NewConvert

I have mentioned in the past that Heart could indeed become a talent production factory or more likely a talent spotter/filter for other clubs. In this model the winning of championships is not a requirement as success is defined by the talents found and developed. Having said that there is also the possibility that the club feels it has more to gain by bringing in youth and see how far that will take the club - Bielsa did this at Athletic Bilbao and Ange did it at the Roar. The optimist in me says that it may be the latter.

Interestingly enough no one mentions any South Americans as marquees. Given that Manuel P. is from Chile I would presume that he may have a few ideas/possibilities as well. It may even be possible that the marquee may not be known until after the world cup where perhaps a more obscure player playing in a non-European club may shine and be brought to Oz prior to a trip to Man City.

Well spotted! Would guess you are right. IIRC a while ago I saw a post on twitter where someone had spotted the Melbourne Heart youtube account following the MCFC youtube account. The tweet was posted a couple of months before the takeover. On the other hand, people also noticed recently that Messi had started following City on Instagram, yet I'm far from convinced...We shall see, though. Out of interest, I know I've seen people saying that they want Westpac to remain, but if Heart were to keep the red and white but change to Etihad, what would your feelings all be? And what if Westpac were to switch to being one of those back-of-shirt sponsors you all have over there? I'd like to keep Westpac as a sponsor in one way or another as they've been with us from the start. Not fussed about Etihad, as long as we don't have to play at the stadium. Keeping the colours is more important to me than who's the sponsor. I am a big fan of AAMI park but when the Rugbys started playing I realised how much damage those sports do to the surface. At that point in time I realised that perhaps Etihad and AFL are not that bad. However the atmosphere will always be superior at AAMI.

I agree with expanding the coaching staff but I am curious as to the quality that is available in Oz. Medical/physical staff we should be ok with so I am not sure whether Gus is needed or not but skills staff maybe more difficult to come by. So the club may need to import staff or alternatively select promising options and take them for training at Man City.

That's the problem when you come last - every young player is going to tear the game apart, then reality sinks in. They are young, make mistakes and don't come up every week. None the less, I am happy to have him at the club next season. He will be judged by season's end as to the type of player he is.

I hope not. If its today when all the papers and news outlets will be talking about the final between Roar and WSW, then it must be bad news! If they wait till the end of the week or next week then that means CFG have news that they really want to share with the existing STH/fans and the world at large.

It may be just me and the people I hang around with but we all prefer quality ahead of notoriety. ADP was brilliant because he was a classy player on the field and just as classy off the field. Kewell was also great in this regard. But for me quality football will bring people through the turnstiles and have people watching their TVs.

Huh? The salary cap should not be what limits turnover/revenues. Population size will do it and available market size will do it as well. There is one revenue stream that has not been considered in that the CFG could turn Heart into a production factory for young players to feed into the Middle East, Europe or Asia. The transfer fees could be lucrative.

A key point that is overlooked by most of us far too often. It's probably unfortunate that we end up discussing one or two players in this context. It used to be Hoffman, now it's Kalmar. This really strikes at the heart of the salary and numbers caps issues. Are these caps, set at their present levels, a help or a hindrance to the development of football in this country? I'm leaning towards the latter. The problem with raising the salary cap on its own is that there is no guarantee that existing 'squaddies' just get higher pay. That is effectively a flat pay rise across the board without really achieving much for the clubs or player development. Raising both the salary cap and the squad size will allow for larger teams but only 11 will take to the field and there will be 4 on the bench. So that means that you have a lot of players that are not getting decent game time. One possible solution would be for the A-League clubs to have formal affiliations with state based clubs where players that are not selected will play in the state team. The problem of course is that the seasons are not concurrent. Another option is to raise the squad size cap to effectively have a reserves team. These teams would play 'friendlies' or a B-League game thus giving them playing time. The cost would be enormous of course due to travel requirements. So perhaps this can be limited to friendlies with teams that share the same state or city. For example the Hearts B-team would only play Victory's B-team, WSW vs Sydney, CCM vs Jets. This would cut the cost of travel/accommodation and give the players real game time. The drawback is that they will not be playing for points and PG, AU, BR, WP will be left out in the cold. I have canvassed elsewhere that the NYL competition runs concurrently with the A-League but I was informed that that format was discontinued due to costs. Ultimately all of the above depends on the ability of clubs to be profitable or at least the losses to be minimal.

I am a critic of Kalmar. At 26 I don't believe that he will improve - this is of course a matter of subjective judgement, and I do note that Muefy1 is optimistic that he could be a late bloomer. Was it injury that cruelled his career (very much like Sarkies)? I guess we'll never know for certain. For me he has always lacked creativity, although in one match against AU he did perform exceptionally well. His positioning could be better as well and for me his defensive work needs to improve (and that is something that can be improved with time). So right now whether he was given a contract extension or whether he is completing his contract, the club will have him next season. If he was given a contract extension then I can only presume that the coaching staff not only thought that players from our NYL side were not good enough to get a contract but also that all of the other NYL players for the other teams were not good enough either. From a socceroos perspective this is incredibly depressing.

This does not make sense. If the club achieves success with the current colours then the fans will simply say why change the colours specially now that the club has achieved success. In this instance if CFG change the colours then it will annoy some of the existing season's ticket holders, if they change it later they will annoy everyone. I hope that they don't change the colours but if they do they should it do it now.

Great summary Murfy1. Thanks.

Sheikh Mansour would be happy at least..He supported Real Madrid long before he bought City, the Real Madrid president is actually a friend of his that often visit him in Abu Dhabi 'Real Madrid wishes to inform: that Real Madrid president Mr Florentino Perez has had a great friendship for many years with His Highness, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan,' read a statement on the Real Madrid website. 'And that the so-called interest and the existence of any offer to acquire Real Madrid are false. His Highness has always shown tremendous respect for the club and understands that Real Madrid belongs to its members.' Sheikh Mansour, who is reportedly a Real Madrid supporter, is president of Abu Dhabi's Al Jazira Club, where he set up a twinning agreement with the Spanish giants in 2005. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1239222/Manchester-City-owner-Sheikh-Mansour-buy-1bn-euros-insist-Real-Madrid.html#ixzz2zAnPw5I7 Then its a win win situation - we annoy the managers without annoying the man with the cash!

I did suggest elsewhere a Real Madrid or Kingdom of Castile tifo just to drive the message through to the Basque and Catalan management...

Being a touch facetious here but given that Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain are from the Catalan and Basque regions, perhaps if they do change our colours then as a tank you gift we should give them something from Real Madrid. Or perhaps a tifo that the basques and catalans will always be part of the Kingdom of Castile...

Well I'll be attending and wearing my red&white stripes.

Would Foxtel have an interest in this? After all when they broadcast the matches between Heart and Sydney then the spectators will all be wearing sky blue and would that make great viewing?

Sounds civil enough. Perhaps even smooth. But like Bela said is there any more info? And the fact that they said out of respect for the A-League finals and the ACL and the world cup...no real time frame. Specially for the thing that matters a lot to the fans, that is, the colours?

Well I hope that Sydney FC are able to persuade the FFA regarding the clash of colours. After all when Heart have a home game then the stadium will be filled with sky blue as the Sydney supporters will also be waving sky blue. That will not look good on TV. What looks good both at the ground and on TV is the colours of different teams.

My brother is a member of both Victory and Heart because of his fanatical belief that the only way for the game to advance is to increase the membership rate. However he rarely attends the Victory games (loathes Muscat) ad tries to attend every Heart game.

When I was in high school football was rarely mentioned (although it was played). And if people had a football team it was an European team. The Australian teams did not exist as far as we were concerned. Then there was a period of severe anti-football which culminated with a Ron Barassi headline "they are trying to kill our game". Interestingly enough years later I saw him at the MCG for one of the internationals. These days no one I know has any scorn for the local teams. Of course, knowing that so many AFL coaches have borrowed tactics from football, make trips to Juventus, Man U, etc. makes it difficult for people to pour scorn. I also know a few euro snobs but I am not fussed as I know that there are enough people behind the game that the standards will lift and they won't be able to deny that. A Brazilian mate of mine is also a snob but what is hilarious is that he has no idea about the game.

Germano and Kisnorbo are the only players that have any mongrel in them. Love the way Germano gets under the opposition's skin. has been handy when he is on the pitch which unfortunately does not happen often enough due to injury.

I understand what you are saying but the problem is defining 'culture' (and I know you given your thoughts clearly) and translating that into concrete results. For me I want to see concrete steps taken with relation to facilities (location, time frame, infrastructure), having a team list completed as early as possible, and whether the team gets to train with MC players/trainers/facilities. I think that if the preceding is delivered on then the competition for spots will change the players' mindset. Otherwise when their contract is up then it should not be renewed.

A few points: 1. I was at the northern end and we had the placards and waved them at regular intervals. As an aside this has been a great effort. 2. Murfy1 love your post but I disagree regarding the statistics. The poll conducted on this site is a self selecting group therefore it cannot be random. Why is it self selecting? Because people have to be committed enough to log on a regular basis (do all 7k+ member read this forum?) and this does not include people who have a pre-disposition to the club but are not season's ticket holders. 3. I agree with your observation in that most people would prefer to keep the red and white and not many are for changing colours. This is anecdotal but it does fit with the conservatism of people as well as those who have suffered the last four seasons. Also when the AFL teams have changed colours there has been a savage reaction. 4. The volunteers who have committed themselves to the club also have a voice, not a big one but it still needs to be heard. If they change the colours then how long will it take for those volunteers that walk to be replaced?

I think you just about nailed it but I don't think that we are 3 quality players away from being in the top half. There are far too many basic skill errors, for example, when ever a Heart player headed the ball (and there was a lot of that yesterday) it almost invariably went to a contest or a WSW player whereas whenever a WSW player headed the ball it almost invariably went to a team mate. If the contracted players don't improve then the whole burden will fall on the new squad members to win the game - and team sports are very unforgiving when that happens.