mattyh001

agree wholeheartedly. perhaps my rant went away from this a little. the fact we arent getting the likes of Walker to develop now is sad. it truly seems that gone are the days of Hamill, Good, etc. coming through on a very rapid rate.

when i look at our players that have come in over the offseason i see an even mix. 2 over 30s (Duff, Koren) + 1 for marketing purposes (Villa), 4 at the start (Retre, Archibald, Chapman and Marino; all 18-21) + 1 as part of a youth acquisition from another club (Melling; 19) 2 with points to prove (Mooy, Brown; both 24) 1 looking to play back to form (Paartalu; 28) if anything, the problem isnt with the older players. Villa has had two decent games to start with and didnt get much service last time (although he didnt help himself either). Koren has been injured (in itself a different debate). Mooy and Duff have killed it, while Paartalu has been generally solid (certainly more so than most on these forums seem to give him credit for). the problem i have is that the scouting and signing of young players by our club has been shit since Hamill, Good and Babelj left a two seasons back. the club hasnt replenished well enough, and they ones still at the club seem to have a number of issues. some just leave something(s) to be desired (Hoffman, Ramsey), some have not been the same since injury (Dugandzic, Germano), some are far too inconsistent (Kalmar, Williams) and some just dont get game time to develop (Mauk, Garruccio). leave out the last two for a moment (given their both under 20), and that is a far amount of space going on players that have given chances by the club (some more than others) who are seemingly taking chances away from others. of the 6, i'd say only Williams has a fair call to stay. the other 5 should have been weeded out by now (although Ramsey did only sign a two year deal at the start of last season, so maybe he'll only go to the end of the contract). the club just hasnt built itself well, and unfortunately the chickens have come home to roost. in any case JW, you're right that the clubs problems wont go away with older players. i just dont think putting blame on them is necessarily right either. for the most part them at least seem to help in the short term.

purely on the theory that we do actually sign both, then maybe they can play a 4-4-2. Redmayne Kisnorbo Wielaart Hoffman Ramsey Paartalu Mooy Duff Koren Cahill Kennedy

I didn't think you'll be able to give such a clear appraisal considering the amount of Amber liquid you consumed before the kickoff. Well done hehe comes with practice plus it helps when we play like shit in the second half - makes it hard to remember it

having been at the game, still cant believe the way the team capitulated in the second half. two sleeps later and still dont feel any better about the shit in the second half. what shits me the most with our defense isnt actually Ramsey himself but the fact the club hasnt done much to rectify the situation at either fullback position. something needs to change, but in many ways he is not responsible for where the coach decides to play him - he can only make himself available. didnt think Hoffman was much better than Ramsey on Saturday but for the goal. but i wont digress too far into whose better, not really the point. when i look at West Sydney, i cant help but see that when they started out, BOTH starting fullbacks were VISA players. given the way that West Sydney went about recruiting "has been's / never will be's" and turning them into a very good side, it says a lot about the need to recruit properly. and the fact they had to go overseas for both fullbacks makes our club look like a fucking disgrace for the fact that time and again we push ill suited players into these spots. Hoffman's has had 4.5 years and still struggles. Ramsey is mid 20s and hasnt looked like picking it up (at least Behich was young enough to grow into it). club needs to pull its head out of the sand.

Exciting news but if he is going to be our Australian marquee, shouldn't we be looking at shoring up our left defence rather going after cahill?? There is where we are weak as well.I think once garruccio is back this won't be an issue We won't be going after Cahill, especially now since it seems we've signed Kennedy. Besides I wouldn't be surprised if the Cahill rumour was only ever a rumour and never had any substance behind it at all. But yeah no doubt that last visa place will be used on a defender (probably a LB). I wouldn't be surprised if the reason JVS doesn't play Garuccio at LB is because he doesn't want to waste him there. Duff is only here for one season and he no doubt is being used to mentor Garuccio so that he can replace him as the first choice LW next season. In that respect, having him at LB would waste that opportunity. I could see the club getting both. Kennedy gets two and half year deal front loaded. Thus marquee this season under cap next season. Allows Cahill to be signed for next season

have been hanging out for this all week. today seems to be taking too long tho. can see this being a 0-0 draw. that said, i can also see us coming out strong, and with the way the Visitors defend, i can see Villa getting a couple early. a 3-0 win doesnt seem that extreme.

TBH this type of bizarre thinking has Melbourne Heart written all over it. Considering that its all the same faces at the club, my bet is that someone from the old guard is responsible for this. Probably because (as has been mentioned before) they were happy to go along letting people think he was here for 10 games but didnt think it through Its got Scott Munn written all over it: lets get the media attention, fan interest and memberships from the speculation and don't confirm or deny assumptions which are obviously wrong. Just like when he was fuelling rumours we were getting Beckham. As long as Munn is there, this will continue. As Dudilica is there we will end up recruiting 34 year olds marquees that spend most of their time on the bench. As long as JVS is here we will no silverware. As long as a bout half a dozen Heart players remain, we will continue to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory the way i see the lack of information is from a very short sighted marketing point of view; the club wanted to give the impression that the season was going to start with a bang. the bigger the bang, the more fans / members the club would get. as much as the club could have sold the "4 game" bang, 10 games (for the club anyway) looks so much better. sad thing is that the club has proverbially "bitten its nose off in spite of its face". one way or the other, the club really should have done better. if they had known, the really should have been up front about it to keep faith with fans and to have signed another forward for the short term. if on the other hand this had been unexpected (ie a change of heart by NYC), then the club should have ensured that all avenues were exhausted prior to Villa coming. that is, they should have had a more ironclad contract to ensure that the 10 games were to be completed. maybe some of it has to do with Lampard, but still it is pretty poor form by management.

Can I dare ask what happened?

for those interested in doing a double away trip. by all means, some might prefer one of the games - the more the merrier. last chance to see the team live before the Asian Cup too.

1) standing halfway / two thirds of the way up the active section straight behind the goal, i thought the "we are Melbourne, we are City" worked very well. quite simply, we seem to have a lot of newbies this season who want to get involved just dont seem to know the lyrics / know where to get them. as such, they seemed to get lost with the newer longer chants. they did much better with the shorter simpler songs. as far as i am concerned for immediate term, we should be looking to keep these shorter chants so that newer active members can pick them up quickly. should help to get the more support / noise in the mean time. 2) agree wholeheartly Posted something as an add on in the City-Newcastle forum this arvo (didnt realise there was a separate forum thread!!) and it looks like one or two others have already posted it here too; i think it would help to (a.) have a couple of people in the lead group to offer support the capo / rotate if need be, and (b.) if we had a couple of spotters around the the whole of the active bay area to boost chanting across the bay. thought BeardedHeart did a great job yesterday, just thought there was a few times when he could have used a spare voice on occasions to start a few chants. there were a few times there were a couple of lads around the bay who started a different (older) chant, and thought it went down well. i think if we had the spotters (and tried to do so at times with the newbies near me) the newer members could pick up the songs easier. there were a couple of times where it was hard to pick up the songs / lyrics. being new to some of songs myself (given there are some new songs and all) i thought if some of the more engaged fans are having trouble, then the new ones are going to find it even harder. 3) agreed. IIRC from a pre season catch up at the Imp, another thing that would help would be to print a shit load of songlists to be put on every single seat before the game / distributed as people settle into their spot in the active bays. the songlist would need to be around a single sheet double sided (thinking either A4 or A5) so that the active bay members have the songs right in front of them in their hands if they need them. that way, anyone who is not on here (blasphemy i know ) , facebook, etc., can still find the out about the songs. as the active bay evolves, the songlist can adapt too. the simpler, easier songs might start on the list and can be changed for more current songs as most fans (at least you'd hope) learn the more common / initial songs for the record, i'd be more than happy to help with the printing of such songlists when i can make it. i live in Mildura which is 500km + away, so i wont be making all home games since it is a bit far to do every Sunday or Friday game, but willing to help when able (FYI i drove home after the game - left the CBD at 5.45, didnt get in the front door until after 12am)

No it won't, with the seats brought in I think it only holds 46,000?? Victory got 50,333 v Sydney in 06/07. 2nd Highest total is 45,202 from the Round 1 derby last year, should break that. Visitors Vs Sydney was a final. See bold text above... as sad as i am to say it but having gone to the game, the Visitor v Sydney game season 2 of the a league was actually regular season.

We might have been in the same row, sounds exactly like the guy who called me a cunt for 'stealing' his seat. if it was a 40ish year old bloke in a sky blue terry toweling club hat then probably was. particularly if he and his two boys (looked about 7 and 9) left at half time not to return.

Left the game with fairly mixed emotions, disappointed we let 2 points go but then again (as others have rightly pointed out) we dominated for the second week going and we all ready have a better record at coming from a goal down this season than we ever did under Aloisi. Paartalu seems to be getting under represented in terms of how well he played. thought he smashed it in. not to mention i had a 5 year old girl standing behind me in the terrace. Look she was standing ill give her that but seriously. need some age restrictions on the terrace. Its not a place for soccer mums and their daughters to enjoy a fine day out. Impacts the effort of the terrace's voice Too many passengers in the active area...the capo needs to bark some more orders at the crowd. my general vibe (having sat in the middle of aisle 16) was that the chanting will get better over time as people get use to the new chants and the pacing of differing chants improves. thought the second half went well when we had two different guys working the mic. by all means i have massive respect to our bearded leader and thought he did a good job first half, just thought the rotation helped keep the chants going. got shitty with the number of parents and kids (but mostly the parents) that thought active was about sitting. had one knob come down the row i was in because he and his two boys 'had' to sit in their allocated seats. main afterthought: was wondering if we could possibly get a list of 'key' / 'new' songs for the day printed out and put on all active seats for each game. as others have mentioned there were a number of guys there who didnt know the songs. if we keep it to a number of 'key' / 'new' then i think it would help all newbies with the lyrics. over time this list can expand or be just for new songs as others become active favorites / songs that people have well and truly learnt having a couple of "spotters" spread amongst the crowd might help too so that for those who dont hear the capo the first time then the "spotter" can help re-address across the wider crowd

went Paartalu, thought he rocked the holding mid position - gave nothing away and for the first time in a long time the back line look like they could play the ball out short, thanks largely to the way Paartalu dropped off. thought Mooy had a good game, just got a bit inconsistent with some of forward passing.

i'm sure it will come up closer to the game, but since we are playing the tards at Etihad are we meeting pre game at the same old drinking hole we used to as Heart or are we moving it? i'm assuming that with the Imp down the other end of Bourke the Melburnians (and all others) would rather meet a little closer.

as simple as it might seem, i've always thought of pressing as in "pressing" or pushing a button. something that means simply you apply force in a forward direction to create an outcome as part of a machine (arguably a team could be a machine on the thought players are the different parts that make the machine work - or in some instances break down easy ). when you looking at pressing in football, often incorporates the concept of pushing the opponent as far away from goal as possible and mostly up / towards the other end of the field (in other words, to push them as far back for attacking team / as far forward as for the defending team) and to create an eventual change of possession. i'm sure that teams would love to win the ball straight away when pressing, but often the focus comes across as get the opponents as far back to force a mistake / turnover as a means of poor play by the team working as a unit. the better the team presses as a unit, the harder it is for the opponent to break through the different lines (ie defence, midfield) pressuring on the other hand can be more individually focused, and not necessarily directed at getting an opponent as close to their own goal (ie pressuring in the penalty area for an immediate turn over to either score yourself or to clear).

Is by far the worst part about moving over here. 3am kick offs are fucked. As an 18 year old who knew no better back then it was the only swaying factor in me voting against day lights savings the last time WA voted on it. Is better having Perth in that late Saturday time slot anyways because no one else can play in it and playing In Perth in the middle of summer at an earlier kick off time is a fucking stupid idea with the heat. you'd think most places around Oz are bad for the mid day heat tho in the middle of summer so there is no real easy way around the heat. granted, Perth is a few degrees warmer than Melbourne or Sydney in mid summer so FFA trying to avoid the higher expectancy of days above 30 is fair enough, but still doesnt excuse so many games over the course of a season. if anything, i would have thought sunday afternoons in Perth during October-November and late March-May would be a fair goer given the low 20 degree days.

get the feeling that the crowd should be above 13k since the memberships are so much up on last year, but who knows. just hoping we get a good start and actually take a solid lead in to half time for once given all the chances we tend to make first half. as average as Newcastle were last week (and given the way CCM played, saying Newcastle were average isnt really saying much) i don't think people should write them off so easily. not a big fan of the Sunday games, mostly though living over 500kms away - makes it kinda hard to balance getting home after 1 in the morning after a 6 hour drive (particularly with all the 5 pm kickoffs) and at having to start work by 8-8.30 the next day. what shits me with this though is both Sydney teams have 8 of their 13 or 14 scheduled home games on a Saturday (WSW have fewer now though only because they made the ACL final). far too convenient for a Sydney based FFA to be an accident. the figures dont count when either team plays as an away team in a derby so you can bump those figures to effectively 9 or 10 home games on a Saturday strangely so do Perth (8 of 14 games), which is kinda shitty in itself too since a 5 pm kick of our time is only 2 pm there (after all, Western Australia doesnt even do daylight savings so would have thought they would have been prime candidates for sunday arvo games).

These are rather Irregular Stats if you ask me. I wonder if anyone will understand... You did Mr Malloy... im probably way way off but I was thinking of 'flying high' unless its just me, i cant believe those graphs make 3.1k Wellington fans equal to 7.1k at Newcastle. mind you there dollar is cheap so hopefully there is something in it ....

a work in progress and probably way to long, but to Green Day's Holiday See the sight of his midfield reign Coming down like an Armageddon flame The man Will leave you in a world of pain He now plays at City’s heart With a style that will tear you all apart He bleeds So we can win the game today We beg to dream and differ from your hollow lies He has the talent that you simply can't deny Our PAAR-TA-LU

yeah I'm torn i get the feeling some will / may want to wear the one of the old kits, particularly since one is the new "away" kit. i always wore the old sash away kit so for me its gonna be a bit weird / torn at first

Wow!!!!!

down for the event + 1.

Good graph showing how the membership take up this year was significantly higher in the early months than last year but, while still probably greater, it has tapered off. We have had a noticeable drop of since the beginning of August - except for the two "blips" when we got members after the Ballarat and Bendigo games. The rate of membership take up seems now to be about what it was last year at this time. If I knew someone who was good at graphs I would ask him if we could have a comparison one on the weekly take up rate. Up to 7421 after being 7426 overnight. If sitting 60% above last year is tapering off (when we never were more than 30% up on 2012-13 at the same time last year iirc) then I'd think management would believe they are shitting gold with how they are advertising the club So eager to see how much growth comes when Villa arrives.