SF33

Reality of the situation.....the club was going to fail spectacularly and be shut down if new ownership didn't come in. This needed to happen. Whatever happens from here for the sake of the credibility of the aleague and football in this country at least we won't see another club fail anytime soon. Agreed. Regardless of the direction that this now inevitably looks to be taking, I'm happier now than I was around Christmas/New Year time.

Beat WSW 5 - 0 and there's no redemption for the two and half seasons with one away win. I remember this time two years saying that I don't care about home games until we start winning away. I'm still waiting. I agree to an extent. But personally, I'm just begging the team to throw me a bone and not finish this season as pathetically as they finished the last one. I mean, if they'd been able to hang on last night, some people would have discounted it because of the 'against 10 men' factor. I just want them to show some pride and give us something.

There's obviously a lot of pragmatism in what you're saying, but my problem with that is that you would assume this team would be treating every potential win - and particularly an away win - like gold. Yeah, we broke the curse against Wellington, but away wins have been as rare as rocking horse shit for this club and yet they continue to piss away winning positions. Shouldn't they be cherishing the opportunity to take three points on another team's home deck, instead of looking like they're falling asleep, despite a similar scenario happening umpteen times in the past couple of years. Two points from the last five games, including three where the opposition was down to 10 men. It's not good enough and it says a lot about the character of these players. For an experienced A-League premiership player like Murdocca to be almost solely responsible for the lead being coughed up makes it even more galling. The bloke's been playing in the A-League since it started; I don't think it's an issue with experience.

I'm struggling to think of seeing a more consistently gutless team in any sport. All the good work from January-February has been comprehensively undone. Every last bit of it. They've got one more game to redeem themselves.

source? Yeah good point, Peter. Not having too much of a go (hopefully), more just saying that the other teams now have the blueprint for Engelaar. Hopefully his off-field issues aren't serious and he's back to his best next week. Possiblygeorge: They said it 2-3 times on the telecast.

As much as I love what Engelaar has provided us, he's got to be better than that. I'm not talking about being the best player on the park every week; I'm talking about not stopping to bitch to the refs while the game's still going and his man is strolling away with the ball. As soon as he started doing that, Zadkovich would have known that he was completely in Engelaar's head. And you can bet Ernie Merrick would have been taking notes.

That's the absolutely crucial thing. They can't afford to drop into one of these ruts again, like the second half of last season, or the first half of this season. 10 points from the last five games should be a realistic 'par' score from here. If that's not good enough for finals, so be it...it would have been a heckuva run.

All true, but for me at least, we've taken a step back and we should probably just revisit it again if we can take two steps forward with two wins over the next fortnight. It's gone from having an active interest in the other results from the weekend, to being desperate for this result or that result to occur. Until we're somewhat in control of our own destiny again (if that happens), I'll be giving it the old 'one week at a time'.

Just on Ramsay, is it normal for A-League players to be so hopelessly one-sided? If I know he's not going to take a shot on his right, even if his life depended on it, presumably the opposition does too.

Great post. It's a step back, for sure, but it's all about how the team responds now and for the rest of the season, really (finals or not). Whether we complete a Cinderella run to the finals or not, getting our fair share of points over the remaining five games will probably see me happy at the end of the season. Which was pretty much unthinkable two months ago.

It wouldn't be curtains for the season if we failed to pick up three points here (a win to the Jets would make things very tough though), but it would be a massive vibe-killer. I think a win is as important to keep the momentum that we have now, as much as anything else.

I didn't think you could appeal yellow cards; only straight reds!?! Reckon Heart would have tried appealing Behich's yellow against Brisbane, if they were able to.

I think this is an important point. Since Engelaar's first team debut, it's debatable that we've had him and Kewell - in form - for the majority of any game. Newcastle and Adelaide, Engelaar was shaking the rust off. Sydney was the red card. Perth was Engelaar's suspension, when Kewell went off injured. Kewell then missed Wellington and Brisbane. Then Kewell played - what - 15 minutes in his return on the weekend, after subbing on for Engelaar (a sensational 15 minutes, but still)? I still don't think the two have been up and firing in the same game at the same time. Which is a very exciting prospect for us.

A buy-back scheme would be pointless for most fixtures, but maybe the club could look at it for derbies? Essentially, if you know you won't be attending, they can sell your GA spot (or reserved seat) and you get a rebate. Or, better yet, a rebate on next year's membership.

That is amazing (given the dross we had to endure for the first half of the season). Agreed, though I do remember one game late in Aloisi's reign (or it may have actually been the drought-breaker against Newcastle), where I thought 'They're taking the piss here' with the announced crowd of 5000-odd. Worth remembering that of the 11 home games we've had so far, one was a regional fixture, two have been derbies and three have been against the Sydney teams (unlikely to have any issues with drawing there). Still, any supporter that has shown up to every game at AAMI this year (or close enough) deserves a pat on the back. Interesting to see how the home numbers go for the remainder, particularly the final three games that clash with AFL. We've actually been looked after pretty well, as far as attending games goes (whether by coincidence or design), as I don't think our remaining home games directly clash with any AFL games in Melbourne (there's games on the same day as the Wellington and West Sydney games, but they're on at different times and you could attend both, if you wanted to, e.g. go to the Carlton v Melbourne game at the MCG on April 12 at 1:45, and have plenty of time for a drink or something to eat before getting over to AAMI for the 5:30 game against the Wanderers). And it will also be interesting to see if we start to get a real upward turn in our home attendances, given that we are playing like the best team in the competition and we genuinely have something on the line.

So you'd be happy for our colours to be pushed to one side then? I wouldn't have any problem at all with a sky blue kit replacing the current away kit. I would be less happy with sky blue replacing the red/white stripes at home, but ultimately would probably be ok with it as long as the stripes became our away shirt. Sorry...

Does anyone else find it a bit crazy that people are looking to add blue in as a secondary colour to the kit as a compromise, but then not even using the City sky blue? What would be the point of that? For me, after what they've shown so far in 2014, I'd probably accept anything that they came up with, but I think there's three levels of what I'd be happiest with: 1. Current home kit, 100th game quartered kit as the away, sky blue third kit 2. Current home kit, sky blue away, 100th game third kit 3. Sky blue home, red/white stripes away, whatever third kit I'd probably be ok enough with any of those (and I don't really care that much about the third kit in any of those examples). Anything other than that, I'd grudgingly accept.

Well, yeah, but gutless of Foxtel to give him that option and he was a pointless guest, given the format/nature of the show. Would have been nice to see him on with Kosmina. An absolute let-down when he came on with Santo, Sam and Ed.

I thought that was just a nominal thing, that he was our highest paid Aussie (and it may only have been very slightly more than some of the other core Aussies in the lineup), so he got the nominal 'marquee' tag, wasn't it? I don't think it's that ridiculous that he's our highest paid local, when we consider that Kewell is playing for peanuts. Without knowing exactly how much more he is on than guys like Kisnorbo and Murdocca and whether we'd have still the coin to add a better Australian marquee and keep Williams (on a similar salary to what he's on now), within the cap, it's tough make a definitive 'yes' or 'no' call on him for next year, in my opinion. I'm happy for him to stay on, if we can manage it and get another marquee, but if he's looking for a significant payrise and it will cost us another first XI player's signature, I'd wish him all the best with his next club.

Agreed (out of likes, unsurprisingly). I'd be disappointed if the players and coaches were getting ahead of themselves, but we, as supporters, have the luxury to do that. Another positive is that we get the Mariners with a similar lead-up to Victory (Sunday game at AAMI, with Mariners coming off a Wednesday game in Beijing) and Wanderers (also at AAMI, on 12 April) for the last round, where we're sandwiched between a trip to Japan (1 April) and Korea (15 April) for them. Wanderers aren't doing us any favours today though...pricks.

Yeah, I don't really see what the harm would be in keeping him on until the end of the season, especially with plenty of games left to go and given the understanding now that he's not guaranteed to play in every A-league game (or even any of them). Could prove handy for us at some stage later in the season. He's had an absolute nightmare of a season - no point sugar coating it - and the chance of him staying for next season is practically zero. But it seems to me that if he caught on with another club and stuck in the A-league for another season or two, it would only be a matter of time before he started to score goals consistently.

I would say, I wish they'd not go quite so defensive with the back passes when they've got the advantage, if for no other reason than it would stop the pissed up dickhead who sits somewhere in my area screaming 'Redmayne's open...Redmayne's open...Yeah!!!' 20 times every game when they play it back to him and think he's killing it like Dave Chappelle in front of a packed house or something. Yeah, it's not quite as funny (if it ever was) when the team's put in 19 goals in the past seven weeks, you berk.

I'm happy to wait and see with this. I thought he was one of our players in the early stages of this season and it's pretty tough to argue with three straight clean sheet wins. It always seems to be an adventure trying to keep the other team out after going one or two ahead and Redmayne's a big part of those nervous moments. I think he's a divisive figure, because he always gives the impression that a howler is around the corner.

No doubt. But it does make the other games a hell of a lot more interesting to me.

Agreed. Logically if we have to concede a point to any team the remainder of the way, it's better to do it against the teams that we realistically can't catch. But maximum points against the likes of Newcastle, Wellington, and Central Coast (the latter two at home, which is a huge bonus) is a must. And - glass half full - it's quite conceivable that Brisbane and West Sydney have locked up their respective final positions by the time we play them and will have little to play for, besides having a positive lead-in to the finals (see below: Adelaide isn't uncatchable by any stretch at this stage). Our current run has certainly given me a lot more interest in the other A-League games during each round and it's amazing that we now hold the GD advantage against any of our rivals for those last finals spots. I just assumed that we'd have to get an extra point than the team in seventh to make it, as our GD was so rubbish, but right now, we own the tiebreak against all our potential rivals, except for Sydney (which goes to the third phase of tiebreakers - points in matches played against each other - to split us). It is undeniably fun to go through pretty much every game in a round of fixtures and have a team - or result - to support. Take the next two weeks. To me, ideally, the following results would occur (bolded are the important/definite results, that I'd want, as for games like Victory v Central Coast, it's debatable whether a draw, or one team remaining on 30 points is the best result for us): Round 22 MV draw with CC NJ lose to MH Syd lose to WSW BR defeat AU WP draw with PG (or Glory win) Round 23 Syd lose to BR WSW draw with AU (a bit too early to tell what the best result would be here; I've gone with the draw, as it gives the best chance of Brisbane locking up the league, by the time we meet them again) PG defeat MV CC draw with NJ (or Jets win) MH defeat WP Which would leave the ladder looking something like this BR 47 WSW 41 (assuming a win today) CC 32 Utd 31 MV 31 MH 30 (with CC at home the following week) Syd 28 WP 27 PG 25 NJ 23 But the reality is, if we want to not just make the finals, but cause some damage, the other results probably aren't going to matter so much. And it's probably too early to be absolutely sure what the best result is, in some instances.