A couple of those names are already in the squad, some of the others tried and failed previously and others playing at a lowish level. I think we need to be a bit realistic here, while (perhaps) Hudson should have done some tweaks, he is vastly more qualified as a coach than everyone on here. Look at who we have available, Thomas, Wood and Reid are our only real performers in the mix. Everyone one else is either playing in a weak league or cant even make the top team. The likes of Rojas and Kosta failed in their overseas stints and others played like stinkers all year in the A League. I just dont think we have the talent to do any better and Hudson (or anybody else for that matter) cant polish a turd.
It's a BS argument that Hudson knows what he's doing because he's a qualified and experienced coach (because no football coach at pro level has ever fudged up badly right?). Any other equally qualified coach would have kept picking Dyer? Or to just focus on this squad, would have picked Rufer over Ridenton? Or left Gleeson out? Or chosen to play a 5-3-2 with wingers as CMs? This team is just not set up to play to our strengths or minimise our weaknesses. It's possible to get international teams to be more than the sum of their parts - look at Iceland and Northern Ireland. Sure they've got better players than us to draw on but still a lot worse on paper than teams they have done better than.
Yes we are weak and we don't have players at a good level in key positions but we could do better than this. We could at least be compact and hard to break down. We would still probably lose every game but we could have some pride.
There's an element of self fulfilling prophecy to this whole"we are shark" argument. It basically means we can never question a shark performance because the excuse will always be "what do you expect, we are shark?" Rather than asking if it is possible to be less shark.
For what it's worth if I was in charge of this team I'd play a 4-3-3
Gleeson
Roux - Boxall - Smith - Doyle
Themi - Tuiloma - WeeMac
Rojas - Wood - Thomas
Sit deep, try to counter attack at pace down the wings. WeeMac can be more adventurous on the left, Roux on the right. Our creative wingers are then in a position to actually trouble defenders, running at them from deep. Wood is used as a poacher instead of a target man. Our defenders should intuitively grasp their positions better because everyone is used to playing 4 at the back. Themi and Tuiloma in midfield would give us more steel, and in possession they would just aim to get it wide early and along the ground.
Now that's never going to happen but obviously Hudson's 5-3-2 hoofball isn't the only way we could possibly play.
