VAR Steals 3 Points For Adelaide

[Posthoc]

27 minutes ago, FCB said:

The match report on the HAL web site shows just how out of touch us WSW supporters are.

There was not off side, there was not penalty call. There was no picture perfect free kick of Roly. There was no WSW side without Treejack, Riera, Ziegler, Baccus, JoD, Risdon, Bridge, and Yeboah coming off injured. There was no Jacobsen killing a WSW attack by embarrassing himself, playing dying swan, and being booed off the pitch. There was no Lia deliberately stomping into his opponents' ankle with this studs (it brought back memories of Saba being sent off for hitting the ball).

No, ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbours. According to John Greco's write up it was all about Goodwin who "shone brightly". See? Who would have thought? What do we know? Next time when it's match day I might just watch a re-run of the Muppet Show. That way I won't get confused as to what is real, what isn't, and keep my sanity.

https://www.a-league.com.au/news/western-sydney-wanderers-adelaide-united-analysis-reaction-a-league-anz-stadium-top-six-finals

 

Don’t often agree with what you say, but this one and the previous one just above, I think you nailed it.  Well said

[Posthoc]

2 hours ago, beatsurrender said:

Yes we have got the wrong end of the pineapple regarding officiating decisions lately but there's no bias. Does anyone think there is a conspiracy to see us fail? Really? Why? For what purpose? 

And how? Is David Gallop going round whispering in ears. "Youve got the Wanderers tomorrow mate, make sure you stuff it up for them".

Our squad simply isn't good enough. 

I honestly don’t think it’s the execs, the Gallops etc, I do however believe that KGJ and a number of officials do have something serious against us

[Davo]

Can’t wait for their weekly article reviewing the refereeing.

My prediction is for the penalty they’ll use their standard cop out and say it wasn’t a “clear and obvious” error so they stayed with the original decision, and for the offside they’ll say it should have been given offside but provide no explanation as to why it wasn’t reviewed or what will be done about the referee. Or they’ll go full FFA and not mention the offside at all in the article.

[Potkorok]

47 minutes ago, FCB said:

The match report on the HAL web site shows just how out of touch us WSW supporters are.

There was not off side, there was not penalty call. There was no picture perfect free kick of Roly. There was no WSW side without Treejack, Riera, Ziegler, Baccus, JoD, Risdon, Bridge, and Yeboah coming off injured. There was no Jacobsen killing a WSW attack by embarrassing himself, playing dying swan, and being booed off the pitch. There was no Lia deliberately stomping into his opponents' ankle with this studs (it brought back memories of Saba being sent off for hitting the ball).

No, ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbours. According to John Greco's write up it was all about Goodwin who "shone brightly". See? Who would have thought? What do we know? Next time when it's match day I might just watch a re-run of the Muppet Show. That way I won't get confused as to what is real, what isn't, and keep my sanity.

https://www.a-league.com.au/news/western-sydney-wanderers-adelaide-united-analysis-reaction-a-league-anz-stadium-top-six-finals

 

Quote of the years contender!

[Potkorok]

And note FFA didn’t get Jake Windon to do the write up coz he is a Wanderers supporter who also manages to write unbiased material coz he’s a good writer

Edited January 18, 2019 by Potkorok

[Edinburgh]

3 hours ago, beatsurrender said:

I see Mack has borrowed Maurizio Sarri's laptop 

I don't think they checked the goal for some reason. There were no VAR light's at the game. Had they checked it would have been disallowed. 

 

I'm pessimistic enough about the obvious referees bias to think that's why it wasn't reviewed. 

[marron]

I don't get the tactics of the first half. It's weird.

I mean, we've been frustrated that Babbel hasn't changed, before the injury crisis and the necessity of playing the kids.

But, they're the kids! They need stability. There have been hugely positive signs the last couple of weeks. Why didn't he **** with things earlier, when we were ****, and why did he **** with things, when we've been better? It's odd.

As for VAR, they got slammed for overusing it, now they've gone in the other direction, and we just keep getting stuffed by it.

I would LOVE to see stats on the calls that have gone the different teams way.

If people are pissed about it, write to FFA and tell them you're not going anymore and why. Don't put in conspiracy stuff, they'll chuck it in the bin. But tell them there is no point in going because it's a crap shoot in terms of whether or not they apply things from week to week and you're sick of it.

[Edinburgh]

2 hours ago, beatsurrender said:

Yes we have got the wrong end of the pineapple regarding officiating decisions lately but there's no bias. Does anyone think there is a conspiracy to see us fail? Really? Why? For what purpose? 

And how? Is David Gallop going round whispering in ears. "Youve got the Wanderers tomorrow mate, make sure you stuff it up for them".

Our squad simply isn't good enough. 

Is our squad good enough to win the league? No.

Is there referee bias? Yes. I don't know why they are so extremely biased but the evidence is there for all to see. The derby offside decision could only be made if their purpose was to find a reason, any reason, to disallow the goal rather than check for an obvious error. The Perth match and last night are just the latest in a litany of similar bias.

[Edinburgh]

1 hour ago, Swarth said:

season 3 we got an ACL, how many trophies have we won this season?

Irrelevant.

[Zelinsky]

13 minutes ago, Posthoc said:

I honestly don’t think it’s the execs, the Gallops etc, I do however believe that KGJ and a number of officials do have something serious against us

Look no further than Graham Arnold.

The last time when a major call went our way in a derby was in S2, when Ono (?) had a penalty awarded (which Bridge consequently missed). Farina was their coach. Then came S3, Rd2, and Arnie had organized the Jericho brass band to hype up the game. Saba got a red card for kicking the ball, and things have never been the same since.

I am convinced that what we've been seeing over the last few years is the result of Arnie being in the ears of his mates in the media, within FFA etc. He trained up his ankle kickers, but was crying foul as soon as one of his boys was on the receiving end. It worked. KGJ has always been a Smurf, the soil for anti WSW sentiment was fertile. That Babbel was sent off in his first game in Sydney while Arnie was allowed to strutting his stuff for years - it says it all, in my view.

It's interesting the Babbel suggested in the post game presser that, by him speaking up against refs last week, he might be responsible for a backlash from the referees. Words to that effect. That's unheard of, and I wonder if and how FFA will react to this.

[Edinburgh]

52 minutes ago, Davo said:

Can’t wait for their weekly article reviewing the refereeing.

My prediction is for the penalty they’ll use their standard cop out and say it wasn’t a “clear and obvious” error so they stayed with the original decision, and for the offside they’ll say it should have been given offside but provide no explanation as to why it wasn’t reviewed or what will be done about the referee. Or they’ll go full FFA and not mention the offside at all in the article.

Or there won't even be an article for this round, and if there is our match won't have any decisions requiring comment 

[BrightSpark]

1 hour ago, Posthoc said:

I honestly don’t think it’s the execs, the Gallops etc, I do however believe that KGJ and a number of officials do have something serious against us

I don't pretend to know why this is happening.

It could be the FFA? - Gallop and his 'fish where the fish are' strategy only works if the 2 (now 3) teams in a city are 'evened out'. If 1 team takes over most of the city then it doesn't work and you're better off with a regional team instead. (IMHO we should have more regional teams, not made up teams (SWS), but that's a seperate topic).

It could be conscious bias? - we know from painful experience that KGJ isn't fair to us. And maybe some other refs think we're just Westie 'scum'?

It could be subconscious bias? - ref goes into a game thinking that the lower ranked team must be making more mistakes. Though good refs know how to over come this bias, and make each call on merit.

Our it could be (very unlikely) Al Hilal are still pissed with us and paying off the refs against us.

Who knows?

 

The question for us fans is - what do we do for the rest of the season?

I can't blame anyone if they've had enough of this farce (VARce), and are sick of going out to SOP.

But that's not how I feel about it.

What I've always loved about this club is that even if the chips are stacked against us we always fight.

In our 1st season we were told we'd be lucky to avoid the wooden spoon, but we fought and fought and fought and ended up Premiers.

All throughout the ACL campaign we were told that we couldn't win. Including in the final where we were told we were nothing but a small club. But we fought and fought (against even frigging lasers) and by the end of 90+ minutes we were the biggest club in Asia.

And I love the RBB who rain or shine (or hail or thunderstorm) sing for 90 minutes. But what I really love is their ethos that if you score against us, they won't drop their heads. They'll just sing louder.

Well I think that if you score against us even with the assistance of the ref, that we should just sing louder. And that if you blunt our attacks with the assistance of the assistant ref, then we should do what we did last night and boo them louder.

Don't give the opposing team, the refs, the FFA or the Eastern suburbs media anything.

And give our team (even when we are fielding a bunch of kids) everything.

If we are going out this season, I'd rather die on my feet then live on my knees.

And that way, next season I can walk into Wanderland 2.0 with my head held high.

[Zelinsky]

48 minutes ago, marron said:

I don't get the tactics of the first half. It's weird.

The answer comes at 2:50 https://www.a-league.com.au/video/full-press-conference-markus-babbel-11

A back three, if executed well, would have caused the Reds "massive problems", but the players were just too tired for that. It backfired.

[wendybr]

On ‎19‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 1:22 AM, BBB said:

We have only missed 3 home games since the first ever home game, and I know that the boys need all the support they can get at the moment, but the complete bias of all of the match officials has gone too far now. I will not be attending any more matches this season. Congratulations Ben Wilson and Kris Griffiths Jones, you have turned away another Wanderers supporter from the game.

Some positives for me - the pregame gathering with some formites, and some great moments on the pitch by the kids. In such a makeshift squad, I thought there were some positive signs for the future, for sure.

The biggest negative (apart from the incompetence of the referees - which can be maybe excused as human error, and the inexplicable inconsistencies of the VAR which CANNOT be given any such benefit of doubt) was the behaviour of numerous "supporters" around me.

Constant heckling of our own players, who are battling under difficult and probably rather humiliating circumstances, disgusts me. How on Earth does being heckled with sarcastic comments, and actually being laughed at very audibly if they make a bad decision, assist a player to find confidence?????

Last night's experience as a member of the crowd took me back to countless days on the sidelines of SFC games. TBH it was worse, in terms of the insults and derision being slung at our players, by a wider number of people.

I absolutely could not blame people for not attending the last few games at SOP. I'm in two minds as to whether we shouldn't do it as a way to reinforce our dissatisfaction with the level of incompetence with the officiating, but accompanying that action with another letter writing campaign, such as many of us undertook a few seasons ago, to explain why this action was  being taken.

But if "supporters" think that they are doing anything other than compounding the problem by jeering at/mocking our own players for the entirety of the game, I hope they definitely decide not to return for the rest of this season.

My 2 cents worth

 

PS My comment wasn't directed at BBB at all! His post just touched on 2 issues I felt strongly about - ie offering support as well as protesting the officiating.

[EmMac]

3 hours ago, Erebus said:

 

There might not be a conspiracy and our players are definitely not good enough most of the time. But crucial decisions that can change a game are going against us which have a compounded effect because those moments are so important for us to get a result.

It's beyond a joke now.

 

You've said it better than i did.

[Edinburgh]

22 minutes ago, wendybr said:

Some positives for me - the pregame gathering with some formites, and some great moments on the pitch by the kids. In such a makeshift squad, I thought there were some positive signs for the future, for sure.

The negatives (apart from the incompetence of the referees - which can be maybe excused as human error, and the inexplicable inconsistencies of the VAR which CANNOT be given any such benefit of doubt) was the behaviour of numerous "supporters" around me.

Constant heckling of our own players, who are battling under difficult and probably rather humiliating circumstances, disgusts me. How on Earth does being heckled with sarcastic comments and actually laughed at very audibly if they make a bad decision assist a player to find confidence?????

Last night's experience as a member of the crowd took me back to countless days on the sidelines of SFC games. TBH it was worse, in terms of the insults and derision being slung at our players, by a wider number of people.

I absolutely could not blame people for not attending the last few games at SOP. I'm in two minds as to whether we shouldn't do it as a way to reinforce our dissatisfaction with the level of incompetence with the officiating, but accompanying that action with another letter writing campaign, such as many of us undertook a few seasons ago, to explain why this action was  being taken.

But if "supporters" think that they are doing anything other than compounding the problem by jeering at/mocking  our own players for the entirety of the game, I hope they definitely decide not to return for the rest of this season.

My 2 cents worth

I feel for you Wendy having to put up with those "supporters". I'm glad to say that wasn't the scenario where I was sitting.

[Prydzopolis]

12 hours ago, hughsey said:

Genuinely legitimate penalty shout not given despite that kind of foul being awarded regularly anywhere else on the pitch in any game. 

The thing that annoyed me was that the referee had a very very good game aside from this call but just made this pretty massive error.

How VAR did not intervene is bewildering, I don’t understand when there was no contact with the ball & such a clear foul. Yet they review an ambiguous penalty call in the Wellington game.

The issue is that nothing will happen, neither referee responsible will face the consequences of there actions.

[wendybr]

33 minutes ago, Edinburgh said:

I feel for you Wendy having to put up with those "supporters". I'm glad to say that wasn't the scenario where I was sitting.

Well...I'm very glad to hear that!

I put up with it from 3 guys (the worst of whom looked and sounded like he was on day release from Long Bay - until he went too far and got a stadium ban) for our first 3 seasons at Pirtek. They led the Dino abuse, and the abuse of Popa for playing Dino, until the tide turned, and Dino received the support of a stadium full of people - lol.

It's horrible to now have a dozen "experts" in their own minds - a number of them shrill voiced young women, who seem to think they are God's gift to football, who yell "tactics" or sarcastic comments "That's right...go back to the keeper....that's it...back to the keeper....YESSSS! Well done!"

I had to bite my tongue not to ask the most vocal of them when she had received her professional coaching qualifications, tbh.

And the sad thing is,  with the silence around us, despite the efforts of the distant RBB (and good on them for their continuing efforts ) we are close enough to the pitch for this ongoing drivel to be clearly audible to the players.

Honestly, people do not attend football games to have their supporter neighbours screeching inane comments in their ears all game.

Sighhhhhhhh.

[BeefB]

12 hours ago, mack said:

The biggest giveaway here is the linesman (AR) is not in line with the last defender! How can he tell an offside or not. Granted these guys play at a high tempo (speed) and I'm not saying that I would be any better in keeping up to be in the right positions every time (granted I'm almost 48!!) but these guys are professionals and this clearly isn't good enough.

Also VAR - why weren't they involved. It's just farcical as to when & how they get involved (if at all). Anyway I'm off to do 2 AR jobs this evening !!!

[Edinburgh]

8 minutes ago, wendybr said:

Well...I'm very glad to hear that!

I put up with it from 3 guys (the worst of whom looked and sounded like he was on day release from Long Bay - until he went too far and got a stadium ban) for our first 3 seasons at Pirtek. They led the Dino abuse, and the abuse of Popa for playing Dino, until the tide turned, and Dino received the support of a stadium full of people - lol.

It's horrible to now have a dozen "experts" in their own minds - a number of them shrill voiced young women, who seem to think they are God's gift to football, who yell "tactics" or sarcastic comments "That's right...go back to the keeper....that's it...back to the keeper....YESSSS! Well done!"

I had to bite my tongue not to ask the most vocal of them when she received her professional coaching qualifications, tbh.

And the sad thing is,  with the silence around us, despite the distant RBB efforts (and good on them for their continuing efforts ) we are close enough to the pitch for this ongoing drivel to be clearly audible to the players.

Honestly, people do not attend football games to have their supporter neighbours screeching inane comments in their ears all game.

Sighhhhhhhh.

Hmmmm, the Dino story and now, the common denominator is you? 

Sorry! 

[WandererinAmsterdam]

1 hour ago, wendybr said:

Some positives for me - the pregame gathering with some formites, and some great moments on the pitch by the kids. In such a makeshift squad, I thought there were some positive signs for the future, for sure.

The negatives (apart from the incompetence of the referees - which can be maybe excused as human error, and the inexplicable inconsistencies of the VAR which CANNOT be given any such benefit of doubt) was the behaviour of numerous "supporters" around me.

Constant heckling of our own players, who are battling under difficult and probably rather humiliating circumstances, disgusts me. How on Earth does being heckled with sarcastic comments and actually laughed at very audibly if they make a bad decision assist a player to find confidence?????

Last night's experience as a member of the crowd took me back to countless days on the sidelines of SFC games. TBH it was worse, in terms of the insults and derision being slung at our players, by a wider number of people.

I absolutely could not blame people for not attending the last few games at SOP. I'm in two minds as to whether we shouldn't do it as a way to reinforce our dissatisfaction with the level of incompetence with the officiating, but accompanying that action with another letter writing campaign, such as many of us undertook a few seasons ago, to explain why this action was  being taken.

But if "supporters" think that they are doing anything other than compounding the problem by jeering at/mocking  our own players for the entirety of the game, I hope they definitely decide not to return for the rest of this season.

My 2 cents worth

 

PS My comment wasn't directed at BBB at all! His post just touched on 2 issues I felt strongly about - ie offering support as well as protesting the officiating.

I have to agree with you wendybr, I've been to a few matches this season now where the heckling is getting remarkably specific and cutting of individual players - I get that people are frustrated with the results at the moment but we are close enough to the pitch that we can see the faces of the players - they are frustrated too. This season has been hard to watch not just for the result of the team, but the behaviour of some of the 'supporters' (and I say some because usually it is a small handful) and the poor fan attendance (fair enough for a number of reasons - seriously a Tuesday night at SOP, I know I've ranted about that before but seriously it is just the icing on the cake) has just made it worse. 

Anyway sorry to hear about it last night - I was sitting in a somewhat quieter location (not hard when attendance was less than 10% of capacity).

Oh and tl;dr re VAR - get their s*** together or can it already.

[DamnedUnited]

I so don't like Elrich. Sotirio and he need to be flipping burgers at some truck stop in Dubbo. It's their calling. 

[wendybr]

7 minutes ago, WandererinAmsterdam said:

I have to agree with you wendybr, I've been to a few matches this season

Quote

now where the heckling is getting remarkably specific and cutting of individual players

- I get that people are frustrated with the results at the moment but we are close enough to the pitch that we can see the faces of the players - they are frustrated too. This season has been hard to watch not just for the result of the team, but the behaviour of some of the 'supporters' (and I say some because usually it is a small handful) and the poor fan attendance (fair enough for a number of reasons - seriously a Tuesday night at SOP, I know I've ranted about that before but seriously it is just the icing on the cake) has just made it worse. 

Anyway sorry to hear about it last night - I was sitting in a somewhat quieter location (not hard when attendance was less than 10% of capacity).

Oh and tl;dr re VAR - get their s*** together or can it already.

Lo l- yes - that's what I'll need to do next time....or I will end up tooooo tempted to say something. And I don't want to.

 

PS

Quote

now where the heckling is getting remarkably specific and cutting of individual players

The clearest instance of this was when they were heckling Tarek, close to the sideline. WE couldn't see from his perspective what his options were, but HE obviously had no one in front of him to  safely pass the ball to. So with their "Go on...pass it back to the keeper..." for the third of fourth time, and his lack of options, he DID pass it back to the keeper. And they cheered! 

Then...Tarek's  shoulders slumped, he dropped his head, and he looked defeated. He would have clearly heard their heckling.

Why do supporters heckle opposition players?

To disrespect them, and hopefully to rattle them, and undermine their confidence.

So why do people think doing the same thing to their own players  is likely to achieve anything other than undermining them?? It's far worse to do it to your own players, than to do it to the opposition. It's counterproductive.

And it almost invariably comes from people who quite obviously have only the most rudimentary understanding of the game (not that I claim to have anything more than that myself).

[wendybr]

4 hours ago, DamnedUnited said:

I so don't like Elrich. Sotirio and he need to be flipping burgers at some truck stop in Dubbo. It's their calling. 

Lol - I hadn't seen this post before I typed my last. But I know it wasn't you doing the heckling near me!  

[Burztur]

It’s just rubbish that they got a clear and obvious errror and it was simply brushed aside and ignored 

[Prydzopolis]

38 minutes ago, Edinburgh said:

I feel for you Wendy having to put up with those "supporters". I'm glad to say that wasn't the scenario where I was sitting.

To be honest, I don’t mind if it was a little cynical. My Nonno had a saying “it’s better to laugh than cry”, I’m not saying it excuses the abuse or the loud criticism of our players but laughing with my brother quietly, more in jest at the culmination of circumstances that seemed to have hit our season is fitting. Sometimes when things go this bad, it’s better to laugh maybe not in a menacing way but in exasperation whether it be a Majok first touch, a goal from the opposition who seem to score from there first chance 30 minutes in, celebrating the crowd guessing competition or another bad referee call.

I know we have one guy behind us who constantly gives **** to our players from the first few games at ANZ. I gave him some words along the lines of “you can say whatever you want after the game but while you are here you need to support the players”. He no longer sits behind us, maybe he moved next to you

On referee conspiracy: Nothing seems to be going right for us, not just rub of the green but clear cut black & white decisions.

It’s not bias or conspiracy, although it’s easy to think this way when it comes to referees. It comes down to ineptitude, they just aren’t good enough.

12 hours ago, lloydy136 said:

I truly detest the VAR and never wanted it but if we are going to have it, how can it possibly not be used to overturn that goal!!!!!! It just baffles me and it's just such a hollow feeling to lose a game in that fashion.

The problem we have is the referees behind the VAR, if we had apt referees with ability we wouldn't be having these issues. They just aren’t good enough, it’s not just the younger referees either but the more experienced ones too.

12 hours ago, Unlimited said:

Can’t wait for the next instalment of the Whistle where they say that the offside was clearly 100% correct

This is what shits me the most, where they tend to find any excuse to explain blatantly wrong decisions. The Keogh decision last week was explained away as “sufficient contact to bring him down” which is just a blatant lie. They’ll use anything to excuse mistakes. It’s great that they have an article like this every week explaining big decisions but what’s the point if they try to find a way to justify a decision that was so wrong that you don’t even need any knowledge of the game to know it’s bullshit.

I can see something for the offside as “they had a different camera angle or the line they used on the TV broadcast was not straight”

4 hours ago, lloydy136 said:

The 343 or whatever it was, was a huge mistake.

Players were so confused as to who was meant to mark who - especially out wide. The formation forced the wingbacks too high and they pushed their wingers into the space behind. It meant that every time we lost the ball goodwin had a 15 metre head start on russell - led to first goal and a couple of other chances. Also had a big gap between defence and mid with no holder in front. This isn't europe and MB needs to realise that our players aren't equipped to handle changes like this.

I am in the minority on this one but I applaud some tactical innovation of MB’s part on trying to impact the game by using some tactical changes to our team. It’s been 2/3 of the season & we haven’t seen any changes to our team, from a manager with pedigree I think this is poor,

Don’t get me wrong, if we are winning, playing well, outplaying our opposition each week then there is less onus on the manager to change the system. This is the complete opposite to what is happening right now. I feel that these systems need to be worked on in training for weeks before being implemented otherwise it turns out to be a disaster.

If we have been playing every 3 days since Christmas, I don’t see where the players would have the time to practice this on the training pitch. Much of the time would be working on recovery, travel & light sessions for the players.

On the actual game:

I do agree expecting your wing back to play so high up the field but at the same time expect him to cover a winger was not going to work well, especially with Adelaide switching between a counter attacking game & regularly beating the press.

The two biggest issues I saw was with the midfield being overrun so easily. (1) Once they broke the press our two man midfield was bypassed so easily. (2) The other issue was with the 3 CB unable to pick up or at least identify which of the runners from deep was there man. To say that he got the tactics wrong is an easy answer, I feel it more comes down to execution & been underprepared.

4 hours ago, FCB said:

This is S3 stuff, when bodies were falling apart, and we signed injury replacements for injury replacements. Yesterday we saw Mahazi as AM, the return of Sotirio, and even Raul in central midfield. Big sigh. That is bottom of the barrel territory.

But in S3 we did not have youth players to fall back on. Cordier had a good debut, Suman does ok, Tass is a good CB, majok a versatile forward, and tate plays like risdon should have been playing for the last 18 months. 

Another injury, hope yeboah will be back sooner rather than later. Again only one import on the pitch, and sloppy Roly had a really convincing game in the middle. 

Re: Use of the squad this season (and this is more of a general comment):

(1) It is partially forced with injuries & requiring our youth players to be promoted to play (2) Right from the beginning of the season he promised to play our youngsters if they were better than the more experienced players (3) We are playing for nothing this season, might as well use the second half of the season to not just prepare the youngsters for next season but to pick out which ones are worth keeping & which ones to let go. (4) The balance of the squad always meant with a few injuries we were always going to have to rely on our younger players. (5) We had a 50/50 split in our squad, you aren’t going to win trophies when relying on young players to take control of a game or win key moments or remain mentally strong, it is very hard to rely on these younger players when they don’t have the experience for these moments.

Take into account the factors above: It was always going to be an uphill battle, right from the first minute of our first game but explains MB expectation that we’ll be lucky to pick up a point in the next few games.

You can’t blame the players in the last few games, all we want to see is the players putting in some effort & playing with a bit of heart.

Re: Injury crisis, unfortunately it’s too late for our new fitness guy to make much of a change. All the work preseason & early season shapes a players body for the season ahead. The players bodies can’t handle it.

4 hours ago, Erebus said:

We won the ACL when it was like Rd3 of S3. The rest of the season we suffered with a ridiculous schedule and injuries.

 

Same thing next week. Tues away in Melbourne and Friday away in Brisbane. Wtf makes these draws.

I disagree, highlighted one of the issues with fitness above but the other is how Australian players can’t cope with two games a week & has been happening since our inception. We play a 28 game season, it just isn’t enough for players. I think it is something else for our managers who actually need to rotate to use the majority of the extended squad rather than just a 15 man squad.

This is a mentality shift that needs to change in Australian football & one that I feel that MB has been trying to change in our players minds since he arrived. It is also a spectator issue too, we are not used to midweek football, it is something that does not change overnight. Ratings have not been good.

3 hours ago, Sithslayer1991 said:

nothing more to add to be honest. Positives youth having a shot and Babbels fashion sense

The only issue I have with his fashion sense is that the Australian football media are spending too much time focusing on what he is wearing & bypassing the bigger issues of our game.

[Prydzopolis]

23 minutes ago, wendybr said:

Wendy long post on heckling players for there actions

My favorites are:

(1) Shout at the player to shoot from a long distance with a low percentage reward & then get angry when they miss. Or get angry that they should have taken the unlikely low percentage shot

(2) Similar to the Elrich pass situation: Player has the ball but few options ahead of them (1) Get angry at players for making the pass, passing backwards or sidewards to retain possession (2) Player makes a low percentage pass or worse the miracle ball which ends up in the oppositions possesion & still get angry even though you were shouting at them to make the pass 

There are actually legitimate times to get annoyed like: silly fouls where a player is going no where & they commit a really stupid careless soft foul that allows the opposition to relieve pressure; players lack of ability to control the ball with a first touch not just once but multiple occasions, at this level  

I quite enjoyed it last night when Cordier didn’t run with the ball into space, crowd got annoyed but the next time it happened, he got a push of encouragement, ran into space & took on the defense.

[Prydzopolis]

Touching on the youth players, how good is it to see these guys not just get a run but play well.

Tate had probably his worst game last night but has been a breathe of fresh air, been absolutely outstanding. No way he shouldnt get in the team ahead of Lorente, Elrich & Risdon; Cordier, I can see why he hasn’t got a run before this game, great talent not quite ready yet; Tass has been outstanding, he should be starting over Hamil & Elrich once Ziegler returns. Also, steps into midfield & plays like a boss  ; Majok, exciting talent. I know people want to give him a chance to grow into the role but that first touch really annoys me. Especially at this level  ; Suman, he isn’t quite ready yet but head & shoulders above Nizic plus there is something up with Vedran, give him some time out of the spotlight & give this young kid s go.

[Potkorok]

I tend to agree that the issue is incompetence on behalf of the officials rather than conscious bias (although on KGJ I’m not so sure...). However, the only thing that really gets me into conspiracy mode is the famous derby victory in which we stopped the Smurfs from going undefeated. Am I going senile, or was there an apology to Sydney FC to the effect of “the officials missed a penalty call and we’re terribly sorry you were defeated” or some such drivel ? Didn’t Annie then feel entirely justified in continuing to claim that they really were still undefeated? 

[BohemianDublin]

Pre match we went to a different Korean BBQ place in Lidcombe.
Geez it was bloody good, cheap and had nice beer. I knew it was going to be the best part of the night.

Were Adelaide wearing our best every away kit design?
Were we assuming that Marcelo Bielsa had a spy at the game and we were attempting to double cross him?
Can somebody please talk to Kamau about END PRODUCT. I like the guy. He's good. But release quicker.

Positives are
Fitzy. Cordier. Tass. Russell.
There's something about Yeboah - cult hero 2021.
Roly's free kick - it'll be a few seasons before we see one that good.
Fair play to the RBB, the percussion section especially.

In 12 months time, when we're basking in the glory of derby wins, regular 25k+ crowds and the pleasant ambiance of Parramatta,
the drabness of lacklustre rubbish in front of 7,000, will seem like a distant memory.

Our team will rise again, if only to spite the begrugers.