Markus Babbel Is New Wanderers Coach

[Paul01]

48 minutes ago, Swarth said:

honestly i would too, however at this point he has an entire 1 point extra with us than gombau did and had a full pre season with us so i am not going to celebrate too soon

Gombau was not in charge till Round 6.

Foxe was in charge.

[Neverbloom]

2 minutes ago, Paul01 said:

Gombau was not in charge till Round 6.

Foxe was in charge.

well obviously but what i mean is 5 matches into gombau's rein vs 5 matches into babbel's rein

[Davo]

I think he was referring to Mack’s earlier post, which compared the first 5 league games in charge for Fox’s, and MB.

Edit: beat me to it.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Davo

[Flytox]

As I understand it 5 games into his tenure Gombau had already lost the dressing room.

[dcrow]

36 minutes ago, Flytox said:

As I understand it 5 games into his tenure Gombau had already lost the dressing room.

And you could see it on the field. After halftime under Gombau, players played with no heart and compare Babbel's team after halftime, fought right till the end.

[StringerBellend]

Our squad isn’t good enough 

for us to make top 4 a lot of things need to go right 

key players to stay fit,

kids to step up 

somebody other than Oriol to score goals 

Kamau to step up 

marquee to come in Jan 

[Neverbloom]

i do wonder how much control he has over the squad, wonder if he will get any signings in January

[Zelinsky]

For some of you guys the next two and half years will be difficult to stomach.

There are things a coaching group can control: fitness level, style of football, game plane, promotion of youth players, team cohesion. They were the areas were Gombau dug his own grave with great enthusiasm, and where we are in very different shape. Babbel was hired to sort this out. All of this will get a big tick by the board.

Other things are more difficult to manage. Attitude of players towards the profession. Keeping focus for 90 minutes. Capacity of individual players to improve. Players being absent due to NT duty. Injuries (we've had a lot of those which might be the reason why we had a change of conditioning coach). This is all WIP.

The biggest challenge is the dis-proportionally large chunk of junior players in a senior squad. What Babbel can't do is make young players grow old over night, and that's why the absence of Ziegler, Roly and Bridgey hurts so much.

I am looking forward to WSW playing with the intensity of a BL2 side in the HAL in the not so distant future. That's what has been missing in previous years, where we didn't show up in the big games. It was the main reason why titles in S4 slipped away, and why we have such a **** track record against Smurfs and VIC. For me, that'll be the measure. Get that right and the results will sort themselves out.

 

 

 

 

[Carns]

On 21/05/2018 at 11:56 AM, FCB said:

Babbel in the HAL is like a Rolls Royce in a Holden car yard. It is a potential game changer for the league. Babbel will transform the club, and it will have a ripple effect through the league.

 

On 24/05/2018 at 8:50 PM, FCB said:

Babbel didn't sign up to just be top four, and the club didn't sign him up for that either. ACL qualifaction is the measure. At least top 2 is the target.

...

We'll have a good squad. Add fitness, discipline, a united locker room, a flexible adaptive game plan when needed, and you have all the trimmings of a title contender, regardless of what the others are doing.

 

On 25/05/2018 at 2:46 PM, FCB said:

The salary cap restrictions Babbel will leave for JT to sort, as mentioned in the press conference. If he can't balance the squad then he is not a manager. Give him an assistant coach who knows the ins and outs of HAL football to fill any knowledge gaps.

When Babbel was first signed you practically said he would be the messiah. Is he still the Rolls Royce that is going to revolutionise the league? What is he doing that is different to the top managers in the A-league? I'm genuinely curious.

Do you still have ACL/top 2 as the target? Or is that for next year?

For the record I like a lot of what Babbel has done, he is easily better than Foxe and Gombau. I have faith in his ability to create a competitive squad. And also believe he cannot be judged fully on this season because the majority of the squad was inherited (and already heavily imbalanced). I am happy with his appointment and am willing to give him at least next season to prove his worth, we have improved from a very low base.

[Sithslayer1991]

We do need to be realistic we have been chatting the fact that defensively we are quiet short on quality. And then up front if Reira doesn't score none of the other attackers are known for scoring.

5th or 6th place however is do-able with the current team and the way Babbel has the team playing but we will be no where near the top 3 that much is certain. 

[hawks2767]

We don't even know how well we can go with Ziegler fighting fit.

[MistahCampoy]

3 minutes ago, hawks2767 said:

We don't even know how well we can go with Ziegler fighting fit.

Hopefully his been eating his sauerkraut 

But na i think his presence should only strengthen the squad once his ready to start

[Zelinsky]

20 hours ago, Carns said:

 

 

When Babbel was first signed you practically said he would be the messiah. Is he still the Rolls Royce that is going to revolutionise the league? What is he doing that is different to the top managers in the A-league? I'm genuinely curious.

Do you still have ACL/top 2 as the target? Or is that for next year?

For the record I like a lot of what Babbel has done, he is easily better than Foxe and Gombau. I have faith in his ability to create a competitive squad. And also believe he cannot be judged fully on this season because the majority of the squad was inherited (and already heavily imbalanced). I am happy with his appointment and am willing to give him at least next season to prove his worth, we have improved from a very low base.

Fair questions which require a long answer.

At the post-season function in April Lederer made a comment along the line of "we want to be the best".  When they signed Babbel my expectation was that they'd throw in a couple of quality senior players, in particular a midfielder and a winger, to back that up that claim. To my surprise, for whatever reason, that didn't happen, and we ended up playing with the youth squad instead. Go figure.

Our coach is ambitious, he once said that  "I am working to be successful, and I couldn't care less about my public image".  Before the season MB made a comment that the team have set the bar high for themselves. They don't talk publicly about it what their aspirations are, but I doubt that they just have 4th spot in mind. In S1 WSW, after nine rounds, had 10 points and were in 8th spot. So we are still on target to win the title :-).

But yes, Babbel's comments last week suggest that he doesn't see us as a genuine title contender.  To be honest, I'd be more comfortable if Ziegler, Roly and Bridgey were available, we miss them badly, and we rely on young players to deliver the goods. But I don't share other people's view that out squad is not good enough. It just lacks experience right now. Still, it is quite telling that Fitzgerald is sitting in the stands, that Sotirio and Mahazi are on the bench. Younger players are overtaking them.

Babbel is a marquee manager, absolutely. I've been following the career of this guy since he played for Hamburg in 1992. Does not make me an expert, but I've picked up a few things over the last 25 years which is why I rate him. He is highly respected within the German football community, he is high profile for a reason. Kicker sports mag considered the TV interview they did with him last week "very special", and the chief editor was part of those who interviewed him. Bild newspaper is coming out in January to do a feature report on Babbel and Treejack. And so people in Germany and Switzerland are hearing about WSW, the HAL is arriving on people's radar over there which is a pleasant side effect.

He is considered a top manager in Germany. Right now Bayern's coach Kovac has his head on the chopping block, and the kicker guys wanted to know if Babbel would be prepared to "help" Bayern (=take over) if he was asked. The kicker guys believe that he has the goods, and so do I. He could take over any BL side. But he is not the kind of guy who puts up with the BS and the politics that comes with big league football, and they would be wary of him being as outspoken as he is.

What does he do differently? He told us what needs to change: Juric, Bozanic, Ruka - they can have great games, be as good as anyone, but they only do it once every month. He doesn't rate HAL journeymen who go from club to club, it's too easy for players to move on without them having to really pick up their game. He expects his players to show up every week, be active for 90 minutes, maintain structure, keep pushing, and defend to secure a result if required. He demands that players don't touch the ball six, seven, eight times before they pass it, but once or twice. At the very least he wants WSW to be hard to beat. That's were we are heading.

I am expecting WSW to be a BL2-grade side in the HAL. Performance and results will be accordingly. Not in every game, but often enough. It will keep the others on their toes, they all will have to review what they are doing. That will be the league wide transformation that I've been talking about.

I know that I am leaning out of the window a fair bit, and I am doing it comfortably. Merrick gets the best out of mediocre HAL players, and good on him. But guys like Boogaard, Hoffmann, Georgievski - they ain't going to get any better from here onwards. Instead, we fielded a double six and two wingers with little HAL experience between them, and yet they had the Jets under the pump for much of the game. It's only going to get better from here.

Hope that explains my position, past and present.

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by FCB

[WSWFF]

9 minutes ago, FCB said:

He expects his players to show up every week, be active for 90 minutes, maintain structure, keep pushing, and defend to secure a result if required. He demands that players don't touch the ball six, seven, eight times before they pass it, but once or twice. At the very least he wants WSW to be hard to beat. That's were we are heading.

I found this part amusing. The only real influence on the squad that MB has had is treejack. He is possibly the laziest player in the a-league, he takes far too many touches and the only productive thing he ever does is draw fouls. No assists to date, one goal that Kamau created for him and of all our chances against the jets, none of them were teed up by Treejack. Sotirio's large amount of game time to date is due solely to his ability to cover treejacks defensive lapses and then push forward. Can;t wait for next year when Babbel stacks the squad with more players of this quality.

The Bayern Munich talk has got to be garbage. I really hope they take him back but if he was so highly rated, why is he here, why was he in Switzerland. He is a coach on the way down, being found at at every level. Soon he will be the wizard that will revolutionise some lucky NPL club. 

I would love to share your optimism, but he's been here six months and I dont see any sign that its working. Contrary to others, I think we have a decent squad. Our number ten is useless, but there is sufficient other quality to make us competitive, if we had a decent man in charge. Babbel will survive here purely because no one at the club will want to admit that they screwed up consecutive coach appointments.

 

[TehSmileyBandit]

4 minutes ago, WSWFF said:

I found this part amusing. The only real influence on the squad that MB has had is treejack. He is possibly the laziest player in the a-league, he takes far too many touches and the only productive thing he ever does is draw fouls. No assists to date, one goal that Kamau created for him and of all our chances against the jets, none of them were teed up by Treejack. Sotirio's large amount of game time to date is due solely to his ability to cover treejacks defensive lapses and then push forward. Can;t wait for next year when Babbel stacks the squad with more players of this quality.

The Bayern Munich talk has got to be garbage. I really hope they take him back but if he was so highly rated, why is he here, why was he in Switzerland. He is a coach on the way down, being found at at every level. Soon he will be the wizard that will revolutionise some lucky NPL club. 

I would love to share your optimism, but he's been here six months and I dont see any sign that its working. Contrary to others, I think we have a decent squad. Our number ten is useless, but there is sufficient other quality to make us competitive, if we had a decent man in charge. Babbel will survive here purely because no one at the club will want to admit that they screwed up consecutive coach appointments.

 

I find your whole post amusing, with select highlights. I still can't work out whether you're actively trolling or just, errm, unfamiliar with the game.

We either watch different matches or watch matches differently. 

[Sithslayer1991]

I am up there with FCB Babbel is actually quite well respected in Germany as manager I mean he coached in Bundesliga got Hertha Berlin promoted to Bundesliga, Stuggart and 1899 Hoffenheim are very big clubs, this is a marquee manager. But even having a good manager your still limited by the squad you have available and the team is quite thin in terms of experience and quality espeically in DM which were missing and it was addressed earlier this season by Babbel as a "money thing" so we ended up with Mahazi. 

This team is not good enough to be top 4 not when your competition is Perth with Socceroos B-team, Sydney Fc which mantains it core from the last 2 seasons (so Corica doesn't have to change much) and Victory with Honda and all the fringe socceroos guys around him, you get exposed for your weaknesses. But we should be around 5th position based on what has been happening so far

[beatsurrender]

17 minutes ago, TehSmileyBandit said:

I find your whole post amusing, with select highlights. I still can't work out whether you're actively trolling or just, errm, unfamiliar with the game.

We either watch different matches or watch matches differently. 

Yes this has to be a troll. Could it be the return of 'Happy'..?

[WSWFF]

40 minutes ago, Sithslayer1991 said:

the team is quite thin in terms of experience and quality espeically in DM which were missing and it was addressed earlier this season by Babbel as a "money thing" so we ended up with Mahazi. 

I am sorry guys not trying to be a troll, just really disappointed, yet again. We are third last.

The DM issue is also partly on Babbel. Baccus Snr was obviously difficult, but he was a good player and letting him go has cost a lot. I would have expected a good manager to have dealt with this, or at least had a plan B. Baccus certainly seems to be doing well down south.

I swear I will think hard and come up with a positive post soon.

I do like our youngsters and the future in that respect seems really positive. But there is a fine line between blooding good youngsters and being the basket case that is the mariners, always looking to the youngsters finding their feet next year.

[StringerBellend]

52 minutes ago, WSWFF said:

I am sorry guys not trying to be a troll, just really disappointed, yet again. We are third last.

The DM issue is also partly on Babbel. Baccus Snr was obviously difficult, but he was a good player and letting him go has cost a lot. I would have expected a good manager to have dealt with this, or at least had a plan B. Baccus certainly seems to be doing well down south.

I swear I will think hard and come up with a positive post soon.

I do like our youngsters and the future in that respect seems really positive. But there is a fine line between blooding good youngsters and being the basket case that is the mariners, always looking to the youngsters finding their feet next year.

ABJ being ineffective but holding up Baccus Snr as some sort of major loss?

[MistahCampoy]

Never finding our feet in our replacement home grounds (team and supporters), the shock departure of our first coach which left ripples in the team, players not happy with changes within the club and the list goes on.. This all plays a big part of the situation as a whole that we seem to be in the middle of ATM not just the coaching staff, in saying that i can see MB leading the club back into the right direction.

Maybe not this season though lol but it has been brought up that in previous seasons we had been in worse positions at this time and still worked hard to make a good run to the finals

Edited November 26, 2018 by MistahCampoy

[StringerBellend]

Perth and Victory have strong squads and are already at top of table. Sydney have a decent starting XI but are one more injury from a big problem.

Rest are all pretty similar (Phoenix apart).

It’s early days but if we are around too 4-6 by Jan And Zieglers citizenship is thru I’d hope we would go for a second marquee 

[scarcev]

Is it only me?  I think we have improved markedly with our more direct style of play and am pretty positive about the season, sure the results aren't there at the moment, I agree, but a quick look at the season so far is not that disappointing.  We hold on to what we should of against Brisbane and/or we convert our chances against Newcastle and to a lesser extent Sydney and all of a sudden we are top 4.   That first 20min against Brisbane was as good as I have seen from WSW. There is only one game - 3pts -  from 3rd to 8th, 3rd place has only won 2 games, and when we start hitting the back of the net we will be up there fighting for a home semi, ACL involvement will also hamper a few of those others as well.  Bacchus was a loss sure, but he HAD TO GO, sometimes you do what you have to for the greater good and I even see improvement in his brother now he is gone.  I will bet anyone that we will finish higher than Sydney, Corica cannot control them, when they went behind to Victory this week they lost their **** and it is a sign of things to come and they are only one injury away from being average, they do not have the depth of previous seasons, this is the start of their demise.  I think potentially Perth and Victory are standouts and we are equal with Adelaide and Jets still above CCM, Nix, City, Roar, and Sydney.

[Zelinsky]

18 minutes ago, scarcev said:

Is it only me?  I think we have improved markedly with our more direct style of play and am pretty positive about the season, sure the results aren't there at the moment, I agree, but a quick look at the season so far is not that disappointing.  We hold on to what we should of against Brisbane and/or we convert our chances against Newcastle and to a lesser extent Sydney and all of a sudden we are top 4.   That first 20min against Brisbane was as good as I have seen from WSW. There is only one game - 3pts -  from 3rd to 8th, 3rd place has only won 2 games, and when we start hitting the back of the net we will be up there fighting for a home semi, ACL involvement will also hamper a few of those others as well.  Bacchus was a loss sure, but he HAD TO GO, sometimes you do what you have to for the greater good and I even see improvement in his brother now he is gone.  I will bet anyone that we will finish higher than Sydney, Corica cannot control them, when they went behind to Victory this week they lost their **** and it is a sign of things to come and they are only one injury away from being average, they do not have the depth of previous seasons, this is the start of their demise.  I think potentially Perth and Victory are standouts and we are equal with Adelaide and Jets still above CCM, Nix, City, Roar, and Sydney.

Amen to that!

[theguyyouwishyouwere]

third-last? pfft. more like 7th, and only one place out of a finals spot.

[mack]

We're 8th not 7th.

[Taurus]

I may have to reassess my mid table club prediction

[Bellby]

TBH Im not a massive fan of MB so far but he definitely deserves a fair crack. I do think people get carried away with his CV & a blow up during the derby. He’s made some bizarre squad decisions/substitutions or lack thereof. 

In saying that, he had no control/knowledge of the squad. JP was brought on specifically as he knew a fair few of the players & has taken a lot of the control this early part of the season. He has a hell of a lot to do with squad selection, if you’re on his wrong side, you don’t get a look in.

[sydneycroatia58]

1 hour ago, theguyyouwishyouwere said:

third-last? pfft. more like 7th, and only one place out of a finals spot.

4pts off 2nd and only 3 pts off 3rd. The A-League table is so easy to manipulate to fit whatever point of view you want. We are as close to Victory in 2nd as Victory are to Perth in 1st.

Edited November 26, 2018 by sydneycroatia58

[Edinburgh]

2 hours ago, mack said:

We're 8th not 7th.

Pedant

[mack]

3 minutes ago, Edinburgh said:

Pedant

Correct pedant.