Sack John Didulica

[cadete]

The biggest mistake was not making Ante Millicic the manager.

He had previous senior coaching experience at Sydney United, which JA didn't.

He had IMO earned his stripes, which JA hasn't as a manager.

Now this wasn't the making of JD, it was that of the board who declared in their minds that to attract more fans we needed to have a "BIG NAME" as a manager, who people who weren't football fans knew of.

This huge PR campaign with JA as manager has backfired and with Marrone and Behich our season could fall off a cliff.

It should be a football club striving to win games and championships, not trying to run at a profit, even if it comes at the expense of players being sold to ensure this profit is achieved.

IMO I really think that in the A League, senior coaching experience in the State League system should be given greater weight.

Sometimes I feel like the A League Clubs do not like to admit how closely linked its standard of football played and player recruitment is to the State Leagues.

Edited January 29, 2013 by cadete

[jw1739]

No point in going over the Milicic/Aloisi issue. It's done and there's an end to it, except to remember that the Board agonised over the decision for something like two months, so it was a close call whichever way it went. And there's no point in pressing Sidwell about it. He's either got to sack JA or keep quiet.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sash. The worst recruiting decisions we have seen have the coach's fingerprints all over them.Gray was a personal phone call from JA, and Macallister was because JA remembered him from their CCM days. As I've said elsewhere, the other lemons such as Hoffman's contract extension, Roganovic, Reid and Maycon were all JvS decisions.

IMO JD has made some pretty canny decisions, the most obvious one being 'that clause' in the contract for Eli Babalj. Don't forget too that we had 'minimum transfer fee' clauses in the contracts for Hamill and Good. I'll guess that we did for Aziz as well.

The last thing we need now is panic signings as was done with Reid. We need to play out the season as best we can and if we haven't started to think about next season we bloody well need to do so now. We must release the players who have not shown they can regularly play to their potential, and move on others such as Macallister. And JA needs to show some confidence in his young players such as J. Walker, Mitchinson and Vrankovic - I'm pretty pissed off with the 'put-downs' that have occurred in recent weeks especially to Mitchinson - playing Hoffman at LB was an insult to the lad.

And FFS fix this injury management issue.

[heart_fan10]

JW, I have a feeling these injuries come down to a couple of reasons;

- poor training facilities

- poor fitness & conditioning staff

OR

- a combination of both

This is our third a-league season, and we haven't had one season where our squad hasn't been destroyed by injury. An area at our club which since season 2 should have been looked at.

As for didulica, he's a lawyer which is why the players contracts seem to be constructed well. Apart from that, what football background does he come from? It's one thing to be able to create good player contracts and to be a good negotiator, but another to be able to identify and scout high quality players with potential and have first class footballing connections.

I know for a fact that melbourne victory have a separate job for creating and negotiating player contracts and obviously Paul Trimboli (whose football background and understanding of the game speaks for itself) as the football operation manager who helps the first team coach in scouting and identifying talent, and understands how the footballing side of a football club SHOULD be run.

Maybe there's a need for us to create another job in our footballing department which solely scouts and identify talent domestically and internationally. An experienced person who has an eye for talent and good contacts.

Edited January 29, 2013 by heart_fan10

[Bobbobbobmarley]

The biggest mistake was not making Ante Millicic the manager.

He had previous senior coaching experience at Sydney United, which JA didn't.

He had IMO earned his stripes, which JA hasn't as a manager.

Now this wasn't the making of JD, it was that of the board who declared in their minds that to attract more fans we needed to have a "BIG NAME" as a manager, who people who weren't football fans knew of.

This huge PR campaign with JA as manager has backfired and with Marrone and Behich our season could fall off a cliff.

It should be a football club striving to win games and championships, not trying to run at a profit, even if it comes at the expense of players being sold to ensure this profit is achieved.

And that he didn't ask for as much (helps this club with it's ambitious goals of breaking even, and being a youth academy).

[Caganer]

As for didulica, he's a lawyer which is why the players contracts seem to be constructed well. Apart from that, what football background does he come from? It's one thing to be able to create good player contracts and to be a good negotiator, but another to be able to identify and scout high quality players with potential and have first class footballing connections.

JD is a former Melbourne Knights midfielder, former legal counsel for FFA and former CEO of the PFA. Along with his brother (and current Heart assistant coach) being a former goalkeeper in the Eredivisie and Croatian national team, I think he probably has fairly decent footballing connections.

[jw1739]

Not sure the right thread, but I notice from his Twitter that JD now styles himself as 'Junior Vice-President of Football at Melbourne Heart FC.'

[Shahanga]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this thread about the man responsible for a contract that allowed Heart to both collect 75% of a transfer fee and get a key player back? This happened last week, but this week some people want him sacked??

[theresonlyonebzamora]

Shahanga people with too much time and not enough sense

[LR9]

Reinstate Didulica!

[theresonlyonebzamora]

I think the fact he didn't say much at the fan forum suggests there's not much issue with him

[Tommykins]

Contract for life, or sack. Either way.

[heart_fan10]

bump.

[yelawolf]

is it true his gone?

[Heart of Melbourne]

Hope so.

[belaguttman]

I think that before we are quick to judge JD we need to know what his brief is from the Board, what they allow him to do and what are the restrictions that they make on his decisions. This isn't just an ordinary company where the Board are responsible for governance and the operational decisions are solely made by the employees, the Board in this case are also the company owners.

[belaguttman]

He has brought in a few good players, but also epitomizes everything that is wrong with this club (Mediocrity, No ambition, Indecisive, moronic). Probably needs to be shown the door.

Again, if he's been given a budget of peanuts, he'll try to sign the best monkey.

[heart_fan10]

He has brought in a few good players, but also epitomizes everything that is wrong with this club (Mediocrity, No ambition, Indecisive, moronic). Probably needs to be shown the door.

Again, if he's been given a budget of peanuts, he'll try to sign the best monkey.

 

well then he's not the best man for the job if he can't work with a strict budget. Mind you, the league has a salary cap so there shouldn't be too much difference in the quality of the salary capped players that we have compared to other teams. There's no reason why we can't at least have a top 4 team, and the mistakes all start at management levels with guys like JD.

 

the last 3 seasons have made it clear to me that he is not doing his job well.

[jw1739]

My feeling is that the club has always had a rather narrow field of vision where visa players are concerned. And that we're a bit slow out of the blocks in recruiting generally. It may be that we don't have sufficient contacts looking around on our behalf because this is only our third season. In which case this is an area where we should be allocating resources.

[mulhollanddrive]

I don't have an issue with player signings, but it seems like he and JVS were all about community club, technical/passing football, youth promotion.   Then that all goes and all he's left with is we might sign Beckham or Owen in the media.

[moops]

JD is a working cog in a fualty machine.

As far as I know he would put to the coach available and suitable transfer targets, the coach then selects from the list, JD handles the negotiations.

[heart_fan10]

JD is a working cog in a fualty machine.

As far as I know he would put to the coach available and suitable transfer targets, the coach then selects from the list, JD handles the negotiations.

 

obviously the transfer targets he is coming up with and putting forward are not good enough or are not suitable for us. If the club want him to still be involved in heart, let him handle the negotiations and writing up of contracts which as a lawyer he is experienced in. But in terms of scouting players, get someone else.

 

The fact that Josip Skoko has scouted possibly our best signing this season in Gerhardt says it all for me really.

 

The club is taking too slow in signing players and building for next season. Tadic was a good signing i'll give him that, but he was signed too late which meant it took him a few games to get match fit and 'gel' with the squad. We want all our players 'gelled' and fit and ready to go by round 1, and in order to do this we need to have as much of the team signed and in melbourne ASAP.

 

The visitors already have 19-20 players signed for next season, and will basically make a couple more signings to top off the squad in the off-season, but apart from that they will have a pretty much full squad on the first day of pre-season training and will be able to build as a team towards round 1 next season. While we on the other hand, barely have a matchday squad signed for next season, with key positions yet to fill, and like every other pre-season, will be starting training with a handful of players. How can we expect to have a fully fit squad, and be able to put out our best first 11 in round 1, and have a good start to the season? This point is something i would like to bring up in the fan forum, because i see no logic in looking at the off-season and saying "oh there's plenty of time" and leaving everything until the last minute, instead of having a settled squad by round 1.

[jw1739]

Agree with much of the above, except I don't rate Tadic at all. Very slow off the mark, can't win a contested header, and almost never moves out of the centre to give us more width when attacking.

 

But what you're saying in general terms is very true. And not for the first time has it been blatantly obvious that we are far too slow getting our squad ready for the next season. We should have identified targets - home and overseas - months ago. The only time I can think of that we signed someone early was when we signed Redders.

 

Compared with other clubs, our pre-seasons are a joke - both in terms of the quality of our opponents and the number of games. Some other clubs play up to 12 fully competitive games in their pre-season, meaning that they hit the season running. And that's where they get the points that count just as much as those obtained later in the season.

[MaliMate]

Tadic just isn't a sole striker. Never will be. Needs to be paired up front with Babalj or even GolGol. Won't happen under our system unfortunately.

 

If we keep Tadic next season he won't score more than 6-8 goals mark my words (Unless they start playing 2 up front).

[jw1739]

Tadic just isn't a sole striker. Never will be. Needs to be paired up front with Babalj or even GolGol. Won't happen under our system unfortunately.

 

If we keep Tadic next season he won't score more than 6-8 goals mark my words (Unless they start playing 2 up front).

So we signed a player whose style doesn't suit ours. Great thinking by management. Bringing us back to the point about disorganization at the club.

[Red or Dead]

Tadic just isn't a sole striker. Never will be. Needs to be paired up front with Babalj or even GolGol. Won't happen under our system unfortunately.

 

If we keep Tadic next season he won't score more than 6-8 goals mark my words (Unless they start playing 2 up front).

So we signed a player whose style doesn't suit ours. Great thinking by management. Bringing us back to the point about disorganization at the club.

I don't think it's Tadic, I think it's the lack of quality midfielders who can't for the life of them feed the ball forwards to him.

[Jake]

 

But what you're saying in general terms is very true. And not for the first time has it been blatantly obvious that we are far too slow getting our squad ready for the next season. We should have identified targets - home and overseas - months ago. The only time I can think of that we signed someone early was when we signed Redders.

 

What if we have identified targets, right thoughout the first three seasons, but the board has been unwilling to sanction sufficient wage budget to attract the players? I'm fairly confident we don't spend our full salary cap because we're aiming to break even. This issue was made public with Flores from memory, but how many more may there have been? Just saying that it may not be JA or JDs fault if the board doesn't back them up. Therefore we're left with the cheaper options: Hoffman, Germano, Walker, Vrankovich, Mitchinson, Garruchio, etc to pad out the team. Some work out, some don't.

[The Aardvark]

 

Tadic just isn't a sole striker. Never will be. Needs to be paired up front with Babalj or even GolGol. Won't happen under our system unfortunately.

 

If we keep Tadic next season he won't score more than 6-8 goals mark my words (Unless they start playing 2 up front).

So we signed a player whose style doesn't suit ours. Great thinking by management. Bringing us back to the point about disorganization at the club.

I don't think it's Tadic, I think it's the lack of quality midfielders who can't for the life of them feed the ball forwards to him.

 

This. Tadic isn't the type of player to fight for headers. Unfortunately because our midfield is so pathetically inept at feeding him along the ground, 90% of the stuff he does is lose headers from long bombs from defence. Tadic is smart, has a good through ball pass on him and is a decent finisher. He is the type of striker that will get as many assists as goals, if only we actually passed it to him more often.

[belaguttman]

 

 

Tadic just isn't a sole striker. Never will be. Needs to be paired up front with Babalj or even GolGol. Won't happen under our system unfortunately.

 

If we keep Tadic next season he won't score more than 6-8 goals mark my words (Unless they start playing 2 up front).

So we signed a player whose style doesn't suit ours. Great thinking by management. Bringing us back to the point about disorganization at the club.

I don't think it's Tadic, I think it's the lack of quality midfielders who can't for the life of them feed the ball forwards to him.

 

This. Tadic isn't the type of player to fight for headers. Unfortunately because our midfield is so pathetically inept at feeding him along the ground, 90% of the stuff he does is lose headers from long bombs from defence. Tadic is smart, has a good through ball pass on him and is a decent finisher. He is the type of striker that will get as many assists as goals, if only we actually passed it to him more often.

Unfortunately we've also had a midfield that is also pathetically inept at delivering accurate balls to his head too.

[Kiro Kompiro]

 

Tadic just isn't a sole striker. Never will be. Needs to be paired up front with Babalj or even GolGol. Won't happen under our system unfortunately.

 

If we keep Tadic next season he won't score more than 6-8 goals mark my words (Unless they start playing 2 up front).

So we signed a player whose style doesn't suit ours. Great thinking by management. Bringing us back to the point about disorganization at the club.

I don't think it's Tadic, I think it's the lack of quality midfielders who can't for the life of them feed the ball forwards to him.

Absolutely.

 

Berisha's done well because he's had the likes of Broich McKay Nichols and Franjic feeding him.

 

Its fucking ridiculous that our striker is contesting for moon balls outside the penalty box, or having to stretch and chase badly directed passes.

 

Where are the midfielders that can give him a killer ball to finish?  Where are the wingers or wing backs that can beat their man and put in a sharp cross or cut back?

[Defibrillator]

Whether you like him or not, Berisha's work ethic is sensational - the guy chases, hassles and locks the ball in. He's a hungry player who gets in the face of the opposition. This creates opportunity and inspires those around him. If your forwards are busting a gut, like the rest of your team, opportunity follows. He does create a fair bit off his own bat and I would love him or a similar player at the Heart. Babalj showed a glimpse of this last weekend.

Agree though, the service to Tadic has been abysmal.

[Tommykins]

Berisha runs and runs and runs. 

 

For all the 'service has been rubbish to Tadic' thats been going on here, I think the main problem is where Tadic is in reference to all of the other players who should be looking to get the ball directly to his feet. We're far too deep which means there isn't much of a choice but to hit the ball long and high.

[Luke]

bump ?

[heart_fan10]

yep ^

[n i k o]

Didulica, Munn and JVS are like the Bermuda triangle. They need to dissapear as well from this club.

[Heart of Melbourne]

Should have gone after season 3.

[Melburnian]

Didulica, Munn and JVS are like the Bermuda triangle. They need to dissapear as well from this club.

Amen niko.

[Heart_fan]

What has JD achieved so far??? Those crickets are very loud...

[wombegongal]

What has JD achieved so far??? Those crickets are very loud...

 

He couldn't sign crickets he got a couple of slugs instead.

[Peter]

 

What has JD achieved so far??? Those crickets are very loud...

 

He couldn't sign crickets he got a couple of slugs instead.

 

http://www.slugterra.com/ ???

[markn]

he should be sacked - and i have no idea why he lasted this long..................

 

however i think it was the city group that signed Koren.