We defended well for a long time. We didn’t get bullied by Leckie.
We got bullied by MacLaren, though.
This is against the best team in the competition, the best funded and the best connected. As someone said they have a deep squad. We shut down Leckie, they’ve got McLaren, we do a job on him too they’ve got Nabbout. They’re mostly able to cherry pick the best domestic players and A league socceroos. And we’ve over performed against them in the cup of late through a few talented but inconsistent or unfashionable players like Fenton and Sotirio playing at their best. And Paulsen!
Low expectations won’t necessarily hurt Chief. Anything above average is good then. It might also be a push to invest further as our squad is shown where it is- a comfortable 3 goals behind a top side with few top notch creative outlets. Though I don’t know how it will help him much as a new head coach to develop confidence.
It is going to be a painful transition in formation too. It’s going to be hard to assess the new style of play as the players in it are short of Taylor/Uli/Hemed level. Sadly even Ball and Wootton, while still handy players aren’t at the level they were.
The CC model had players like Storm Roux and James McGarry, as well as Nkololo. Players with a lot of journeyman experience at A league returned to form or above and some good, keen imports. And then in Kaltak and Vukovic, actually, a very solid defense of highly experienced sometime international players. And some young guns like Farrell and Triantis.
That’s different to saying no import refresh and play the kids. Which currently seems to be what we’ve done. Depending on how Al-Taay and Kraev perform, Rufer and Pennington are going to have a tough and frustrating season.
News on Sutton’s injury? He’d be a potential game changer. Old too will help. But question marks over how much either of them can contribute this season yeh?
We got bullied by MacLaren, though.
This is against the best team in the competition, the best funded and the best connected. As someone said they have a deep squad. We shut down Leckie, they’ve got McLaren, we do a job on him too they’ve got Nabbout. They’re mostly able to cherry pick the best domestic players and A league socceroos. And we’ve over performed against them in the cup of late through a few talented but inconsistent or unfashionable players like Fenton and Sotirio playing at their best. And Paulsen!
Low expectations won’t necessarily hurt Chief. Anything above average is good then. It might also be a push to invest further as our squad is shown where it is- a comfortable 3 goals behind a top side with few top notch creative outlets. Though I don’t know how it will help him much as a new head coach to develop confidence.
It is going to be a painful transition in formation too. It’s going to be hard to assess the new style of play as the players in it are short of Taylor/Uli/Hemed level. Sadly even Ball and Wootton, while still handy players aren’t at the level they were.
The CC model had players like Storm Roux and James McGarry, as well as Nkololo. Players with a lot of journeyman experience at A league returned to form or above and some good, keen imports. And then in Kaltak and Vukovic, actually, a very solid defense of highly experienced sometime international players. And some young guns like Farrell and Triantis.
That’s different to saying no import refresh and play the kids. Which currently seems to be what we’ve done. Depending on how Al-Taay and Kraev perform, Rufer and Pennington are going to have a tough and frustrating season.
News on Sutton’s injury? He’d be a potential game changer. Old too will help. But question marks over how much either of them can contribute this season yeh?