R3 other games - #BRIvSYD

Broich injured in the warmup - could be a late omission to the side. TAB odds on Sydney look very good if he's out.

He's in the starting line up. Sydney are playing Abbas at left back.

What's happened to Brisbane? They look terrible. Cue big Roar win ...

Roar look well off the pace... they'll probably win by 3 now

Henrique is one fat bugger now. We might have missed his good years and now seem him trotting around in his decline. Shame really.

He can be as fat as he likes if he's scoring goals like he did last week. I'd have him in a Nix shirt in a heartbeat.

Jeepers

Wow. Fluke or not that was a great finish.

Good feet for a big man?

Finally shows some real class. Been a damp squib until now.

When you consider that Sydney have both Gameiro and Brosque and that they also have a marquee striker who can do that you'd think we'd be entitled to ask a few questions as to why we haven't even got one striker...

abbas has made 2 or 3 really good crosses. Roar aren't testing his defensive qualities either. He's having a good game then...

he should  have made it a pen to make it interesting...

Double jeepers

And this guy called Smeltz who is apparently fit but is outside the squad. 

2-0 now. I feel sorry for that goalkeeper - he might get blamed for both goals but his defence could have supported him way better.

Interesting to see Brisbane. They don't seem to be the same in the final third. (compared to previous years)

Sydney, as I feared, are finally a power. All it really took was Graham Arnold to sort them out. Scary really. The discpline and team work of his old CCM team but with more quality around the park.

Roar for the spoon!

They do look frighteningly good tonight but it's a bit hard to gauge because Roar have been so woeful. They have constantly turned over the ball in their own defensive third and have shown no intensity at all.

I don't pretend to understand the complexities of the salary cap but it is mystifying to me how Sydney manage to get that squad under the cap.

I made this.

Arnold recruited well. Del Piero held Sydney back because they built their team around him and he wasn't there enough. Now they have a far more balanced attacking line up. 

Matt McKay is a big loss for Brisbane as is Franjic. Kurtisi seems to be a bit of a flop but Brisbane had to play without Berisha a lot last season. Broich clearly isn't 100% out there either. Brisbane are still one of the competition's better teams I think when they get everything together.

Brosque and Janko are both marquee players.

I honestly believe Berisha is in the top 5 A-League players ever and when you have someone that good you get wins you don't deserve sometimes

O FML. Really? And throw in Ibini too and yep. well. In Brosque and Smeltz you have two of the best A league strikers. Gameiro and Ibini are up and comers and this Austrian lad hit a good 'un today. 

Still I guess Graeme Arnold is just class, really. And Sydney is an attractive destination.

Salary cap AUD2.55mn

Divide by 23 man squad average 110k

If you use all 3 marquees (overseas, aussie, youth), each of them on big money, then divide by 20 average jumps to 127k

If you assume each youth player is on 70k then the average for your remaining 17 players goes up to 137k.  That's the average.  You can afford to pay pretty decent wages right across the squad even to your cap guys

Cheers, so that bumps it up so average of 141k

Which is why we have historically run lower squads.

We have some things in our favour though - you would imagine the Kiwi players would be cheaper than their Australian counterparts, we also now have the youth team player allowance.

I was also reading that McGlinchey is our domestic marquee so at least part of his wages are outside of our salary cap.

McGlinchey isn't marquee as far as I know. Wikipedia claims he is but in this case I feel wiki is wrong. The only source they provide for him being a marquee player is Phil Moss saying:

"With McGlinchey, it is a shame to lose a player of his calibre. But he has gone to a very big deal. He’s a marquee at Wellington, and I believe both Football New Zealand and Phoenix combined to make things happen." 

That is hardly good enough evidence.

That keeping ...

England second division keeper, I do not expect anything. England never had good keepers, as far as I remember, maybe in the olden days.

Define "olden days"

By that do you mean Banks, Bonetti, Clemence, Shilton, Woods, Seaman, Robinson?

I would like to thank the TAB for that free money.

Actually he played in the 6th tier last year.

Have money on the Victory to win!!! good idea or bad?

In the official match day squad lists put out by the FFA this week he was listed as out with a groin injury. Whether the injury is real or not, he has to be part of the registered 23 players to appear on that list.

Free money. Heart are ordinary.

Streamy Streamerson?