Wellington Woes For Wanderering ACL Champs

we aren't bayern munich - we can't just rotate the squad after continental efforts and walk over koln or whoever 3-0 with a weakened side.

 

look at the way clubs like everton and swansea have gone - the exertions of european football meant that they struggled in the domestic campaign - and they don't have a salary cap or long haul flights.

 

despite the result I thought yesterday was a success.......

 

- fofannah looked good and not out of his depth at all - I thought he also worked hard without the ball and managed to keep our shape most of the time. very impressive for a young guy with his attacking talent who probably has never had the words defensive discipline said to him until he met popa. the more he plays this year the better.

- castelen if he can stay fit is too good for this league - he is hersi 2.0 and then some. he will be better for the run out

- adeleke ran out of steam in the second half a bit but as I posted in the match thread his strong tackling will suit the a-league brilliantly and I am excited to see him and bridge work together - bridge cuts in like he does and adeleke overlaps and runs the line. d'appuzzo and golec have both struggled to do this consistently (golec does it better than d'appuzzo did)

 

to me the biggest negative is our lack of distribution from out of central midfield. hopefully a fit saba can help with this.

 

goals for the season need to be adjusted i think - 3rd/4th to get a home final and to get out of the acl group.

Agreed lloydy,

 

I think 3rd/4th and a home final is a good goal to set, I would settle for top 6 this season.

 

I'd be aiming higher in the ACL though, depending on who we may lose/pick up around that time. I think we will be looking very good by seasons end and into next season.

to be fair we have pretty much always had a poor record against wellington, i forget the first year but our second year record against them was not ideal

Remember we have 4 Home Games in a row after Perth Away.

I wasn't expecting much from this fixture but good to see players getting a run and more plusses than minuses as all the newcomers will improve. My expectations this year can only be a top 6 spot and then the capacity to surprise. In a salary capped league the distractions of the ACL run, World Club Championships then another ACL campaign are just too much to expect a top 3 finish, particularly as the teams likely to finish in the top 3 have no ACL distractions.

 

We'll be much stronger for this and I reckon we'll get at least 1 point at Perth next week.

 

Do we still have room for a marquee player?

Jet lag can take up to two weeks, when I travel back from Europe to Australia it ALWAYS hits me the hardest, with this said, from next week no more excuses we start with a win and a streak of wins. Watch this post.

 Let's not make excuses for us, let's just perform at the highest level we can throughout the season, we have to think that these are the types of problems that clubs who aspire to be the best will face 

I know there's plenty of more games left, but lets not beat around the bush, we had the team and the opportunity to win both those games, and we failed.  Im sure wins are coming 

 Positive from yesterday was Nikita Rukavytsya, What a gun!!!

To tell you the truth, although we had the opportunities I would say that we didn't play good enough to win, maybe draw but not enough to win,

Do we still have room for a marquee player?

No squad is now full (even with the injury replacement to Santalab), in regards to what you said, let's go out and play the best we can in each game and get the best result we can in each game. We know Popa will rotate the squad so he will be keeping everyone fresh, let's not make excuses people!

we aren't bayern munich - we can't just rotate the squad after continental efforts and walk over koln or whoever 3-0 with a weakened side.

 

look at the way clubs like everton and swansea have gone - the exertions of european football meant that they struggled in the domestic campaign - and they don't have a salary cap or long haul flights.

 

despite the result I thought yesterday was a success.......

 

- fofannah looked good and not out of his depth at all - I thought he also worked hard without the ball and managed to keep our shape most of the time. very impressive for a young guy with his attacking talent who probably has never had the words defensive discipline said to him until he met popa. the more he plays this year the better.

- castelen if he can stay fit is too good for this league - he is hersi 2.0 and then some. he will be better for the run out

- adeleke ran out of steam in the second half a bit but as I posted in the match thread his strong tackling will suit the a-league brilliantly and I am excited to see him and bridge work together - bridge cuts in like he does and adeleke overlaps and runs the line. d'appuzzo and golec have both struggled to do this consistently (golec does it better than d'appuzzo did)

 

to me the biggest negative is our lack of distribution from out of central midfield. hopefully a fit saba can help with this.

 

goals for the season need to be adjusted i think - 3rd/4th to get a home final and to get out of the acl group.

100% agree with your comment about rotating the squad and expecting our squaddies to play as if they have been playing week in week out so we have to temper expectations when many are getting into form and best players in midfield weren't playing.

 

Interesting you praised Fofanah and rightly so but didn't link our midfield problems to him? I know it is a bit of the above, (his second game for us, 16 YO, not his preferred position or didn't even play that position in NYL last week) but he really was missing as the link between our DCM and our wingers/striker. Really hope that we can nag third, the longer it takes for us to get going the harder it will be to secure that spot!

 

 

Im not concerned about the losses yet...

 

We will eventually come good once our players are back and fully fit

tell you what though, every single fan of other teams are lining up to add their $0.02

 

We must have really gotten under their skin for them to be like this

Nothing more that Australians love to do then to shred and criticise a winner. It's like the great ol' Aussie past time.

 

Stay loud and proud. It just pisses tall poppies off more.

 

What's even better is that so many of our fans live with their heart on their sleave and bring a 'my team can do wrong mentality' even the face of utter demolition do I read our fans saying "Blame the ref, they pick on the Wanderers"

 

God dam I love how loud and abrasive we are as fans. Most hated club in the A-league. Wouldn't have it any other way!

Agreed lloydy,

 

I think 3rd/4th and a home final is a good goal to set, I would settle for top 6 this season.

 

I'd be aiming higher in the ACL though, depending on who we may lose/pick up around that time. I think we will be looking very good by seasons end and into next season.

I'll thiord that, if we finish 3/4th, we will have done well. It's never easy playing catch up, and unfortuanely we will be doing it all season. The real tests will be the home matches, these are games we will have to win. All the travel means we can't expect miracles on the road. Lacklustre/strong home performances will be the break or make of our domestic season. If we finish 3/4th (a home final), then anything is possible from there.

To be honest I would accept a 6th place finish on goal difference right now, but I still very much expect us to finish somewhere between 4th and 6th, that would be a real achievement this season.

 

My view is also that I think this could get a little worse before it gets better, Perth will be another very tough ask but we are capable of surprising of course. Just feel we need that first point to get us on our way and a draw in Perth would not be a bad result and would set us up nicely for the CCM home game.

 

It is at times like this my Middlesbrough supporting back ground serves me well   ***** I have known nearly 40 games in a season where only 2 have been won and relegated with 2 months of the season left  

Edited November 8, 2014 by WSWBoro

It's been mentioned before but at this point in our league winning season we were in last, only one point better off but having not scored a single goal.

 

We were well and truely outplayed by Victory in round one but we were a dodgy offside call away from winning the derby and last night could have gone either way.

 

Look at our season one squad and our squad today. All the players that are still here are playing as well as, if not better than they did two years ago as they've learnt Popa's system. Golec and Adeleke are an upgrade on D'Apuzzo. Spira is an upgrade on Meggsy. Saba is a different kind of player to Ono so it's hard to compare but I'm happy with him. Juric and Santalab are upgrades on Dino and Gibbs. Castelen looks to be an upgrade on Hersi. Ruka can play plenty of spots and he's class. Alessi, Perkatis, Sotirio, Fofanah and Lo are all older and more experienced. The only player we haven't fully replaced is Polenz.

 

Add in that we've played 3 of the top 4, all away from home and in the space of a fortnight we'll travel over 30,000kms.

 

Popa's not worried. That's why he's being his normal self in the press conferences. No excuses, no sooking and praise for the opponent. I remember in past seasons he picked games where he expected points and games where he'd rest players and be ok with a draw (see some of the b teams he's sent to Perth). I'm sure he came into these first few rounds with a plan.

 

we aren't bayern munich - we can't just rotate the squad after continental efforts and walk over koln or whoever 3-0 with a weakened side.

 

look at the way clubs like everton and swansea have gone - the exertions of european football meant that they struggled in the domestic campaign - and they don't have a salary cap or long haul flights.

 

despite the result I thought yesterday was a success.......

 

- fofannah looked good and not out of his depth at all - I thought he also worked hard without the ball and managed to keep our shape most of the time. very impressive for a young guy with his attacking talent who probably has never had the words defensive discipline said to him until he met popa. the more he plays this year the better.

- castelen if he can stay fit is too good for this league - he is hersi 2.0 and then some. he will be better for the run out

- adeleke ran out of steam in the second half a bit but as I posted in the match thread his strong tackling will suit the a-league brilliantly and I am excited to see him and bridge work together - bridge cuts in like he does and adeleke overlaps and runs the line. d'appuzzo and golec have both struggled to do this consistently (golec does it better than d'appuzzo did)

 

to me the biggest negative is our lack of distribution from out of central midfield. hopefully a fit saba can help with this.

 

goals for the season need to be adjusted i think - 3rd/4th to get a home final and to get out of the acl group.

100% agree with your comment about rotating the squad and expecting our squaddies to play as if they have been playing week in week out so we have to temper expectations when many are getting into form and best players in midfield weren't playing.

 

Interesting you praised Fofanah and rightly so but didn't link our midfield problems to him? I know it is a bit of the above, (his second game for us, 16 YO, not his preferred position or didn't even play that position in NYL last week) but he really was missing as the link between our DCM and our wingers/striker. Really hope that we can nag third, the longer it takes for us to get going the harder it will be to secure that spot!

 

 

yeah fair point on my inconsistent argument re: fofanah. he is not the player to control tempo and run a midfield - at least not at this stage of his career. he has VERY quick feet and good movement w/o the ball His run that led to the chance in the first half that got smothered by fenton was an example.

 

we miss shinji's guile and composure in midfield. saba/bridge/fofanah all have their qualities but are not in the same mould. for all the criticism he copped - mooy had the ability from DM to pass the ball 30m onto someone's foot and transition us quicker. when everyone is fit spira to DM would be my suggestion to improve the ball retention and transition in midifeld.

It's a different ballgame now in the aleague. We are expected to force the play more rather than sit back, which naturally suits us at the moment.

 

It's a new challenge for the group and Popa. While it can be incredibly frustrating to watch, I for one will enjoy watching our team go through this fascinating process.

 

Let's get behind them as they do.

 

 

we aren't bayern munich - we can't just rotate the squad after continental efforts and walk over koln or whoever 3-0 with a weakened side.

 

look at the way clubs like everton and swansea have gone - the exertions of european football meant that they struggled in the domestic campaign - and they don't have a salary cap or long haul flights.

 

despite the result I thought yesterday was a success.......

 

- fofannah looked good and not out of his depth at all - I thought he also worked hard without the ball and managed to keep our shape most of the time. very impressive for a young guy with his attacking talent who probably has never had the words defensive discipline said to him until he met popa. the more he plays this year the better.

- castelen if he can stay fit is too good for this league - he is hersi 2.0 and then some. he will be better for the run out

- adeleke ran out of steam in the second half a bit but as I posted in the match thread his strong tackling will suit the a-league brilliantly and I am excited to see him and bridge work together - bridge cuts in like he does and adeleke overlaps and runs the line. d'appuzzo and golec have both struggled to do this consistently (golec does it better than d'appuzzo did)

 

to me the biggest negative is our lack of distribution from out of central midfield. hopefully a fit saba can help with this.

 

goals for the season need to be adjusted i think - 3rd/4th to get a home final and to get out of the acl group.

 

100% agree with your comment about rotating the squad and expecting our squaddies to play as if they have been playing week in week out so we have to temper expectations when many are getting into form and best players in midfield weren't playing.

Interesting you praised Fofanah and rightly so but didn't link our midfield problems to him? I know it is a bit of the above, (his second game for us, 16 YO, not his preferred position or didn't even play that position in NYL last week) but he really was missing as the link between our DCM and our wingers/striker. Really hope that we can nag third, the longer it takes for us to get going the harder it will be to secure that spot!

 

yeah fair point on my inconsistent argument re: fofanah. he is not the player to control tempo and run a midfield - at least not at this stage of his career. he has VERY quick feet and good movement w/o the ball His run that led to the chance in the first half that got smothered by fenton was an example.

 

we miss shinji's guile and composure in midfield. saba/bridge/fofanah all have their qualities but are not in the same mould. for all the criticism he copped - mooy had the ability from DM to pass the ball 30m onto someone's foot and transition us quicker. when everyone is fit spira to DM would be my suggestion to improve the ball retention and transition in midifeld.

100% agree and well said, yes we miss Mooy's quality but his inconsistency was a problem. I can definitely tell you I'd much rather trifiro on how much we've been paying him to the Mooy we saw in the last six months of season 2 and his salary demands. I think, Spira needs to play CB as opposed to DCM, yes he will work in one off circumstances but he needs to be playing regularly at CB if he is going to be playing for Australia in the Asian Cup. Love the Shinji = saba + bridge + Fofanah, so true!!

 

Jet lag can take up to two weeks, when I travel back from Europe to Australia it ALWAYS hits me the hardest, with this said, from next week no more excuses we start with a win and a streak of wins. Watch this post.

 Let's not make excuses for us, let's just perform at the highest level we can throughout the season, we have to think that these are the types of problems that clubs who aspire to be the best will face 

I know there's plenty of more games left, but lets not beat around the bush, we had the team and the opportunity to win both those games, and we failed.  Im sure wins are coming 

 Positive from yesterday was Nikita Rukavytsya, What a gun!!!

To tell you the truth, although we had the opportunities I would say that we didn't play good enough to win, maybe draw but not enough to win,

Do we still have room for a marquee player?

No squad is now full (even with the injury replacement to Santalab), in regards to what you said, let's go out and play the best we can in each game and get the best result we can in each game. We know Popa will rotate the squad so he will be keeping everyone fresh, let's not make excuses people!

we aren't bayern munich - we can't just rotate the squad after continental efforts and walk over koln or whoever 3-0 with a weakened side.

 

look at the way clubs like everton and swansea have gone - the exertions of european football meant that they struggled in the domestic campaign - and they don't have a salary cap or long haul flights.

 

despite the result I thought yesterday was a success.......

 

- fofannah looked good and not out of his depth at all - I thought he also worked hard without the ball and managed to keep our shape most of the time. very impressive for a young guy with his attacking talent who probably has never had the words defensive discipline said to him until he met popa. the more he plays this year the better.

- castelen if he can stay fit is too good for this league - he is hersi 2.0 and then some. he will be better for the run out

- adeleke ran out of steam in the second half a bit but as I posted in the match thread his strong tackling will suit the a-league brilliantly and I am excited to see him and bridge work together - bridge cuts in like he does and adeleke overlaps and runs the line. d'appuzzo and golec have both struggled to do this consistently (golec does it better than d'appuzzo did)

 

to me the biggest negative is our lack of distribution from out of central midfield. hopefully a fit saba can help with this.

 

goals for the season need to be adjusted i think - 3rd/4th to get a home final and to get out of the acl group.

100% agree with your comment about rotating the squad and expecting our squaddies to play as if they have been playing week in week out so we have to temper expectations when many are getting into form and best players in midfield weren't playing.

Interesting you praised Fofanah and rightly so but didn't link our midfield problems to him? I know it is a bit of the above, (his second game for us, 16 YO, not his preferred position or didn't even play that position in NYL last week) but he really was missing as the link between our DCM and our wingers/striker. Really hope that we can nag third, the longer it takes for us to get going the harder it will be to secure that spot!

I'm not making excuses. It is what it is, players got off a flight from half way across the world and it's going to affect them 100%.

4 days ago

You can train them up to be physically strong. You can pay them as much as they desire and you can satisfy all their physiological needs.

 

But you need sleep, even the best can't escape jet lag.

I'm looking at these first few matches of ours, as our pre-season.

 

This is the first time our current squad and players are ACTUALLY playing together.

 

Due to one reason or another - our squad as it stands at the moment, didn't get that chance in the actual pre-season.

 

 

 

Bring on the matches, once we start playing at home!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The future's bright y'all!! 

 

 

Im not concerned about the losses yet...

We will eventually come good once our players are back and fully fit

tell you what though, every single fan of other teams are lining up to add their $0.02

We must have really gotten under their skin for them to be like this

Nothing more that Australians love to do then to shred and criticise a winner. It's like the great ol' Aussie past time.

Stay loud and proud. It just pisses tall poppies off more.

What's even better is that so many of our fans live with their heart on their sleave and bring a 'my team can do wrong mentality' even the face of utter demolition do I read our fans saying "Blame the ref, they pick on the Wanderers"

God dam I love how loud and abrasive we are as fans. Most hated club in the A-league. Wouldn't have it any other way!

ausralians are bad losers and bad winners that why we can expect more of this.

Agree Megs ^^^ I liked how we played last night , probs should've been a draw. Only 3 games in , jet lagged and with new guys starting. We will be there for the finals , 3rd or 4th finish . No need for panic!! Trust me , I'm a doctor............

 

 

 

Im not concerned about the losses yet...

We will eventually come good once our players are back and fully fit

tell you what though, every single fan of other teams are lining up to add their $0.02

We must have really gotten under their skin for them to be like this

Nothing more that Australians love to do then to shred and criticise a winner. It's like the great ol' Aussie past time.

Stay loud and proud. It just pisses tall poppies off more.

What's even better is that so many of our fans live with their heart on their sleave and bring a 'my team can do wrong mentality' even the face of utter demolition do I read our fans saying "Blame the ref, they pick on the Wanderers"

God dam I love how loud and abrasive we are as fans. Most hated club in the A-league. Wouldn't have it any other way!

ausralians are bad losers and bad winners that why we can expect more of this.

 

 

Yes and no. A lot of Australians are just puppets of the media.

 

If the media says 'X is bad' Everyone just follows suit. Even in "positive" media articles the media just keeps spinning because it generates hate from other teams.

 

It astounds me when people on this website say "Our fans generate bad media", when it was the media that chose that angle and to report us in the first place.

 

The media. Not even once.

I am not going to criticise too much but our problem against Wellington was our midfield. For a start tricky Trifiro was sitting way too deep and just couldnt get open, its a sign that Merrick also did his homework. Our normal passing lanes were being cut off. As for Trifiro when he was getting open(very deep) the players were not passing him the ball. Its almost as if the players dont trust him in posession. Oh well, only way is up.

The first 15 mins of the second half Wellington were effectively out of ideas and kicking long, their goal came from Bad decision by Mullen to come in - oh well **** happens

 

Not agreeing with this we miss mooy theory to the back end of last season mooy became second fiddle to Poljak and la rocca anyway.

 

We all know saba is the big key so when he doesn't play of course there is more focus on how Poljak and la rocca perform

Maybe last night la rocca and triffiro didn't light it up but were solid

 

I expect us to beat Perth next week. Cole will probably come in for mullen and saba will be back

 

Like many have said too much football to win the league this year just focus on getting in the 6 and won the 3 weekend lottery at the end

Edited November 8, 2014 by GunnerWanderer

Three consecutive losses in A-League away matches will soon be forgotten. They were the price to pay for winning the ACL.

 

Some of us criticise Bridgey much. With him or Saba up front it would have been a different performance.

 

Should Popa really leave at the end of the seaon (which I don't believe) then Merrick is the man I want. He transformed bottom dwellers into top three contenders. Great job by an excellent coach.

It was the white shorts

It was the white shorts

Agreed

To be honest I would accept a 6th place finish on goal difference right now, but I still very much expect us to finish somewhere between 4th and 6th, that would be a real achievement this season.

 

My view is also that I think this could get a little worse before it gets better, Perth will be another very tough ask but we are capable of surprising of course. Just feel we need that first point to get us on our way and a draw in Perth would not be a bad result and would set us up nicely for the CCM home game.

 

It is at times like this my Middlesbrough supporting back ground serves me well   ***** I have known nearly 40 games in a season where only 2 have been won and relegated with 2 months of the season left  

That must have been fun times!

 

It was the white shorts

Agreed

 

 

The **** white shirts haven't exactly been a lucky charm so far either lol

 

Bring back the red and white stripes!

Edited November 8, 2014 by WSWBoro

 

It was the white shorts

Agreed

 

Prefer the old away strip.... I know the new one is not all white but it looks all white, which I don't think is a good fit for our identity/culture.  However if we had won three out of three I'd probably be singing a different tune!

I am not sure what all the panic is about. Wanderers are only one point behind where they were this time in season one. And that didn't turn out too bad.

 

On a more serious matter: when the kiwis took their jerseys off to celebrate the goal, and stood there like a group of white pointers:

 

Did anyone else notice that there was at least one woman joining in the fun, braless? Or was I watching that scene through fapman glasses (the ones that distort reality)?

 

Pics or didnt happen?

 

 

I saw that as well.

Agree Megs ^^^ I liked how we played last night , probs should've been a draw. Only 3 games in , jet lagged and with new guys starting. We will be there for the finals , 3rd or 4th finish . No need for panic!! Trust me , I'm a doctor............