SF33
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Posts posted by SF33
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4 hours ago, JMSTEP123 said:
All well and good when 1. The manager openly communicates with media without letting speculating fester and 2. The club were more transparent with their fans.
Instead we get an overtly secretive club; censored and refusal to give information - then we publish this travesty as a means of highlighting speculation based on our pathetic lack of transparency. This is why it is a joke. No word from the club on Bruno besides the initial bullshit and subsequent "no comment", then we get the club publishing quite implicitly that the club are looking for attackers and the Fornaroli saga is rolling on. What the fans are crying out is some fucking respect for our clubs greatest striker, and he is being treated with such contempt. It is a disgrace.
Rather I would like us to improve communications and not spew out media speculation as the only means of the club relaying information about the goings on of the club.
And I am not trying to sound spoilt here - I have been advocating for better transparency. But this was a poor attempt at probably just addressing the latest failures from fan satisfaction surveys.
Hope that makes sense.
That would be great. But it's also pretty unrealistic. You'd just be letting other speculation fester. Take, for example, the last minute Troisi defection back to Victory when we thought he was signed, sealed and delivered prior to last season. Those sort of things would probably happen all the time and that's why the club is circumspect in its public statements.
I'm not crying out for respect for Fornaroli; I just want this situation to be over. It's untenable and to me it seems pretty clear that there's blame and stubbornness on both sides. It's a sad end to his time in Melbourne, but there's no doubt it is the end.To keep him in the stands when there are a number of other quality strikers that we could potentially sign is effectively writing off the season.
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He was a shining light tonight in his cameo. It would be great if he could keep it up, as he certainly looks like he knows how to create some chances.
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3 hours ago, JMSTEP123 said:
I get it. But this has poor taste and unprofessional written all over it.
Pro: club communicating
Con: poor taste
I don't get the 'poor taste'.
I'd love it if City put out a media summary a couple of times a week, with links to all the mentions/articles about City in the media, radio segments, TV news etc., like the daily media summary that I get at my work. It acknowledges the news, without confirming or denying it, or even providing any comment on it whatsoever. It gives me confidence that I'm across all the public news at the club. It's just "this is what the media is saying, take it for what it it's worth."
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3 hours ago, kingofhearts said:
What exactly did we learn from that article that we hadn't already heard about?
Copying and pasting quotes from news articles isn't exactly 'releasing new information' to supporters.
To be fair, most of the City members/supporters don't live and breathe the club like - say - the sort of supporters who would seek out a City supporters forum. The people who I sit with at games and the City supporters that I know at work have typically never heard a word of rumours that have been reported in the media and spoken about on here for weeks. I hadn't heard about any of those players being linked to the club, so it was news (or at least a few interesting hypothetical scenarios) to me.
Basically it bundled together all the rumours that I'd drop in here once in a while to find out, or maybe/maybe not catch in the daily news.
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38 minutes ago, fensaddler said:
Told you. Hate being quite so right.
I mean, I agree. But it's so frustrating that this keeps happening to us. It's so frustrating that we're all on our guard for an away game against a team that hasn't won all year, simply because they're the games where we always get our pants pulled down and invariably a shit bloke/shit player (or at least one of the two) like Matt Simon will be the one to seal it.
Perth away, Victory...any contender pretty much (especially when we're underdogs), sure we'll put in a shift. But put us in an away game where we're short odds to win and look out. Four points from four games against Brisbane and Central Coast. That tells the story, right there.
But anyway. What supporting this club for a long time has taught me is that it's not about one game; it's about the trends. It's about what we do in the next four games. We need to dust ourselves off and beat Perth on Saturday. Another shit performance and it will trigger a slump, you can just smell it.
I thought Berenguer looked really lively and it was an exquisite ball to set up the goal, so maybe he will give us a bit in the second half of the season.
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On 1/12/2019 at 8:50 PM, Afif Adam said:
after ccm losing to wel 3-2 after being 2 goals up, there should be no reason for us to lose this...tis the only game wazza should be sacked if we lose
See, the opposite mentality being spruiked in this thread is a by-product of our tortured years.
Imagine if we were going in to January without a win, having just lost a match when we were 2-0 up. We wouldn't be saying how frisky we were looking and how we'd be fired up for the next game (against a team which hasn't had a bad loss in nearly two months); we'd be saying how much will the other mob smash us by..
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21 hours ago, HughJass said:
Seeing what victory is doing to roar and compare it to Friday completely different
It's frustrating that Victory seems to have those lay-the-smackdown wins all the time, while about two thirds of our wins seem to be heart in the mouth stuff. But I'd agree with others that the negativity here is a bit tiresome.
I'd suggest that the reason these one goal wins where it feels like we're dominating the first 60 minutes and then desperately keeping the opposition out for the final 30 are because under other coaches and in other years, we have been notoriously questionable at locking down and preserving result. Say what you want about Joyce, but nobody has pinched a last gasp win against us this year. For all the drudgery of the games, we've certainly got that backbone that we'd been constantly looking for through the JVS and JA years.
Someone else mentioned that we'll get found out against the top teams. Well, we've got a win and a draw (which was the least we deserved) from two starts against Victory and we gave Perth everything it could handle going down by a goal over there, with only one visa player appearing and a red card. Despite coming back to the pack this year, Sydney's the one that worries me. No matter what team they put on the park, they just seem to belt us every time, ever since our FFA Cup win. Apart from them, even when we were playing poorly, we've always seemed to hold our own against top teams.
I've always thought that an A-League team is defined by its visa players. Well, this season, we've had two stars - De Laet and Schenkeveld and effectively nothing else from our foreign contracted players. Now you could look at that either way, but I'm willing to say that it's a good sign that we could get a lot better and that our Australian talent is excellent. Even assuming we continue the season with the team that we have, our patchy finals record overall, the prospect of an away final in Perth and Sydney's hoodoo over us are the only real causes for concern. We haven't been badly beaten in nearly two months and people act like it's the Aloisi era. We're playing the bottom team who is without a win for the whole season (granted, a recipe for disaster for any long-time Heart/City supporter) and then the top team at home with plenty to prove. I fully expect to win both games and I'm sure Joyce would be demanding nothing less.
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I hope he proves me wrong, but the only time I remember a foreign player not having a pretty immediate impact and turning out to be a powerhouse for us was Engelaar and he literally couldn't play with a broken leg (I had hopes for O'Halloran - he looked dynamite in the FFA game I saw).
We've seen a bit of Berenguer now and maybe he's still getting accustomed, maybe he's being asked to play out of position, but the signs that he'll ever be a quality visa signing haven't been good for me.
I guess that you could say we're doing pretty well this season and that there's scope for some big improvement in the second half of the season, with only two foreign players making any contribution.
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1 hour ago, rass said:
Lol, isn't Caceres of Uruguayan descent?
Of course Bruno would have gravitated towards him.
Absolutely nothing to see here whatsoever.
Besides, Caceres had two chances at city and fluffed both of them.
Of Uruguayan descent and even served as an in-house translator for David Villa in his short stay in Melbourne. Given Fornaroli's limited (to put it kindly) English skills, in his first couple of seasond, it's not hard to see that they would have become close.
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10 minutes ago, AntiScum said:
So you've gone from the Sydney link, to skin folds now to the interstate trip?
You're showing by the post that you're a deluded City official.
No wonder football what it is in this country. Juniors walking away in droves with numpties like you around.
Well, the skinfolds/interstate trip are obviously related (i.e. Fornaroli was dropped due to not meeting the coach's requirements and subsequently skipped the Brisbane trip) and for those who believe the reports regarding an aborted move to Sydney, that's probably not a coincidence either.
I've been a member of the club since the third season. Besides that, I haven't had any official involvement in the game whatsoever since I gave it away in favour of other sporting codes in under 9s. If I'm the direct cause for a drop in junior participation rates, I have to profusely apologise.
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So, he's been playing competitive football for us since - from memory August (?) and the first skinfolds test he fails is in late November and it's the club's fault because they either:
- didn't look after his fitness during his rehab
- set him a terrible diet which caused his body fat to go up, because Bruno would of course, follow these instructions to the letter (unlike, say, instructions to be at the airport to travel to Brisbane); or
- some combination of the two, doesn't matter, as long as Bruno isn't blamed whatsoever #joyceout.
Personally, I'm inclined to surmise that a guy that doesn't feel compelled to join his team for an interstate trip when he's been named in the squad may also be the type of player who may not be the most diligent when it comes to training and diet.
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Just now, AntiScum said:
They`re not responsible for EVERYTHING that gets put in there bodies!! They do however set the player`s diets .....
You sound like a club official trying to cover someones ass!!
Can you explain your point?
You seem to be suggesting that instead of the obvious conclusion, that Bruno may have been a bit too quick in taking advantage of the club's sponsorship deal with McDonald's, that instead he's been set a diet by the club that has directly caused him to fall outside an acceptable range for his skinfolds. Which is a good laugh, of course, but a bit of a worry if you genuinely believe it.
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Just now, AntiScum said:
The clubs nutritionist sets the players diets!! The physios assist in rehab, sports science department sets the conditioning, club doctors monitor injuries.
Would you like me to carry on?
You must be joking.
If the club is responsible for everything that a player puts into their body, why bother testing their skinfolds in the first place?
Your defence of Fornaroli from even the slightest responsibility for the current situation has moved from 'admirable' to 'unhinged'.
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1 hour ago, AntiScum said:
I dont want to turn this into a hate campaign againts the club but if that was the case with Kilkenny why sign him in the first place?
Freezing out players is an absolute disgrace regardless of anyone`s opinion!!
The club and its doctors, physios and medical/conditioning team have a DUTY OF CARE to get Bruno back to his pre injury state!! Bruno had major surgery on his ankle meaning he would of been immobile for a decent amount of time. Now i for one can relate to this being in a similar situation but when your immobile you dont tend to move!! Weight gain is natural. Now its upto to the clubs conditioning staff to get him back into shape!! I`ll leave you with that thought!!
Bruno wouldnt have a degree in nutrition/recovery/rehab/exercising while injured. once again its the clubs DUTY OF CARE to get him back fit and firing!!
Blaming the nutritionists at the club for a poor skinfolds test? Can't say I've ever heard of that one from a 30-something professional athlete.
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31 minutes ago, Mr MO said:
I think he’s a bit of a wanker and incompetent, had that opinion since last season based on tactics, team selection and sub use. The wanker part has been added this season based on recruitment and player management.
Secondly I agree let him finish the season so that we don’t have to pay him out. We will do more damage removing him now.
Unless we were a Central Coast level basket case, I think that's the sensible approach, whatever people's opinion of him.
I don't think there'd be a supporter around who'd argue that at the time we were looking for a new coach, we needed a significant culture reboot at this club and that just doesn't happen in a season and a half. That Joyce has been relatively successful in that time gives him a pass mark for me. I'll qualify that by saying that he'd probably be a quick manager to lose the dressing room and be axed if and when our win rate drifted back around 33%.
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15 minutes ago, Mr MO said:
He started to dribble with strange comments when questioned about Fornaroli as well as his eyes turned away.
To be fair, he's made his position pretty clear, he's not telling them anything more about it and they keep badgering him. He's clearly pissed off that they keep asking and they probably don't even want to ask him anymore (i.e. others are forcing the reporters to ask the question, they don't even expect to get anything constructive out of it).
Whatever you think about Joyce, he's been by far our most successful manager. We think back to how much fun the 2015/16 season was with Mooy, Fornaroli, Novillo and Sorensen in goals, but at the end of the day, that side ended up a whole one point ahead of the 2017/18 side. The 2017/18 side also finished higher on the ladder and came far closer to a grand final appearance than we've ever been previously.
His league record is decent. We'd like it to be better, but compared to anything else we've ever had he's miles in front. If we win our next game, he'll have won 50% of his games. The winning percentage before him was 33.3%.
Right now, I'm more than willing to see how the rest of the season pans out. I think he deserves that much.
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Looking at the upcoming games in January, there is really a great opportunity to string together an extended run of good form, start challenging the top 2/3 and potentially move a couple of spots up the table. Of course - if I had a dollar for every time I've thought that. Stringing together a strong patch of 8-10 games without a poor performance has hardly been our trademark.
This is why I'm thinking perhaps Joyce's approach is what we need to take the next step. At the very least, it's hard to see the team getting ahead of itself after an encouraging little three game patch, like we would have in years past.
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1 hour ago, JMSTEP123 said:
Anyone hear the post game comments by Joyce-
Given we share our ground with Melb Victory, one could argue we have had more away wins?
Wtf... did I hear wrong? What was the old chum on about.
It's a bit of a long bow, but a 'home' game against Victory is of course a neutral site at best for City, it's certainly not a home game like Perth or Wellington at AAMI is a home game (I wouldn't go as far as to call it an away game, as he did though, that's a bit much).
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3 hours ago, jw1739 said:
With respect, I don't think the authors of any of those media articles have/had any more information than those of us on the Forum. Also, I don't think anyone ever said that Kilkenny, Brandan or Cahill "were not required players."
To some extent I regard Tim Cahill as a special case. He aired his grievance in public, and you just don't do that with your employer; if you do it's almost certain that you will be the loser. However, let's look at all the senior players who have left or known to have issues with Joyce during his regime so far:
Neil Kilkenny - Player of the Year 2016-17, Supporters' Player of the Year 2016-17.
Fernando Brandan - visa player (Argentina)
Tim Cahill - Club Captain 2017-18
Michael Jakobsen - Team Captain 2017-18, visa player (Denmark)
Marcin Budzinski - marquee visa player (Poland)
Now we have Bruno Fornaroli - marquee visa player (Uruguay)To me, the likely root cause of it all is the way Joyce conducts himself as a manager.
Like I said, it can be argued whether it was the right move, but the fact was Kilkenny and Cahill weren't considered to be automatic starters by Joyce. Cahill was publicly critical as you've noted and it's hardly a stretch to hypothesise that Kilkenny wouldn't be shy about having a bit of a grumble about being a cameo player (totally justified by the way - I loved Killer - but we brought Joyce in to make those tough decisions). I know that to many at the time, it seemed like there was only one spot in the XI for Brattan on Kilkenny and they went with Brattan. That seems fair enough to me.
Brandan was a strange one after being on our books for a duration of an ACL rehab and promptly being cut loose. Still, despite exploding on the scene and being a bit of a cult hero with his passion and ferocity, I thought overall he was just 'OK' in his time here, I thought his production took a nosedive after he started being criticised around the league for his theatrics. It's conceivable to me that we simply thought we could get someone better.
Jakobsen was a great servant who suffered with some unwelcome stints on the sideline through injury. Sorry to see him go, but with a back five that is going as well - if not better than - anything we've every had previously, it's tough to say that was a poor decision. Budzinski, I agree was either poorly managed, or a big mistake to be signed as a marquee (it has to be one or the other).
Anyway, as I've said, we brought Joyce in specifically to make these tough decisions and, as far as I'm concerned, we should give him at least two seasons to see how his vision is shaping up.
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3 hours ago, Torn Asunder said:
Clearly something came to a head following the Nix game after he scored.
i reckon it’s as simple as Joyce calling out Bruno on.his fitness, Bruno cracking it over this and feeling disrespected (as even if he did put on a few kgs, he knows himself that his efforts and dedication are 100%, regardless of what sports science says), Bruno having a go at Joyce, then dummy spits and stubbornness all round.
Bruno then showing Joyce at training what a pissweak effort really is, and Joyce not having the right type of man management skills to recover the situation, and Bruno thinking he can easily get a contract elsewhere.
Also, to prove his point, Bruno’s management probably leaked the SFC thing after things went pear shaped.
Jamo hinted at this when he said surely they could all sit down and work it out.
Wont happen though, unless Bruno decides to lose face and apologise, because CFG will back the manager and the club over the player
That's pretty much how I see it. We've complained about having gutless jokes managing the team practically since its inception, so we appoint a tough as nails, stubborn old goat to take over and give the team a bit of backbone, then we don't like it when he acts like a stubborn old goat.
If, as reported by multiple sources, Fornaroli was an unexplained absence from the travelling party to Brisbane, I'm sorry, but that has to be an automatic suspension at a professional sports team. The length depends on the reason (if indeed there is one).
I just can't see how anyone can look at the situation objectively and reasonably think Fornaroli is blameless in this whole saga. I wish he was with us for another three years, but the relationship is terminal. He needs to be cut loose.
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3 hours ago, AntiScum said:
So if the Media fed you a bowl of shite sprinkled with milo you`d happily eat it?
I'm sorry, is it more logical to take some anonymous nobody on a supporters internet forum's 'theory'?
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18 minutes ago, AntiScum said:
How can you take yourself seriously with "the story doing the rounds"? The clubs blurred out his image in games, run their mouths off in public and Bruno cant come out and defend himself? His been professional and trained/kept his mouth shut and is ready for game time yet his been frozen out a wanker of coach who not only has form in runing players, but has been sacked overseas for idiotic im an Ex Man U coach im invincible ways.
Because it's not just a 'story doing the rounds', it's not just whispers on a forum like this; it's articles from sources like News Limited, The Guardian, Fairfax...
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/city-turmoil-protest-threats-criticism-grow-20181130-p50jhw.html
It's also the only scenario that I've heard that makes sense to me. The alternative is that he missed his fitness benchmarks before the Brisbane game, was dropped and refused to travel for the game (or a combination of the two). The failed skinfolds/refusal to fly dummy spit is also plausible, but certainly not something that would keep him out of the side for more than a month, if (as by all reports) he's come back to training.
I'd argue that the club has done the precise opposite of running their mouths off in public...isn't the whole fan revolt about a lack of transparency with this situation?
Kilkenny, Brandan, Cahill...all were (rightly or wrongly) not considered to be required players. Fornaroli pretty clearly is. This is a different situation.
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7 minutes ago, jw1739 said:
I have to agree with this. Nevertheless, there are always (at least) two parties involved in any dispute, so I assume that Bruno does have at least some small part in this sorry saga. However, IMO the club has conducted itself very poorly indeed throughout. Quite apart from remaining silent other than ambiguous statements from Joyce, to censor a club player's image on the big screen at AAMI Park during a match is the lowest of the low, and I never thought I would witness such a thing in Australia. That more than anything has changed my opinion of both local club management and City Football Group.
Agree with the lack of clarity being poor form and didn't know about his image being censored at the game. That's disgraceful, no question, an absolute insult to our greatest ever player (in my opinion).
I still don't think it changes the fact that if the story that I've read is accurate (Bruno wanted an early release from his contract for a move to Sydney, City refused) that it's very hard to keep a player motivated and the coach/player relationship to remain professional when there's dozens of clubs around the world who'd be happy to sign him. I think as soon as a required player wants to sign with a rival, that's - at best - the beginning of the end of the player's tenure at the club.
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28 minutes ago, AntiScum said:
Absolute load of crap!!
Players get linked to other clubs all the time so for that to come up is no surprise!! He gave his all in the first lot of games he played and the joy when he scored showed his passion for the club and game. The club is an absolute joke for the way they have handled this.
Joyce ruins careers so i hope he will find a club that will appreciate him!!
The story that has been doing the rounds is a bit more than he was linked to Sydney; it's that he wanted an early release from his contract to go to a major rival. And without knowing the specifics, I'd suggest that it would be for a longer term (somewhat acceptable) or to go to a more successful club (less acceptable).
As I posted, I respect Bruno and (at the risk of damning him with faint praise) being one of the biggest reasons that we've transformed from a 'propping up the table' level disappointment to a 'first two weeks of the finals exit' level disappointment. At the very least, Melbourne City is a team that can beat anyone anywhere on its day and Bruno has probably been our most visible player during that time.
There's clubs all over the world. For someone we'd consider a required player, if he wanted to head to the middle east, Europe, a bigger league in China or South America on a more lucrative deal, I'd begrudgingly let him go. If he wants to go to an A-League club, let alone probably our second biggest rival, there'd have to be a really good reason not to refuse. It happens all the time with disgruntled players in all sports "Yeah, OK, we'll do what we can to move you on, but we're not trading you to a divisional rival".
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Rd. 13 - Wed. 16th January 2019 vs. Central Coast, Gosford, 7.50 pm.
in Melbourne City
Posted
Sorry, but as mentioned in that match's thread, that's a very biased way of looking at it.
Sure we could have thrown the game away and Brisbane was a bit stiff with an offside call which should have perhaps at least gone to VAR (though there didn't seem to be much doubt that the Brisbane player actually was offside). But for every chance that Brisbane didn't capitalise on, we had 5-6. The better team won. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it hard to say that we were 'lucky'.