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  • Gutless Wanderers Capitulate In Perth

    mack

    By mack

    A pathetic performance for the Red & Black against Perth has seen the Glory rise to 3rd on the ladder while the Wanderers head to China losing two games in a row.

    It was a heartless, insipid and staid example of the football that has kept the Wanderers closer to last place than 1st, with the Derby win fading into history. If you've watched pretty much any Wanderers game you've seen this one. Passing backwards & sideways is more important than moving towards goal, a defence who spend more time scrambling than putting up controlled resistance, an impotent forward line, substitutes who do nothing to change the game, and a coach whose unchanging tactics are being increasingly exposed by opposition coaches.

    After 10 minutes the Wanderers were handed their first warning, Castro bamboozled several defenders before laying it back to Taggart, who had his shot from 3 yards out blocked on the line by Jonathan Aspro.

    Terry Antonis was the only player to come remotely close to scoring, as he cannoned an extremely long range free kick effort off the cross bar. The Wanderers managed a pathetic solitary shot on target, it coming in the 75th minute from Brendon Santalab, it dribbled straight into the path of Liam Reddy who could have made a cup of tea in the time it took to leave the boot of Santalab and it's arrival at his feet.

    Chris Harold opened the scoring for Perth. Diego Castro found Harold directly from a free kick, Harold swung out a boot. His connection wasn't particularly strong, the ball rolled along the floor, luckily for the Glory Robbie Cornthwaite threw his toe out, deflecting the grubbing shot past Vedran Janjetovic.

    In the dying minutes of the game, deep into injury time, Perth took advantage of more defensive frailty. Despite the game still being up for grabs and a potential Premiership point to be taken with one goal, the Wanderers sat back and let Castro & Keogh play it back and forth near the corner flag for 3 minutes, until Castro decided he'd had enough of toying with the inept defence.

    Dimas who came on as a sub somehow managed to look tired, he made no effort to tackle Castro, the cover defender Shannon Cole was nutmegged by the cut-back, and Cornthwaite was woefully out of position. Joel Chianese stole in front of Cornthwaite and beat Janjetovic to seal the points.

    Tony Popovic is delusional if he still thinks he can win the Grand Final. The way his side & tactics are going, he'll be lucky to win another game. Dimas needs to be stripped of the captaincy immediately, he is not worthy of the shirt he is embarrassing in every game.

    The failure on the pitch tonight was compounded with the complete silence regarding the Kearyn Baccus suspension issue. Leading up to the game, the club announced that Kearyn had been suspended for receiving 5 yellow cards. After being made aware of the fact that Kearyn had only received 4 cards, while his brother Keanu received 1, the club was silent despite repeated requests to explain the situation, and how they allowed the FFA to get away with suspending one of their players incorrectly.

    The side head straight to China to face Shanghai in the Asian Champions League midweek. The way the team are playing, they will be annihilated by the Chinese superclub.

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    mack

     

    I still wonder how we can 'win the grand final', when we could end up in the finals without beating a single team above us on the ladder.

     

     

     

    Didn't we beat the team coming first last week?

     

    Haha yes of course.

     

    Okay, we might make the finals without winning more than a single game against sides above us.

    Link to comment
    Smoggy

    I still wonder how we can 'win the grand final', when we could end up in the finals without beating a single team above us on the ladder (well, excpet the sMurfs)

     

    The only teams left above us are one game vs City, and one game vs Victory.

     

    How could a team win the GF from say 6th place ever.... well...momentum I guess. It would have to be a side that say has had major injury issues that impacted the side for the major part of the season, but then those players all return and the whole side clicks back in to form and hits  the final series on a big high, the fans and team all pumped.... a bit like a mid table English championship side that sits mid table in Feb and surges to 6th place and a play off spot and hits the play offs with momentum, but then they at least get a home game even if the second leg is away. Or maybe there has been in fighting and the manager has lost the players, but there is essentially a great squad, change of manager brings an immediate lift, maybe that scenario.....

     

    WSW have been spluttering along all season with our strongest squad, there is no reason to see why would would make any impact at all in the finals from 5th or 6th.

    Edited by mack
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    btron3000

    I don't expect us to make the Grand Final, but it's football and you only need to get past two teams to do it. Someone will definitely do it one day.

     

    Professional teams who are well drilled can hold on for draws in football, even snag 0-1 wins. The thing about the A-league though, is that most of the coaches like to try and play at least something resembling decent football. How many of them totally shut up shop like a team trying to avoid relegation?

     

    One year some team is going to just decide "screw it, we'll just park the bus" and they'll draw/win their way through two knockout games.

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    StringerBellend

    I don't expect us to make the Grand Final, but it's football and you only need to get past two teams to do it. Someone will definitely do it one day.

     

    Professional teams who are well drilled can hold on for draws in football, even snag 0-1 wins. The thing about the A-league though, is that most of the coaches like to try and play at least something resembling decent football. How many of them totally shut up shop like a team trying to avoid relegation?

     

    One year some team is going to just decide "screw it, we'll just park the bus" and they'll draw/win their way through two knockout games.

    We won't do it this year by parking the bus, our defence and concentration is not good enough

    Link to comment
    MartinTyler

    The Glory fans were pretty critical of us last night with their chants, some pretty nasty stuff was said. Let's not forget that next time those pricks come into town.

     

    All good banter !! I wasn't offended.....just amused that they are soooo 'old school'

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    JayZko

    The Glory fans were pretty critical of us last night with their chants, some pretty nasty stuff was said. Let's not forget that next time those pricks come into town.

    aren't they the team that got busted cheating the salary cap but still haven't won anything at all in 11 years lol
    Link to comment
    sonar

    lol. 6th.

    Why do I feel that we are not worthy of that?

     

    Not having a go at you when I ask this  ,the interesting thing would be IF we made the 6,and IF we qualify for a GF, and if we WON it, how would we feel ? Would we be deserving Champions.? 

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    JayZko

     

     

    lol. 6th.

    Why do I feel that we are not worthy of that?

    Not having a go at you when I ask this ,the interesting thing would be IF we made the 6,and IF we qualify for a GF, and if we WON it, how would we feel ? Would we be deserving Champions.?

    if we could knock off grahams band of merry men off while doing it surely
    Link to comment
    WSW27

    I don't think many people will go around pretending we were anything close to champions this season if we were to win the final. But a trophy is still something to celebrate and it would be good to take out Sydney, city and victory on the way.

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    DamnedUnited

    If the management and owners could focus more on what's going on on the pitch than in the terraces we may be a better bet. And whilst they're at it they can stop apologizing for stuff they haven't done and start apologizing for stuff they are responsible for. Mack's right about the game. Pitiful.

    Edited by DamnedUnited
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    luisenrique

    I don't think many people will go around pretending we were anything close to champions this season if we were to win the final. But a trophy is still something to celebrate and it would be good to take out Sydney, city and victory on the way.

     

    Nice avatar mate.

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    magicwand

     

    lol. 6th.

    Why do I feel that we are not worthy of that?

     

    Not having a go at you when I ask this  ,the interesting thing would be IF we made the 6,and IF we qualify for a GF, and if we WON it, how would we feel ? Would we be deserving Champions.? 

     

    In our first season we were the true champions i.e. the team that won the season long league. Then there were the three grand final losses, two of them from second spot. So I say we would definitely be deserving "champions" having profited from the Bizarro finals system, that is if any team can deserve to be called champions by just winning two games. I'm really looking forward to the day a team is crowned champions having finished 20+ points behind the League winners. It would show up the finals for the farcical system that it is. Even better if it's this year and it us in what is arguably our crappiest season so far. The icing on the cake would be knocking out mere "Plate Winners" Sydney (currently 28 points ahead of us). The "Invincibles" wouldn't even get a medal.

    Link to comment
    TheSweeper

     

     

    lol. 6th.

    Why do I feel that we are not worthy of that?

     

     

    Not having a go at you when I ask this  ,the interesting thing would be IF we made the 6,and IF we qualify for a GF, and if we WON it, how would we feel ? Would we be deserving Champions.?

    In our first season we were the true champions i.e. the team that won the season long league. Then there were the three grand final losses, two of them from second spot. So I say we would definitely be deserving "champions" having profited from the Bizarro finals system, that is if any team can deserve to be called champions by just winning two games. I'm really looking forward to the day a team is crowned champions having finished 20+ points behind the League winners. It would show up the finals for the farcical system that it is. Even better if it's this year and it us in what is arguably our crappiest season so far. The icing on the cake would be knocking out mere "Plate Winners" Sydney (currently 28 points ahead of us). The "Invincibles" wouldn't even get a medal.

    To be fair the system works for what it is , no one has won a grand final from outside the top 2 .

    A team that's so bad and finishes 5th or 6th will never win 3 in a row away from home . What is surprising is that no team from 3 or 4th has done it .

    Link to comment
    MartinTyler

    The current A-League finals system rewards mediocrity and we've been lucky that the previous winners have finished up the top of the ladder so the system can be justified by the FFA. This season there are 5 teams deservedly in the play-off spots and 5 'also rans'. We are currently top of the 'also rans' and with our fixture run-in should consolidate that place. However, in any fair competition we should be nowhere near having the opportunity at a crack at the major prize.

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    lloydy136

    Until we have promotion and relegation we are stuck with the top 6 system.

     

    Otherwise you will have half the teams with nothing to play for by january. Crowds and interest will plummet and you might as well present match fixers with a written invite.

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    DanButler

    Is there any financial reward for ladder position? As far as I'm aware there is for premiers and champions but everyone outside that gets the same money.

     

    Something as simple as that would make the mid-low table games towards the end of the season actually worth watching because the players would fight for something.

     

    For instance, the FFA could hand money directly to the players at the end of the season based on ladder position and perhaps playing time. It would come outside the salary cap and would give the players something to fight for (rather than going directly into the owners pockets)

    Link to comment
    Erebus

    Is there any financial reward for ladder position? As far as I'm aware there is for premiers and champions but everyone outside that gets the same money.

     

    Something as simple as that would make the mid-low table games towards the end of the season actually worth watching because the players would fight for something.

     

    For instance, the FFA could hand money directly to the players at the end of the season based on ladder position and perhaps playing time. It would come outside the salary cap and would give the players something to fight for (rather than going directly into the owners pockets)

    There's no prize money for anyone, even if you win a trophy.
    Link to comment


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