Adelaide Anguish

I guess one good thing. The result of the next game tonight will not impact our position on the table. 🤔

Carlo doesn't know his best team and cannot seem to get a consistent 90mins out of the players he does start with.

So frustrating and is a season killer if not sorted very soon...

6 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

Carlo doesn't know his best team and cannot seem to get a consistent 90mins out of the players he does start with.

So frustrating and is a season killer if not sorted very soon...

Duke and Kamau should have started instead of Yeboah or Cox. 

Once again poor first half and poor set piece defence cost us. We are consistently inconsistent. We can play. We just can't do it for 90 min. 

The match report and comments in the game thread confuse me. I just don’t see how the first half was much different to the second. Both halves we dominated possession and chances, had a zillion corners and lots of near misses. The only difference was we took some of the chances in the second half (and the crowd got involved) and they missed theirs.

Some of our issues remain the same as ever. Final ball and finishing.

The concerning thing is how many goals we’ve conceded lately while dominating possession. Don’t wanna break them all down now but Dylan McGowan was caught in no-mans land for the second one. One danger man in the box and he was nowhere near it. If Ziggy (the good one) was the closest man to that ball he’d have snuffed it out for sure.

Yeah all the players we have now - if any other team had that many we would be calling them cap rorters especially during this Period  of reduced cap. 

duke needs to have a run with mueller at least so we can see what they can do together I imagine we will see them Tuesday 

tonight was entertaining but we just seemed at times when defending everyone through the the next person has got this. Probably a good wake up call long way to go.

How many corners we end with 19? Amazing never threatened once! Where was the baccus back heel!

Threw away the points tonight

Had a good night out 

It's just tiring having multiple seasons spinning our wheels

17 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

Carlo doesn't know his best team and cannot seem to get a consistent 90mins out of the players he does start with.

I know we have a game on Tuesday but the chopping and changing can’t be helping. 
 

Plenty of time to go. Duke’s only been here a game, Much not at all. We’ll be smoking soon.

3 minutes ago, btron3000 said:

The match report and comments in the game thread confuse me. I just don’t see how the first half was much different to the second. Both halves we dominated possession and chances, had a zillion corners and lots of near misses. The only difference was we took some of the chances in the second half (and the crowd got involved) and they missed theirs.

Way I saw it was our intensity in the first half was once again too low when we were dominating, letting Adelaide off the hook too often, then only lifted in the 2nd half after we made the triple sub and were two goals behind.

I’d like to see Mutch given a start or more minutes instead of Baccus. Just don’t think the kid knows how to play the role or control a game. Runs a million miles an hour but so many goals conceded are from our defensive mids not tracking the runners. This was a unexpected loss, maybe one we had to have to drive a rocket up the players. I still think we are good enough to go all the way, but question marks over our mental toughness, defending starting to be raised. On a side note Troisi minutes should be all but be taken from him. Should have settled by now and showing us very little in my opinion 

It was a woeful first half. Schoolboy defence gave Adelaide 2 easy goals. We had no speed in transition from defence to attack and midfield was pathetic. Muller and Yeboah were all over the park doing nothing and we gave the ball away too easy when Adelaide pressed. The 2nd half was better once Muller and Yeboah went off but our finishing overall was 2nd rate. The referring was again poor and the A-League needs to clamp down on time wasting when it starts so early in the game.

We have the potential but need consistency and more effort from the strikers and midfield.

Margush doesn’t dominate his area, hence many of our set piece goals. 
 

mcGowan not pressing Mauk for the second, and Baccus cheaply losing the ball for the 3rd. 
 

Mutch looked like he plays a similar role to Dorrans, both sit behind the midfield and spray the ball around, while baccus is more box to box. How would they fare together? Maybe Tuesday we’ll see it. 
 

Wish Troisi/Muller influenced the game as much as Castro and Diamanti do.

To sum up the old story strikes again:

We made chances we just didn't score enough of them.

3 points dropped here

why on earth we are wasting 60mins with an impotent attack every week, whether that is Yeboah/Ibini or Cox/Yeboah, we seem to have nothing for the first 60mins of each match and nothing until the subs come on. I think Natta needs a rest, getting found out in defence last couple of weeks, no harm to him but he is a kid, doesnt help with another kid outside him in Wilmering, need to get a Georgevski or something out there with more experience on that side.  Game changed when Duke missed the 1 on 1, that goes in we win, unfortunately dont take your chances you dont win, thats football.  

The fact that the squad had 19 corners and couldn't get a goal from it is very disappointing. I know McGowan tried a few headers but his opportunities were poor and went over the bar.

I don't understand some of the substitutes at first but I feel the reason why Robbo did them was probably a strategy as he wants to rest a few players against City in the upcoming days. 

They were strong in the first quarter of the second half but then they just slipped again and that's how Adelaide got the third goal. 

I knew eventually the unbeaten run would end...but I didn't think it would be against Adelaide United. 

City is DEFINITELY a must win game

Went to game fairly positive. Left fairly frustrated.  We weren't awful but they converted their chances and we didn't.

We need to sort the finishing third for Tuesday 

One of the most frustrating games I’ve been to in a long time.

Baccus had one of his worst ever performances in a Wanderers shirt tonight, absolutely pathetic. All he had to do was take out Pacifique Niyongabire on the half way line and Mo Toure wouldnt have scored. It was their 2 fastest players and he caught up to him, should’ve taken his legs out and copped the yellow. Gave up possession all night, couldn’t string a pass. 

Gordon horrible tonight. First 2 goals his fault, such a stupid foul in the first minute and just randomly kicked it into their player for the 2nd. Missed an easy tap in.

Duke was poor, his goal will hide his poor performance. Missed a simple one on one, harder to hit it at the keeper after opening up his body, didn’t square it to an open Troisi (even though he made the keeper put it onto the post). Didn’t celebrate at all when he scored.

Kamau unreal, still think he is best off the bench, should probably start vs Heartless though. 

Wilmering will be one of our best leftbacks if he can defend a bit better. 

Mcgowan’s defending for the 2nd goal was attrocious and reminded me of him from last season. Missed about 3 headers from corners.

Muller is a good player, but sometimes takes too many touches on the ball. Should’ve put an easy header away in the first half.

Dorrans is always consistently good, didnt think he put a foot wrong.

Margush is such a good shot stopper but any time the ball is crossed or is in the air I feel we will concede most times. He seems half-hearted/unsure/not confident when trying to claim the ball.

People say Ibini puts no effort in but he was the only one switched on to set up the Duke tap it in.

Mauk is a diving prick, ref didn’t take control of the game at all, lots of missed yellows and missed fouls against us. Time wasting was pathetic and I have no idea how Delianov never got a yellow. Noah Smith fake injury was pathetic, the fact he wasted time by pulling his socks down and taking his shin pads off after being subbed was infuriating. 

Better team lost tonight. 

Baccus should have been hooked at 55 minutes. We needed more quality in midfield.

10 minutes ago, THEWANDERERSPOST said:

 

Better team lost tonight. 

 

My issue with this is that we say this almost every week and it is true.

How we turn these dominating performances into wins I have no idea. Maybe start putting our multitude of chances into the net perhaps? That'd be a good start.

FFS. Home from the game and I've still got the shits.

I hate breaking games down to the cliched “passion and desire” thing but it looked like Adelaide got stuck in more. Every chance we had they scrambled to stop it.

Their first goal was partly because Yeboah didn’t shut down the shot with any conviction. The second was after we let Halloran walk through the box then Mauk take a touch without McGowan closing him down. For the third Baccus should have brought the player down and taken the yellow.

Referee completely lost control of the Adelaide time wasting. I’ve never seen a keeper make the referee blow the whistle of four separate occasions for time wasting without booking them. Their keeper could have taken the ball at half time, got back on the plane to Adelaide and the ref wouldn’t have booked him for delaying the restart of play.

The one upside was the atmosphere after our first goal. Reminded me of the good times.

7 minutes ago, Davo said:

I hate breaking games down to the cliched “passion and desire” thing but it looked like Adelaide got stuck in more. Every chance we had they scrambled to stop it.

Their first goal was partly because Yeboah didn’t shut down the shot with any conviction. The second was after we let Halloran walk through the box then Mauk take a touch without McGowan closing him down. For the third Baccus should have brought the player down and taken the yellow.

Referee completely lost control of the Adelaide time wasting. I’ve never seen a keeper make the referee blow the whistle of four separate occasions for time wasting without booking them. Their keeper could have taken the ball at half time, got back on the plane to Adelaide and the ref wouldn’t have booked him for delaying the restart of play.

The one upside was the atmosphere after our first goal. Reminded me of the good times.

Yes, their keeper's time wasting got out of control. Couldn't believe the ref let it continue time after time without any consequence.

Lots of reasons for the loss being thrown around. 

Reality is,  we're not great,  very average. 

Not much better than last season it's looking. 

This was a horrible performance, how do you get 18 corners in the game and not score 1? Unbelievable! 

I don't know what's going on with our defending in set pieces but from what I have seen, no one is winning a header or winning a ball and margush is either rooted to his spot or is out of position trying to win the ball. This needs work.

And again our attack we are toothless, you can have possession, make the opposition work to get the ball off us but that counts for nothing if you're not scoring. I'm over these 'possession' football or even playing from the back, I want to us be more direct in attack creating chances, all I have seen from both Adelaide and Wellington were they they are just sitting back waiting for us to make a mistake while we are passing the ball around and they go on the counter.

Duke still looks rusty, Muller is not a no.10, Tate Russell needs to be patient with the ball and not try cross it on first touch, McGowan is a statue in defence, Baccus needs time in the bench, only positive I saw from this game is the Wilmering-Kamau connection.

Onto Melbourne Heart on Tuesday night

2nd game now we've had a substantial amount of crosses (43 tonight against Adelaide, 46 against Wellington) and only 2 goals to show for it. We're so wasteful in front of goal and not sure if Duke getting into form will solve this.

2 hours ago, sonar said:

Duke and Kamau should have started instead of Yeboah or Cox. 

Once again poor first half and poor set piece defence cost us. We are consistently inconsistent. We can play. We just can't do it for 90 min. 

I disagree, Kamau plays his best football as a sub, doesn’t seem to impress me when he starts 

Disappointed..and frustrated again.. Adelaide not a good team  but the  few chances they had they converted and we didn't until we were playing catch up and chasing the game....too little too late..

Failed again to take the game by the scruff of the neck . Slow in transition, more and more sideways play seems to be creeping into our play again, reminiscent of the last few seasons not much creativity. We are becoming predictable think other teams are starting to work us out.Most of the team had an off night tonight IMO.

Yep the time wasting antics were shocking and the ref didn't deal with it firmly enough. But let's be honest if they weren't up by 2 goals already by half time it wouldn't have been happening at all. That's on us...

Onwards and upwards on Tuesday. Let's hope the team turn up on Tuesday with their A game...

The first hour of the game we looked like a team of strangers. No communication, players going for the same ball all over the park and no flow to our play whatsoever. The second goal they scored, every Adelaide player in the box had enough time to make a sandwich while we just sat and ball watched.

The most telling moment was around the 55th min mark where Dorans had the ball on halfway and literally stood there for 5 seconds with it trying to find anyone who’d make some sort of run. He got nothing. 

Our first goal I thought was purely the result of a defence/goalkeeper miscommunication and we had about 5 mins either side of it that resembled something of a decent performance. The second goal to Bernies credit was him getting stuck in but that was the only positive from the game. Scoring two goals flattered us once again cause we definitely weren’t only one goal worse than them.

Several dozens corners and crossing opportunities yet all we could muster up was those pissy looping crosses that the goalkeeper collects easily or the first defender simply heads free from danger. May as well have handed them the ball. The amount of lazy offsides we got done on basically killed any other attacking opportunities we did manage to create. So frustrating to watch.

Infrequent glimpses of promise but overall disappointment - I thought the game basically summed up our season so far. Anyone who thinks we are a top 6 side is delusional in their bias - we are going to get swallowed once the teams below us start making up their games in hand and that result tonight just made that an even greater likelihood of happening.

1 hour ago, Westiesarebesties said:

I disagree, Kamau plays his best football as a sub, doesn’t seem to impress me when he starts 

We just tell him that there is a new FFA directive that the halves have been switched.....the second half is to be played first.   

My observations,

Yeboah with 20 minutes to go is ok definitely not a starter 

McGowan seems to have gone back to last years form in his 2 games back and I think he is not helping Natta who has been taught to many lessons over the last few weeks and does look a bit overawed by it all.  

Muller looks like he has lost a little interest or is carrying an injury, 

Baccus seems to be of his game a bit also the last 3 games he has given away some average passes

To have any chance at the title we need to score goals I think Duke, Kamau and Ibini will help make this happen. I am not so sure on our defense and not sure if Zeigler , Natta or Mourdakutis is a better choice than McGowan.  

I have a lot of faith in Carl Robinson but he has to start putting our best time on the park.

PS: it was bit sad to see the team booed of at half time all it did was remind of yesteryears. 

Oh my god some of the nonsense on here. I get it, people are frustrated we lost. But this stuff about this being a terrible game, we looked like strangers, we look like last year, they were more than one goal better than us, is all pure rubbish.

Possession 56% to 44%

Shots 26 to 14

Crosses 43 to 7

Corners 19 to 0.

We failed to take our chances, and we made some bad mistakes on defence, but if getting twice as many shots off and totally dominating crosses and corners is a terrible performance, well give me that any day. 

I swear some people think these guys are playing in the European Champions League, the expectations you have on them.

The last two games combined we had 46 shots, 31 corners, 25 crosses and managed to get the ball into the area from all of that 94 times. AU & WP had 29 shots, 33 balls into the area, and only 3 corners and 2 crosses combined. 

And we lost 5-4 on 'aggregate'. To the team that is last, and the team that was in 9th before tonight.

The better teams aren't going to let us rack up such gigantic numbers and our atrocious set piece defending makes it practically certain all you need is a handful of free kicks or corners and you'll score from one.