West Coast Collapse

[Unlimited]

3 minutes ago, WSWFF said:

Everyone still happy with Babbel? No question that his sub last night left a hole in the midfield that Perth exploited for three of the four goals they scored after that sub? Mahazi, not deemed good enough for inclusion in the squad for the last month is suddenly the guy to close out that game for thirty minutes?

Babbel rightly asking for more scrutiny of the refereeing. We wouldn;t want the press focusing on him or his results. What a paradise this A-league is, no relegation, no pressure on **** coaches; like in Europe where he has previously been sacked from every club he has coached at.

Serious question. Do people really think players with options will risk signing with Babbel for next season. Will the new stadium and the possibility of decent crowds overcome what must be serious question marks over this coaching staff? But, I guess, if he was sacked, would that make the club just as unattractive anyway? Its all very depressing.

Personally I believe the current playing group if coached properly could be in a far better position than they are. Just because Babbel has said they are all **** doesn;t necessarily mean they are. Most have had decent careers prior to this guy taking control of them.

 

If Babbel - who has coached in the Bundesliga - isn’t “coaching properly”, who else can? 

We had to close out a game and he brought in Mahazi who is a CDM. It’s the right substitution to make, who else would we have brought on? Considering our bench, the only other option was Cordier.

[BohemianDublin]

Yep, I'm happy with Babbel.

I think our problems have been
- Too many player changes, we get pretty much a new team every year.
- Poor selections for Marquees.

 

[Horus]

The first goal was a bit of a mess BUT unlike recent games, at least he was there....the 2nd and 3rd were great....sure we couldn't close it out and we didn't have an answer to Castro, but we played our kids and we were still right in it - so much so that even popa had to break one of his life rules and make changes at half time

We didn't get pumped by the league leaders, despite being seriously hampered by **** refereeing and could rightly argue we were probably robbed of at least a point....seriously disappointed we didn't win but I'm really really proud of the effort

 

[Sithslayer1991]

Actually think Babbel did a great job on Perth yesterday we are 3-1 and controlling the game with a young squad when I thought we would be more defensive. Its only when popa introduces Castro that we looked in danger and of course our issue with closing out the game.

For arguments that the squad is better than what it is, Well my argument is that Perth  exploited the limitations of squad in centre of midfield because we need a DM. A hard tackler bully DM like La Rocca or Rostyn Griffiths hell I would take Mile Jedinak on Loan if we could. Because that is the type of player we sorely lack.

Mahazi well I have strong opinions on him and they have not changed he really does not have what it takes Jason Trifirio was better than him. No way he last longer than this season. 

[ZachMercer]

I just want to know how every game our 10 gets chopped to death, but we let virtually every other teams playmaker dance all over us. Do people forget that Castro is probably one of the highest rated imports in the entire league? Why the F we wouldn't bully the crap out of him is beyond me. Franjic was crap till he came on, and he turned him into a superstar.

[hawks2767]

Considering Perf had Easts humiliated by half time, I think that match was a lot better for us.

The usuals will be out laughing at those stupid minutes that cost us the match (Mack's twitter feed is great for bringing out the flogs) but for the first time in a long time i'm starting to see this future everyone is talking about, and it's bright. 5 players under 21 and 11 of 15 who come from the area / Academy.

 

 

[scarcev]

44 minutes ago, WSWFF said:

Personally I believe the current playing group if coached properly could be in a far better position than they are. Just because Babbel has said they are all **** doesn;t necessarily mean they are. Most have had decent careers prior to this guy taking control of them.

 

rubbish, which of our current playing group would be starters in either Victory, Perth or Sydney - NONE.  

[Burztur]

23 minutes ago, Sithslayer1991 said:

Its only when popa introduces Castro that we looked in danger and of course our issue with closing out the game.

Pretty much this. We had no answer to Castro so you can't blame Babbel for that.

[LeeMarvin]

4 hours ago, echidna said:

That it is an international melting pot of a truly Western Sydney kind, though one that would have been almost unthinkable even a couple of decades ago.

Now that we are starting to resemble the France national team we just have to start playing like them

[Sithslayer1991]

Also PS we lost Baccus to suspension for the next game. Massive loss I am hoping Tokich is fit because if we have Mahazi in the starting line up we are dead

[SBW]

1 hour ago, BohemianDublin said:

Dissappointing but a lot better.
Have we reached a turning point?
Are the team finally dancing to the new beat of the Babbel drum?

Yeboah, off to good start. Interesting how he squared lovely passes for goals 2 & 3 I think Riera (all about me) would have gone solo and fluffed both of them.
Fitzgerald's corners. Best since Ono. Every corner is now a goal chance.

It'll be interesting to see how we go from here on in.
Two games against Brisbane, Mariners, Jets and City.
And then we stuff up Easts Finals run in the penultimate game at SOP.

End of season celebration, away to Mariners.

But we have to STOP conceding the same goal every game, Perth's 3rd in behind our left full back. [Hamill slow to react, again?]

I think he put it to his young players to impress him and they have done brilliantly. I think this means that its upto the seniors players now to step up or they will be replaced by our younger players. Babbel has put our senior players on notice.

But in saying that, Suman commanded his box pretty well, he's not at fault for all 4 goals, 1st should have been disallowed, second one was a bullet header from Franjic (wtf is up with Franjic always scoring stunners against us?) 3rd one was just poor defending by both Hamill and Tarek, 4th one he couldnt do much about it.

Tats and Russell worked very well defending on the right hand side, Fitzgerald, Baccus, Kamau and Majok all stepped up and if we can give Majok and Kamau some proper development in terms of touch, control and a bit of end product in the off season to work with Yeboah up front and Baumjohann playing in behind them, I think we can be quite dominant with our front 3 having some electric pace.

There was a lot of promise shown yesterday by our young players, I hope Babbel can keep the faith in the young players against Adelaide on Friday night.

1 hour ago, theguyyouwishyouwere said:

Ono's corners were generally terrible weren't they?

They were floaters that can easily be defended against.

[Edinburgh]

4 hours ago, GunnerWanderer said:

Vedran could go **** himself suman had the best performance I think a keeper can have whilst coping 4 goals

Not one of those goals is his fault 

babbel has to start him or you send the wrong message 

Also like I said last week it doesn’t matter how many we score the other team gets one more 

was a great game just heartbreaking to get nothing from it 

 

Definitely worth repeating 

[FCB]

Most encouraging and at the same time most painful result of the season.

Very young and inexperienced team. Tass (2 HAL appearances), Suman (2), Russell (3), Majok (7). Makeshift No 10. JoD off injured. Four imports missing. Under "normal" circumstances we'd expect a hammering. Instead, we get to ponder if VAR and ref robbed WSW of a draw or win. Or if we can expect the squaddie-grade players Hamill and Elrich to provide leadership at the back and defend the lead.

With Ziegler on the pitch instead of Hamill we would have won the game, despite everything else. Not long now for Cordier to start, Tarek seems more and more depleted as the season progresses.

Classic Babbel press conference. Impartial refs: I've given up on that idea years ago. WSW and MB can expect mail from FFA, something about "bringing the game into disrepute". As MB says: here is an opportunity for the journos to shine.

Big broom required to sweep out most of the senior players. The established HAL grade players have all been found out this season. One costly mistake after another - for me the biggest disappointment this season. In the meantime the young guys are performing. A reboot with Ziegler, Treejack, Yeboah plus the young guys we've seen in recent week will be a good start. Throw in three/four imports of the same quality that Babbel has signed so far and we'll be laughing.

 

 

 

[StringerBellend]

1 hour ago, ZachMercer said:

I just want to know how every game our 10 gets chopped to death, but we let virtually every other teams playmaker dance all over us. Do people forget that Castro is probably one of the highest rated imports in the entire league? Why the F we wouldn't bully the crap out of him is beyond me. Franjic was crap till he came on, and he turned him into a superstar.

 unfortunately we don’t have the players to bully anyone, our midfield is tiny. 

We need a DM with some presence and size. 

[SBW]

4 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

 unfortunately we don’t have the players to bully anyone, our midfield is tiny. 

We need a DM with some presence and size. 

With a bit of aggression and leadership to add to that.

[BoyFromTheWest]

Yes, WSWFF, I am happy with Babbel.  I'm not sure I can remember seeing such a young, inexperienced team without marquee and only one visa player and 2 really older experienced players (Roly and Elrich) play so well against the top of the league team.  These 5-6 young players (21 or younger!) are playing with class - they need much more development, but each one can hold their head high.  Babbel and the staff/academy... have worked with them, developed them and they are playing with confidence and skill.  We led the league leaders and were overcome by one of the best players in the A League, plus several ex-socceroos and very experienced players.  Their bench had players that would start in any other team.  Yeboah has had 3-4 training session smax and is fitting in very well.

His Press Conference was good and he pointed to the good and bad in himself, his team AND the refs.  I am concerned that after 6 years of our club, 5 with Popa and then 1 with Gumby, there is little to show for our club culture.  Whilst Popa built a great culture in the first few years, he lost it all with his radical squad overhauls.  We lost players who understood WSW and Western Sydney - sadly, there was little left of Popa's tenure (except some silver ware, which is appreciated!!).  Gumby never understood the culture and worked hard to remove any remnants.  We are building a new team and rebuilding a culture - slow work to recover from teh debacle of Popa leaving and Gumby riding rough-shod.  BUT the academy is definitely showing where the future lies and it doesn't look all bad!!

[BoyFromTheWest]

6 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

 unfortunately we don’t have the players to bully anyone, our midfield is tiny. 

We need a DM with some presence and size. 

We also get pulled up when we do try it.  Why do we get yellow cards when we collect other AM's and other teams get encouragement when they do it?

Having said that, I thought we overwhelmed SFC's midfield for 22 minutes before the famous brainsnap.  We also dominated last night until Castro puled strings.

[beatsurrender]

One constant remains throughout the world of football and will for evermore. Losing teams are never happy with referees.

[Davo]

21 minutes ago, beatsurrender said:

One constant remains throughout the world of football and will for evermore. Losing teams are never happy with referees.

It’s almost like having referee decisions go against you increases the chance of you being the losing team.

[Sithslayer1991]

Its interesting to note that for the entire second half majority of Perth attacks were done our left side. I think Popa noted Elrich as our weakness because I don't remember a successful attack on Tate Russel side apart from that Diego Castro magic run. Hammil was also the one winning majority of the crosses and headers in defence for us as well.

[SBW]

42 minutes ago, beatsurrender said:

One constant remains throughout the world of football and will for evermore. Losing teams are never happy with referees.

I'm more than happy to cop the loss on the chin if the ref doesn't determine the outcome of the game like yesterday, we had a lot of BS calls go against us yesterday and in other games. We didn't deserve the loss yesterday, a draw would have been a fair result.

[hughsey]

6 hours ago, Dmtd said:

Bring back Strebre Delovski , the only ref I ever had any trust in ......ohhhh and jimmy the Greek ( reffed in the Granville districts comp ) 

 

Hahaha Jimmy loved making it all about himself

[SBW]

6 minutes ago, Sithslayer1991 said:

Its interesting to note that for the entire second half majority of Perth attacks were done our left side. I think Popa noted Elrich as our weakness because I don't remember a successful attack on Tate Russel side apart from that Diego Castro magic run. Hammil was also the one winning majority of the crosses and headers in defence for us as well.

One thing about Hamill is that he gets into good positions to clear and/or play the balls out but he has a very poor reading of play and gets caught out defensively by putting in poor and clumsy challenges like he did last night and the game against the Nux.

[Davo]

On the Babbel discussion, I had my reservations and concerns about him but if anything this game has gone a long way to convincing me he’s on the right track.

One of my concerns is that he hasn’t changed a game. He seems to stick to the same lineup and formation and doesn’t change anything when were losing. This week he was forced to shake things up because of injuries and players out of form and he showed that he can adapt and get something out of his youth and fringe players. Previously the excuse was that he didn’t have the depth on the bench. Yesterday showed that if we trust these players they’ll perform. Hopefully this was a bit of an eye opener for him and he’ll use this moving forward. Also it should be an eye opener to some of the senior players. There are a bunch of hungry kids that will run through walls to take your spot.

The other issue I had was that he was overly critical of his players in public. Yesterday’s post match presser was much better IMO. He talked up the good things we did and the youth players while still being realistic and acknowledging that playing great for 70mins isn’t enough.

[Bellby]

Yeh I’m still not entirely sold on MB, the last two weeks have been a definite improvement which he deserves credit for. Was a great call bringing on Majok for O’Doherty when I would of bet my house on Mahazi coming on.

I personally didn’t think it was the right move taking off Fitz mainly because we looked a threat at set pieces & we were looking solid in the middle of the park until the change, but I can understand he wanted a more defensively minded CM to shut up shop. 

[wendybr]

40 minutes ago, Davo said:

On the Babbel discussion, I had my reservations and concerns about him but if anything this game has gone a long way to convincing me he’s on the right track.

One of my concerns is that he hasn’t changed a game. He seems to stick to the same lineup and formation and doesn’t change anything when were losing. This week he was forced to shake things up because of injuries and players out of form and he showed that he can adapt and get something out of his youth and fringe players. Previously the excuse was that he didn’t have the depth on the bench. Yesterday showed that if we trust these players they’ll perform. Hopefully this was a bit of an eye opener for him and he’ll use this moving forward. Also it should be an eye opener to some of the senior players. There are a bunch of hungry kids that will run through walls to take your spot.

The other issue I had was that he was overly critical of his players in public. Yesterday’s post match presser was much better IMO. He talked up the good things we did and the youth players while still being realistic and acknowledging that playing great for 70mins isn’t enough.

100% this! 

[sonar]

The first 13 rounds of last seasons and this seasons coaches......

Gombau ( His first 13 games )
Played 13 / Won 4   /   Drawn 3   /   Lost 6   /   Goals Scored 12   /   Goals Conceded 24   /   Goal differential -12   /   Points 15

Babbel
Played 13   /   Won 2   /   Drawn 3  /   Lost 8   /   Goals For 17   /   Goals Against 27   /   Goal Differential -10  /   Points 9

Edited January 14 by sonar

[beatsurrender]

2 hours ago, Davo said:

It’s almost like having referee decisions go against you increases the chance of you being the losing team.

No  just seems that way. When you're under the pump the likliehood of incidents in and around your box increases. The pressure is greater.  

There's no directive from the FFA against the Wanderers.  

Human nature to want to point the finger. Suits a 'we woz robbed' narrative. My opinion the referees are pretty inconsistent. The VAR still needs work but is better and less obtrusive than earlier.  But there's no conspiracy against the Wanderers. 

Remember the ACL finall? Maybe we used all our credits on those 2 penalty decisions!

[Erebus]

4 hours ago, ZachMercer said:

I just want to know how every game our 10 gets chopped to death, but we let virtually every other teams playmaker dance all over us. Do people forget that Castro is probably one of the highest rated imports in the entire league? Why the F we wouldn't bully the crap out of him is beyond me. Franjic was crap till he came on, and he turned him into a superstar.

Because every little touch a WSW player does is considered a foul or a yellow. Whereas opposition players have been hacking legs and elbowing heads of WSW players and getting away with it all season.

Look at the ridiculous yellows we got last night and yet Yeboah gets elbowed in the head and Lowry got off scott free.

[thefairy]

No trolling. Hear me out.

I think we are cursed. Seriously. The good karma we got during our ACL got all used up and now we have to pay back tenfold.

You know the final destination movie. I think the same thing is happening with WSW.

After winning the ACL, WSW has been **** from year to year.

It's like we weren't meant to win ACL and in this universe we glitched the system and won that god damn thing.

Now because we won it, some unseen force is creating complicated chains of cause and effect to 'balance' out the glitch.

How many times have you seen the ball just refuse to get into the net? Or all the bad calls from VAR and refs.

 

I think the only way to end this suffering is to fold the club.

Edited January 14 by thefairy