FCB

The day when any HAL club can approach any game against any EPL or championship side with genuine ambitions of "seeing them off" is far off - if it ever comes. MB is "optimistic" that we'll have a "good team" next season, which means a team that can compete with the big guns for the title. Let's hope that he has reason to be optimistic. We'll know soon enough. We can expect to see the bulk of this S8 "good team" against Leeds. It won't be a load of kids. The game is too important for that.

Edit: add baccus and suman to that list. That'll be 18, give or take. That should be enough.

I'd say three or four new imports, aussie Patrick, two to four new local players, maybe one or two unexpected remainers, Duke, yeboah, kamau, elrich, JoD's injury replacement, tate, Tass, grozos. Something like that. Also, we still don't know if the number of imports will be increased, and if there will be changes to the cap. The fog will start to lift same time next week.

Not impossible. Nail the five import spots, and life gets easier for everyone. Key is to have two marquees to free up funds under the cap for other quality imports, and to not waste money on average senior players if they are inferior to juniors. Saying that: I can understand if the owners are reluctant forking out money for marquees. The marquees after Ono and Spiranovic were, in general, questionable, or a waste of money.

He told us his thoughts in just about every press conference, no secrets there. He is lucky that he only got to watch this season. He missed out on Borda, Pinates, Jumpei, an error prone Dimas in his second season, Neville's deliveries, Bulut, Clisby, Melling, Pepper, redmayne, tyson. Goodness gracious. The three football years since the last game at Parra have been the longest in my life, for all the wrong reasons.

We started the season with these over-23 players: Hamill, Elrich, Kamau, Ziegler, Bridge, Risdon, Janjetovic, Nizic, Mahazi, Baumjohann, Llorente, Riera, Roly, Mahazi, Sotirio. They were the guys who were supposed to deliver the goods, and carry the squad. I can only see Ziegler as starting player next season.

@Mack Thanks for compiling this, it makes for depressing reading. Add R1 to that list when Riera missed a sitter for the 2:1. Two more points lost. And then there was the whole VAR/ref debacle in R2, where Roly missed a sitter, two goals disallowed, and penalty not given... I maintain that, with Ziegler fit for most of the season, Riera actually doing what a marquee striker is meant to be doing, and Janjetovic avoiding just the biggest **** ups, we'd be comfortably in the top half. Vedran's derby red card ripped the guts out of the team and the season, we never really recovered. Most depressing season so far, missed opportunities left right an centre.

He didn't need to, he had JP next to him to help with the HAL specifics. But yes, the differences between th HAL and European setups were quite surprising to him. The Janjetovic clown show alone had the potential to rock his belief in the foundations of football professionalism. Gombau and JT signed all Aussie players before MB took over. JT signed an AFL fitness coach. In hindsight, club should have put an end to the Baccus snr debacle at the beginning of the calendar year. None of this kind of historical BS will be allowed to continue on.

It's more a matter of holding on to good players, rotating squaddies is not an issue. Club and Popa were pissing about when it came to pay rises for andreu an Alberto. We signed Pinatares and Borda instead, and Jumpei for Castelen. We watched as ikonomidis and antonis signed for others, and ended up with Herd and Fitzgerald. We let vidosic go. The list goes on. MB has never seen such a poor group of players all his professional life. That'll change, and we all can take comfort from that.

Let's see: They didn't hire an AFL fitness coach and ended up with way to many soft tissue injuries. They had a goal keeper and a goal scorer. Their main CB wasn't injured most of the season, they didn't forget to sign an injury replacement, and they didn't field makeshift lineups all season. They didn't have two kids run midfield, and had two squaddies playing CBs for most of the season. They didn't start the season with toothless wingers. They didn't start the season with too few senior players, had too many of those being injured or not up too scratch, and they weren't forced to play up to 5 youth players in the most congested phase of the season. They had a coach who signed players, while our coach mainly worked with what he inherited. The majority of their squad wasn't told prior to their Rd 26 game that they would not be at the club two weeks later. In a nutshell, Krishna scored the goals that Riera didn't score, their GK did the opposite of Janjetovic, and their defense sat tight all season. That's the difference between 8th and 5th spot.

About 12 of the senior players to leave, and deservedly so. We can sign another five imports once the Ziegler passport situation is sorted. Add Georgievski, and we will want to sign another six or so local players who are better than what we have now, but the market appears to be empty. Interesting times ahead.

Or take him to hospital so he can sort out his concussion. MB said in the presser that Hamill could not see the ball any longer, and that there was no point in keeping him on.

MB: [Mariners] were running and fighting, and that was enough today to beat us. [The red card] was an Attentat {= assassination attempt). [Hamill] said he can't see the ball anymore. We have to do a lot. Most of the players have been here two years now, and we finish 7th, 8th, so we have to change something. [...] We have to bring quality and especially mentality in.

You do realize that this is pure speculation, right? We are in fantasy football territory here! The young guys on your list won't come. Too expensive. Of the older guys: Adler had problems with his knee, after this season he is either calling it quits, or going overseas. We are talking about a GK here who, 10 years ago, was ahead of Neuer in the NT. The HAL is yet to see a GK like him. Comes with a price tag though, so I won't hold my breath. Rensing will renew at Duesseldorf, and would have been too expensive. Kirschbaum (3rd or 4th GK at Leverkusen) would be excellent. He is on the move, but I'd say too expensive still, especially with the Janjetovic/Nizic/cap situation. Daniel Haas is much more realistic. Represented Germany at youth level, played BL 1 and 2. Has worked with MB in Hoffenheim. Should be a bit tired of sitting on the bench at his current BL2 club with two GKs ahead of him. Sattelmaier is a BL2/3 grade player, IMO good enough for the HAL. In summary: tIFwe are in the market for a German GK, if MB is convinced of his man, and if MB can convince the player, the Daniel Haas would be my guess. But again, this is fantasy football.

I do recall walking up that blasted hill on a cool evening, in the pitch black, at end of S3 perhaps? Once we reached the summit we stopped, caught our breath. A few people exchanged a few words of the F bomb kind with the hills dweller in the building to the left, the guy who seems to appreciate certain smoke-able substances. Then the drums started rolling, and flares were illuminating the night sky as we walked downhill towards the ground.