Heart_fan

I second that and the club have no one else to blame than themselves. It's all gutless and just tipped me over the brink to finally say I just don't care until they finally deliver. Good luck with the rest of the season

Seriously sooooo frustrated... At this rate you ain't get me to the game on the weekend and maybe not again this season. I'll just take the same mindset our players and coach have.. I give up, just like they all do each week.

With all the advantages that our players have compared to other HAL clubs (training base, overseas training camps etc.), it's frustrating to see the types of inconsistent performances and lifeless that are dished up. We start out looking like we care in matches and then just switch off and lose any care factor for the fight. Let's look at history though with JVS in charge, last season we finished winless towards the end of the season and we also fell away badly in JVS' final year (when we finished 6th). We seem to just fade and there has to be some reason for it. A coaching change is the only way we can change the culture at the end of this season. I see no point in doing it now. For our long suffering fans, to continue to see us fail badly is getting beyond the point of no return for many. Why should we care when the players don't? It's time to lift or they might as well expect sub 5k crowds again and get used to it.

"Andrew's a goalkeeper so we can't show you his face" Haha love your work. It certainly was a very strange pic, with the guy next to him appearing to look at him strangely too.

I don't think there have been a lot of positives this year, with many missteps and a general lack of confidence still there in the manager, players and fans alike. To fall back to MH type crowds is dissapointing as we all want to see this club succeed after years of failure on and off the pitch. As Marwood made clear, he also felt the club failed to take advantage of its moment this year. Let's hope some success is the medicine we need to get some excitement and confidence into our fans, which will hopefully bring the crowds in.

Who cares, as long as the disabled parking requirements are met, that's the important part. Looking forward to see their next step in the plans for the academy. Exciting times.

The CFG link would have to be a significant factor, given the doors it can open for a player. Whether it be Manchester, New York, Melbourne or Yokohama (wonder if they will be rebranded City too), they all give a player benefits to being part of a group, not just one club. As the years go on, hopefully CFG can perfect the model and further enhance the experience.

Do we own this facility? I'm not so sure of that. Its still being positioned as a partnership with Latrobe from everything I have seen, so that would likely mean leasing too in some way. I would suspect that in coming years that the Adacemy and youth set up will gain new facilities next to the new first team building, which would be a good move. As for the NPL, I had thought that both MV and MC sides were not to play home games. Could be wrong there though.

I'm getting greedy now, the more I look at it the more I see areas that could be added It's very surprising to see just how in depth they went with the facility. It's light years ahead of rival HAL clubs and will likely make other clubs lift their game. I can see SFC try and up the ante, as we all know they are about status. They try something and CFG will go ahead and launch Phase 2 haha

As Tommykins said, I think the most surprising thing was that he said anything at all. Based on previous observations from Man City fans, I was expecting complete silence on such topics, but he certainly have a frank and open interview there. It makes you wonder what they will do to try and maximise the moment at the start of next season, as they will need to work hard to keep some existing members let alone building the numbers after the Villa experiment. Interesting times ahead.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/frank-lampard-was-never-likely-for-melbourne-city-says-brian-marwood-20150303-13trdg.html Former England superstar and Chelsea legend Frank Lampard was never a likely option for Melbourne City, Brian Marwood, the football administration officer for the club's Abu Dhabi-controlled owner, City Football Group, has revealed. And while Marwood stopped short of agreeing that the David Villa signing – where the Spanish World Cup winner played only four games for City – was a "disaster", he admitted that both the Melbourne club and the CFG had learnt plenty of lessons from an experiment that left a sour taste in the mouths of many City fans, especially those who had swelled the club's membership in the expectation that Villa would play 10 games for the Melbourne team. Results in the first half of the season, when City struggled badly for form, were unacceptable, Marwood said. But coach John van 't Schip's job was not dependent on making the finals. "We will assess it in the summer. We will take a view. We are happy with JVS and the group. We have a lot of faith in the staff. And when you are on the inside you know what they have to work with in terms of the dynamics of certain aspects," said Marwood, an English League winner with Arsenal in his playing days. -------- Hadn't seen this posted but it has many interesting comments about a range of subjects. I appologise if its been posted in one of the other topics. This part was very interesting later in the article: While City will still consider sending big-name players who are probably in their twilight years to Melbourne, it seems more likely that they will send younger players from the under-21 squad over for training or to play a season if they fit into the team dynamic. Currently a youngster from Manchester City's under 21s, James Horsfield, is training with van 't Schip's team to gain experience and develop his football. Seem's like that shared mentality with CFG is starting to occur with such player movements. But this part sums it all up so well: He readily admits that the Melbourne club did not make the most of the opportunities that it was presented with at the start of the season. "Certainly the results in the first half of the season were poor, not acceptable," Marwood said. "We didn't capture the momentum earlier in the season when membership went to 10,000. We had nearly 16,000 to David's first game. But because the results weren't there ... people used to say at first that it was always same old City in Manchester and I heard it here too, that Melbourne City will take you to the point, then disappoint you. But hopefully symbols like the new training ground will show that we are here for the long term."

Makes you wonder.. Why come to Australia as an injury replacement then? Seems that he was on the right track at one point in Europe.

Haven't been there myself, but from the look of the image of the loading dock (markings on the concrete slab) there is still work to be done on the facility. Yeah, seems like they just wanted to get the main facility open first and do any other cosmetic work done afterwards. It makes sense. Excited to see what they have planned for the rest of the facility in the coming years. I hear they still need to build the Germano rehabilitation wing and injury / recovery ward (mainly for Germano) ... possibly 2-3 weeks away Classic. Its definitely an important addition.. likely for 10 more weeks then it will be vacated when he is released

+1 We were left with a few legacy signings that I am sure JVS and CFG weren't that happy with, but they had to deal with it. The one thing though, where does JD fit in when it comes to signings these days? His track record hasn't been great, but hopefully with the network of scouts his job will be made easier, and if hes still not up to it it may be time to move him on.

I think Jaliens is the injury replacement for Wielart. Not too sure how long he is meant to be out though.

How long is Hoff signed for? Given that he is becoming a back-up option, he may be versitile in where he can play but hes a master of none. Its unfortunately not looking too good for him when the contract expires I would say, however he has been a very lucky guy to get as far as he has up to this time

Its our first silverware under either MH or MC names No doubt it will look good in our brand new headquarters at Latrobe :-) Hope they have the Trophy cabinet ready

Its everything that MH really didn't do. The closest we came to going down this route in the past was Tadic really. I like the logic, just hope it works out.

The next manager of our club's senior team will likely be someone thats involved with CFG. Given their network of clubs and scouting ability, one would hope they have realistic options in mind already if JVS is let go. Palatsides will be a great asset for the youth development plans that CFG want to implement.

I'm sure Ramsey is thrilled by this news

Haven't been there myself, but from the look of the image of the loading dock (markings on the concrete slab) there is still work to be done on the facility. Yeah, seems like they just wanted to get the main facility open first and do any other cosmetic work done afterwards. It makes sense. Excited to see what they have planned for the rest of the facility in the coming years.

Lets hope he enjoys his stay and plays some great football for us. If he does well, hopefully we can sign him on for another year or 2. Some continuality in our visa signings will likely be a good thing, especially with 23 yos like Harry and Safuwan.

I still think as a list, it was weaker than many others. They overperformed even under Arnie for what they had.

^^ Great skill and creativity there, but given he has not been able to cement a place anywhere, one has to wonder what his attitude and desire to perform are. Maybe he just hasn't had the chances to do so, but if its him we will need to wait and see what he brings to us.

Thanks for the pic updates niko. One thing I find interesting is that they spent $15 million but didn't even appear to finish off the facade in the same material on the back of the building (as shown in the pic after the Loading dock). Certainly a great start by the club.