which should be the case by a wide margin) Kuwait would be to far behind and Jordan (a) would have to win every game (including against us) while (b) we'd also have to lose to Nepal. Fat fucking chance. Its in the bag.

could also mean we got it oh so right in signing Nabbout. that little shit run we had coincided with him being out

just saying .....

a positive result (aka don't you fucking dare lose Newcastle) for the Jesters against Perth (game is on Saturday), and we go into this game here knowing we can give the Tards their first wooden sppon. given our past derby results this season, i think a spanking is in order - could there be a more perfect time (and yes pun intended 😂 )

Our record against the top 8: 10 W 3 D 3 L = 33pts from 16 (2.0635 pts per game) Our record against the bottom 4: 5 W 0 D 3 L = 15pts from 8 (1.8750 pts per game) if we win our our last two (both bottom 4), our against the bottom 4 only jumps to 2.1000 points per game. to think we have only been that good against the bottom 4!! edit: FWIW i remember walking away from that loss to Perth earlier in the season thinking how shit / insipid we were. at this rate our record against the bottom 5 (will include Perth at the time of posting) will be even starker than our record against the bottom 4

I currently have to hook up my laptop via a HDMI cord because my PS4 doesn't have a Kayo app (although I have a Foxtel app 😡) Not too hard, if but frustrating. At $9 (or there abouts) is decent, but as pointed out by another its frustrating you have to subscribe to so many platforms

Same boat mate, going to watch from the confines of home. My thoughts are it could be played interstate anyway since we were in Brisbane last night and Victoria could be in lock down. Don't see the need to risk it

the second one the bloke went down like a sack of spuds and could have booked. i'm not saying he has been great either. more so i'm don't think its great to judge a bloke who's (a) starting his first game in ages, and (b) there are others who haven't been great either. Galloway has been found well and truly out of position several times Edit - if anything i'm actually surprised we signed him. i think the club saw it as a win win. the guy has a league experience, has been signed as back up and we get to see if he fits prior to finals.

think people are being a bit harsh / quick to judge on Georgievski. his passing has been decent and the team is looking defensively shite as a whole

the league is between rock and a hard place. we have this WC qualifying period plus the ACL games straight after. 3 of our clubs are required overseas for those games. you can't just keep postponing the a league fixtures (regular season or finals). remember too that the a league grand final is normally around early to mid May. The delay to last season (finish in August), the resulting delay to the start of this season and delays throughout the season thanks to lockdowns, etc., has forced this season into a later than normal finish. as frustrating as this is, i don't think you can put it on the A League / people running the game. i'd actually be gutted if we didnt get the chance to play in a grand final. my thoughts about the finals has always been they give the game a focal point for the casual fan at the culmination of the season. you're right that you want a quality product (which is not helped by players being out for international duty), but i don't see teams being completely decimated here either. as i said before, the game is in between a rock and a hard place - compromises need to be made

By my count, 7 of the 31 are either genuine City youth products or players who arrived at our club as young players / developed into solid players after joining us (the players bolded, underlined and in italics). I'm not including JMac in that bracket since he came to us with a number of Socceroo caps. so it could be argued that it is 8 of 31 City have had an impact on. And Mooy is missing too (anyone heard why - troubles getting in and out of China maybe?). yeah, i'm surprised too. maybe Arnold is wanting to see how Tongyik fits into the squad. i've never thought he was that good (always thought he read the game poorly when he was at City), but good on him for persisting ** Edit ** just checked the fixtures for this week and Adelaide host Sydney. both have one game left after this weekend, and Sydney are 3 points clear with much better goal difference. a Sydney win or draw and they will be second since the chasing pack is too far back. Sydney have lost 3 themselves, all of which play in the backline. maybe we're not in such a bad spot (despite losing 3).

should be an easy win, but kinda hoping we take it soft so the Jesters can win and leapfrog the tards. will be interesting to see if there are any new restrictions given masks are now required.

couldn't agree more. summer presents more opportunities for exposure and clean air. it's on the people here who run the game to market appropriately. plus you look at the state of test cricket currently, we could see a bit more space over the summer. Basketball, Australian Open and Big Bash do present some challenges, but no where near the same as the winter codes

after getting home in the early hours of this morning, i sat at my computer for 45 minutes not knowing how to express the emotion of last night (finally deciding to pack it in and post after some sleep). in many ways, i still don't. i'm sure there are a few others in the same boat. wow, just wow. such a euphoric feeling, yet it feels almost as much of a release of nervous energy too. game was super tight. thought that Mariners didn't really push hard going forward (until we scored - which also meant we were just as happy to then sit off), but then again their style was to try and hit us on the counter. we ground it out fantastically, as City sides have done so well over the last two seasons. active bay was great. honestly felt like a pre covid bay against a Sydney, Wanderers, etc. massive kudos to all. i'm a little surprised about the total attendance, but will take the premiers plate all the same. COYCB

Have reportedly signed Davila from Wellington

TTIM: the Politix ad featuring City players. just shit.

voted for Galloway. thought he was the standout in the first half, and contributed throughout. thought Tilio was excellent after half time, just was quiet in the first half.

Given his form, I suspect he was in line for Socceroos duty. so i think he was always going to miss finals, it just sucks he's out of the next couple games.