Murfy1
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Posts posted by Murfy1
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Congrats on the 50th episode! I regularly listen to the show. It's a priceless fix of Heart and football, especially given the limited football media there is in Melbourne that talks about the Heart.
Keep up the good work!
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Best news I've heard for ages!
I do hope The Bear makes its overseas eventually though. Just not for a little while longer
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"
While initially expected to miss at least a month, Thompson could make a surprise return to the Heart line-up as they aim to end a run of eight matches without a win.
"It's progressing pretty good. I had a session with the fitness coach (Tom Reddin) on Saturday, the day the boys were playing, and surprisingly I pulled up pretty well," the Heart vice-captain said on Wednesday.
"We're still 50-50 for this week, but at worst I think I'll definitely be back the week after."
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From http://www.sportal.com.au/football-news-display/thompson-a-chance-161415
Don't think we need him for gold coast, but our odds of beating central coast just went considerably up.
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Newcastle Jets have lowered ticket prices, but don't forget they also had a 10,000 free tickets game against us, I believe in October 2010.
I think this is the second time we have had a cheaper and/or free tickets deal this season (I could be wrong, not sure). I think the last one was related to Metlink, I don't remember which game it was at though. This deal isn't giving away free tickets like other teams have done. Buy one get one free is about the smartest way to get new people along and make some money the same time.
We are still a new club so some initatives like this will have to be used now and again (other clubs use them as well, the A-League isn't exactly rolling in money so unfortunately these steps are pretty required). I agree that long term the best way to go is to continue to make tickets cheaper for members, but I'm okay with the buy 1 get 1 free deal against bottom of the ladder Gold Coast.
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I'm pretty open to ideas that make Melbourne as Red and White as possible, so yeah it sounds alright to me. It would only be one game a season anyway. Although I don't know what else you do to make it a 'day' besides have it on Valentines Day. Maybe thats enough. Teddy bears or anything similar would be overkill..
I agree winning and playing good football is the best way to attract support and that should be the main focus of the club. Nothing wrong with a small idea here or there though.
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The thing with youth is you need patience.
This. We can't expect a squad full of Goodwins who can immediately and seemlessly step up and provide quality in the A-League.
Kamal Ibrahim is a player I reckon we should stick with. I reckon he has been played this season as RB in an attempt to improve the defensive side of his game, not to turn him into an defender. Don't think we're trying to make him into another Behich. Also Kamal is only 19, and Goodwin (who was completely overlooked by Adelaide United) only managed to get his A-League debut at 20 two weeks ago. I expect our number of wingers to be reduced next season, so Kamal should be given a go next season. If that season doesn't go well we could cut him loose.
Hope to see more of Taseski. Zahra, Kalmar and Hamill I reckon are all young footballers who have shown enough to merit places at Heart for the foreseeable future.
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A lot of smart points here.
A proper search search for a new coach is the way to go. Ideally I'd like us to get another foreign coach, a cheaper JVS pretty much, which I think is a decent possibility given that we're not a completely new club like when we were first looking for a coach and signed JVS. Shouldn't need so much money to find a cheaper JVS.
If we can't afford a well priced quality foreign coach I think I'd be happy with Arthur Papas. Sure Papas is a youngin' but he is seemly really committed and smart, as evidenced by the education he's undertaken: AIS scholarship coach, Masters in Sports Coaching, AFC A license, Applied Science studies (specialising in Exercise Science) and he was the VPL's coach of the year last year.
Given that Aloisi is a work in progress and Milicic is also a work in progress (further along then Aloisi, though) I reckon we look for a cheaper JVS. If not that sign up Papas.
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I understand where the OP is coming from. I don't think things are that bad though.
There are other places to discuss football, including A-League football, on the net. But no other place that is strictly all things Melbourne Heart. I think the forum atmosphere is largely mirroring the 8 game winless streak, but nonetheless I reckon there could be more talk on which players are playing best, constructive talk on what will need to happen for the Club to perform better and less talk on sackings, mindless scapegoating, criticising posters and not posts etc etc.
The forum can be a garbage tip or an actual forum depending on the many little things posters do. Of course people like myself pay to support the club and have the choice to do whaever they wish, but there is no reason to choose to make the forum constantly negative and bitter.
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Easily the worst performance I've seen from us. Ran out of ideas after 15 minutes. Since Fred got injured and Dugandzic, Thompson and Babalj lost form, we don't look like we know how to construct a goal anymore. We never looked like scoring today. And by the last half an hour, we lost the plot completely and resorted to pumping long balls. And some poor defending for the goals conceded.
The difference between our best and our worst is massive. We get up for certain games, and then play with a total lack of inspiration in others. Inconsistency can happen with young teams or unsettled teams. But we really lacked leadership and class today. I don't think anyone can hold their head up tonight.
Agree with this summary. Our creativity and chance creation is at an all time low. This is because of the players we are missing, with more than half of our assists being provided by players who are out. Top 2 leading providers of assists are Behich, with 5, and Dugandzic, with 4. Thompson has 3 and I think Fred also has provided 3.
So what's left? Marrone hasn't been providing quality crosses like he did last season, Worm is in terrible form (has provided equal 2nd assists with 4, but can't create much singlehandedly) and Terra is much more of a scorer than a creator. Germano providing assists like with Terra's goal against Wellington is the best we can do until we have more of our team back. That, or Goodwin, Reid and Marrone need to actually pass and cross well and create chances.
I also think there is a needless lack of motivation, with players seemingly becoming directionless when Fred is out. The same thing happened when Broich was out for Roar. I don't think Broich = Roar or Fred = Heart, but I think expectations drop and crude judgements like Fred = Heart might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As for JVS causing the players to lose direction that definitely wasn't the case last weekend against Victory after he announced leaving so I don't think its true. I just reckon we're missing our chance creators and we're going to depend on mistakes from our opponents and individual efforts (looking at you Babalj! if your going to be selfish find the back of the net!) to get goals and results.
P.S. Worm to the bench and Williams to start. Maycon out of the squad with Zac Walker and/or Kamal Ibrahim to make the bench.
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Hey,
First of all, I have to mention that I'm not a Heart supporter.
I follow Wellington Phoenix (I do live in Melbourne though).
However, when it comes to which team I prefer (Victory or Heart), you've got my full support.
I was watching last nights local derby and thought of why you play in red and white stripes.
I know you guys got the chance to vote for the name of your team, right?
You didn't get the chance to vote for the colours, did you?
Is there any reason why it was red and white stripes?
If it was up to me to decide on which colours that they should play in, I would choose exactly those colours.
Why?
Melbourne has got the largest Greek population in the world (outside Greece).
Olympiakos are by far the most popular Greek team and I know a lot of Greeks who happens to support Olympiakos.
That would be one way to win some of the Victory supporters over, right?
If they were already Olympiakos supporters and loved these colours.
Also, the club logos are quite similar too.
Is what I'm babbling on about here total nonsense?
P.S. Good luck for the rest of your season (as long as you stay behind Phoenix obviously). Nice to see you being well on top of Victory. A shame you didn't win last night.
Hi and welcome to the forum. The Nix have been playing some good stuff lately, one of the best organized teams in the league. Good luck for the rest of the season, although we'll fight you for 3rd.
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While I agree it's a nice opposite to what's out there I think tradition is a little safe; almost like it's expected and we can't do anything else. It's like brides wearing white on their day because it's tradition and it's what expected. (Okay; bad example but it's all I could think of).
I think it just would have been nice to step out of a comfort zone in regards to color choice & I'd also love to see hoops.
I reckon they picked the colours for those 2 reasons, the opposite of the visitors and to be traditional and safe. Yeah, that's a bad example but red and white strips are a classic and traditional football strip, so given the American sort of name the club got (like Roar or Glory) it was wise to go for a classic red and white kit.
I wouldn't mind our alt. kit being a bit out there, perhaps using our 3rd kit as our alt./away kit. Home colours are perfect.
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Eli Babalj was absolute crap. Its like playing one man down. Like watching Adelaide play with Dijite, he was shit at the Gold Coast so lets shift him back to Adelaide and guess what hes still shit. How desperate can a league get, they recycle shit and end up stinking.
Alright, so we had a bad loss, that's no reason go to fking insane.
It was a poor game from most of the players, with our regulars standouts, Behich and Dugandzic, not providing their quality.
Defending was poor for the whole match. We were slow and ineffective at closing down players with the ball (I don't think we won the ball back quickly after losing it once) and we sucked at defending crosses (poor effort to let crosses comfortably come in and poor effort to deal with them in the air).
Babal only got service for 2 shots, one from distance and a toe-poke. Its not Eli's fault that the rest of the team couldn't get the ball to the final third. Our chance creation overall was pathetic, with only 2 corners and a bad shot from Dugandzic in the first 20-30 minutes. Besides Babalj, Terra only got the service for the goal and that terrible miss near the end of the match.
We've used the Derby to re-energise our season more than once, lets hope we do it again next week.
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Anyone else catch the tennis with Nadal and Federer last night? While watching I noticed the boss in Nadal's player's box (top right)!
Its rather annoying the amount of AFL ads they run during the tennis in general, and its real annoying that whenever AFL players/staff buy a general admin ticket channel 7 almost always puts the camera on them and talks about them for a bit. It would of been nice for a Melbourne sports club coach to get a mention when he attends a match in an exclusive players box, expecially one belonging to that of Rafael Nadal. Sigh channel 7.
Seeing this does add to my belief that he is pretty comfortable in Melbourne, and he'll manage to sort his family situation so he can stay around for another season or two.
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I'm not gonna spend all day arguing the point, as I've pretty much said everything, but flares are an image problem for football in Australia and they really do alienate people from the game.
I don't care one way or the other about flares, but I do care about football doing well in this country. Each time they go off the Herald Sun will do its usual bit to insult the game as will other voices in the media. And on top of this I happen to know a number Melburnians who are alienated from football by flares. These are people who really don't know much about the game so it's pretty much fearful ignorance. My dad, for instance I've brought to a fair few games now and he is a real supporter of Heart despite being an AFL follower for decades. He's really into football now, but he is shocked and pretty mystified when flares go off. I don't want football to needlessly alienate any potential supporters and I want the A-League to thrive. I want to see AAMI park full regularly for Heart games and not only have crowds of several thousand turn up.
Maybe 1 year is a suitable ban I don't know. But I do know it's in the A-league's interest, Heart's interest and football in Australia's interest to deter flare usage.
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Flares are no good for the A-League and no good for Heart. Everyone knows there is a hard line zero tolerance policy for flares, so if you get punished for using one what do you expect? 3 years? 1 year? 6 months? 5 matches? 1 game? I'm sure whatever ban was imposed the same people would be calling it too harsh.
I hate seeing the anti football media and groups in this country (and especially in Melbourne, Ted the bloody idiot Baillieu insulted them and football together FFS) using flares as ammunition to insult the game and hold it down. Even ask Scott Munn iif he wants flares at Heart games, I'm sure he'll say what I'm saying. We don't need them and they are no good for our club.
No matter who you are if you are stupid enough to use flares in the A-League you deserve what you get.
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Haven't gone on an away trip before, but I might be up for the Adelaide game. Maybe 80% likely to go to this match I dunno.
So yeah if there was a bus going cheaper than the 150 or 200 dollar airfares, or whatever the airfares are, I'd almost certainly go for this one.
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Meh, not happy with Davies joining Victory, I don't see him getting a look in this season for the seniors with the abundance of attackers and the last place youth team can't be helpful for him.
The only positive is he'll have access to decent football facilities and might be in Australia long enough to qualify for our national teams.
Hope I'm wrong and he gets more out of this move but I don't see it happening.
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so pheonix have won their last two games, some would say good form, but debatable as those teams were gold coast and newcastle.
if we continue playing the way we having been, should bring home the 3 points.
The Gold Coast and Newcastle wins were both 1 nil wins as well, and from what I recall the performances weren't convincing at all. We should be good for at least 1 goal, and you're right if we play to form we definitely should be tipped to get 3 points.
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Black Out The Heart
Wednesday, 11 January 2012 1:49 PM
The 2011/12 Hyundai a-League is now well over half way and the charge to the finals is on! The Wellington Phoenix need your support at the next home game against the high flying Melbourne Heart more than ever before.
To darken the spirits of the high flyers we want you to come all dressed in black. Let’s make Westpac Stadium even more daunting than it usually is.
Phoenix fans are renown throughout the A-League as some of the loudest, most creative and passionate in the A-League. So us how creative you can be with black and be into win in some fantastic (black) Sony prizes including tablets, e-readers and signed mini Phoenix balls.
We’re also planning a unique, once-only-ever event at the game. If you are a hard core fan, or just want to be there for something that will never happen again, then you will want to be a part of this. Exactly what ‘it’ is remains a secret and will only be revealed on game day so you will not want to miss this one .....
Buy your tickets, including print at home tickets here
http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/wellingtonphoenix/news-display/Black-Out-The-Heart/44288
Nothing wrong with the occasional gimmick I guess...
I don't really fear playing the Phoenix in Wellington and I reckon this is a game where we could edge a 1 goal win. Maybe I'm mistaken about how good a team Phoenix are in Wellington. Will make up my mind after this gimmicky game.
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-----------------Bolton-----------------
--Marrone--Hamill--Good--Behich--
---Terra--Thompson--Germano---
-------Duganzic-Babalj-Worm-------
Bench
-Matti-Colosimo-Williams-Sarkies-
Thoughts?
My guess is:
-----------------Bolton-----------------
--Marrone--Hamill--Good--Behich--
---Sarkies--Thompson--Germano---
-------Duganzic-Babalj-Worm-------
Bench
-Matti-Terra-Williams-Maycon/Hoffman-
Terra deserves to be starting and there is a good chance he'll start over Worm, but I think because Worm was useful in our win over Brisbane at Suncorp he could get the nod. I think JVS will opt for a midfield with seasoned midfielders, so I think Sarkies would be preferred over Terra. I reckon the reason we won the last match against Brisbane was because everyone defended so well, and despite giving us a lot going forward I think because of his limited defending skills Terra will be overlooked in favour of Sarkies.
I think Colosimo could be dropped from the extended squad again. I just doubt he's fit. It would be awesome if he could play though, as he'd provide an experience being paired with either Hamill or Good (and as Thompson showed against CCM, an experienced head really lifts our defensive line).
After all the changes JVS made for the CCM game I now have just about no faith that I can guess his tactics though!
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How good was it! I reckon that first half was as good as anything I've seen locally. We dropped off in the second half, but I remember being blown away by the quality of both sides in the first.
First half was incredible. Some of the best football I've seen locally for sure, and maybe from Heart ever. We should of been 2-0 up by half time and if we achieved that we might well have won.
We might have the same problem as that game though, playing well for 90 minutes. We really slowed down in the second half and through attacking attrition Brisbane wore us down and got the 3 points. I don't know how fit we'll be, and there is a chance we could wear down as the game goes on again. Although, because we have a number of players coming back fitness might not be a problem.
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Its gonna be a blockbuster. I have some real confidence for us now after the Central Coast match, and I expect Roar to provide the standard fare of high quality positive football.
The last time these two teams played at AAMI park is scorched in my mind. It was top quality and I reckon we'll see that again.
Should be high scoring. I'll guess Babalj grabs a brace, Berisha & Nichols get a goal each and Terra claims a winner.
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Isn't Reid a defensive midfielder? You would think he's no more match fit than Germano or Shroj.
I think Reid is a midfielder we've signed based on experience and leadership. I don't think Thompson provides enough direction, or experienced direction, for other midfielders which is why we are getting the 32 year old Reid.
On Sarkies, I thought we were going to trade him for Wehrman:
"The A-League transfer window opens tomorrow and the Newcastle Jets have been manoeuvring behind the scenes to negotiate a trade for midfielder Kasey Wehrman."
But my guess is we were only going to do that if we didn't get another midfielder. Since we got Paul Reid I reckon we won't go after Wehrman. Perhaps Sarkies will go at the end of the season anyway, possibly to Newcastle and we won't even get Wehrman, We'll have to wait and see.
I sort of hope Sarkies steps up now that we have multiple midfielders out and hope he wants to stay at the Heart and is given another contract. Think he could step up and be useful for us.
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Was unsure about Reid when I first heard him linked with Heart, but have now come to think he could be a real useful signing.
Reid didn't become a free agent because he stopped performing as a footballer but because of altercations with Rini Coolen. So I reckon he still can perform pretty well, he is a good passer and seems to be a midfield general, someone who provides leadership and direction in midfield (something I reckon we really lack without Fred). He could be a lucky break for us.
The only possible issue with Reid is fitness. I'm quietly confident he'll be serviceably fit though. Reid is an experienced professional and shouldn't of let himself become too unfit.
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Marrone Re-Signs for a further two years
in Melbourne City
Posted