Coaching Angst - ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

yup he's the boss, and as long as the results keep coming then why moan about it - oh wait it's the off season - it's what we do!

bump.

So our problems aren't new - we've been playing the same way for a long time which makes the likelihood that we can suddenly change our approach overnight pretty unlikely. Perhaps it's that this game plan is becoming elss effective

This thread was started in Sept 09. At the end of the season we had played two play-off games at RoF with very large crowds on the back of our now familiar late season surges.

It's a different set of players this season and more experimenting by Ricki. I'm in T_X's camp (the rose-tinted one) regarding progress in the season to date. Although our last game was quite unacceptable..  

It's amazing how one simple edit can reveal so much truth!

Missing Disco, McKain, Brown, Greenacre, Daniel, Caceres (also Dadi later) as mostly first team starters.  Anymore?

Reddy to a certain extent.

True!

("Liam Reddy does what Mark Paston did at the other end... better!")

the rest of the league has moved ahead considerably each season, we've been pretty much the same, perhaps with some players declining slightly

btw, does anyone agree with me when i say that muscat in midfield is a truly awful phenomenom?

yes, absolutely.  there was a huge groundswell of support for manny to hit the middle of the park this year, but i have to say not from me.

problem is that he runs straight lines, has little technique and his distribution over anything more than 5 yards is terrible. 

his tackle count is as high as ever, but i like a little more from my midfielders

Yeah I have to admit Manny is not really as effective in that role as the defensive midfielder as perhaps he should be. Yes he has a high tackle count and he was effective against a shyte Sydney team in round 1 but its like he is just there to make the tackle and Sigmund is coming up to make the intercepts (and thus goals are scored behind him). I would like to see some defensive awareness in breaking down the attack via marking players or intercepts. Tackling players on the ball, with his combative style, is not ideal for us.

Its easy to say this and say 'well the other guys in front of them are not doing their job so he has to make the tackles' but Ifill has been getting back (granted it is on the flank). I'm not sure what role exactly Smith is meant to occupy or Lia either in order to help Manny perform as a 'attacking breakdown'. I think this is what we need because teams are allowed too much ease in setting up their attacks and not really being made to work their ass off for it.

Manny seems great when tasked with shutting down a specific player (ie: ADP in R1) but otherwise he looks lost. He adds much more to the team as a RB though tbh that ship may have sailed too... depending on what style we're going to play "moving forward" as obviously Leo offers a lot more going forward.

But yeah, if I was picking our midfield today I'd be dropping Manny for Dani and keeping Smudge and Vinnie. But then it's not up to me, it's not as though I own the team (boom-boom).

Have been surprised at Muscat's form this year, to the point I'd consider putting him back to right back and having Bertos as an attacking sub to come on if required.  Yes, that's how average Muscat has been!

yeah Manny's form has suprised me, I suppose you can't be at 100% all the time. His and Ifill's from have been the greatest cause of concern for me. Manny is still my first pick in the midfield though, remember before he went to RB he was easilty the best DM in the league. He'll be back, possibly needs a little more help from Lia and Smith.

felt he returned to some decent form yesterday.

Think the biggest issue though is he and lia were clearly told to push forward when possible, but when we lost the ball, there was a huge hole in the midfield.

He was quality at CB

 Mcbump

To answer your question Ballane; "Agree with most of what you say WB however i would ask where you get your confidence from that there will be a decent effort made on recruitment i certainly havnt seen any comment out of Welnix that would cause much optimism in this regard.While their attempt to focus on local talent is to be commended if they think we will win the league taking this direction im afraid they are sadly mistaken".

The owners are smart men - they will understand that the quality of imports is all the more critical if we are not going to spend on a marquee and are to focus on home grown talent. They will also have a more informed and, in my view, realistic assessment of Herbert's (and Dome's) recruitment capabilities and will look to source additional expertise. They showed with cutting Daniel loose last off season they will make the hard calls.

I also do not buy in to the view that focusing on developing home grown talent and staying within the salary cap means we cannot realistically apsire to win the league.

We have what should be a significant advantage over all other teams as we are able to sign Kiwis as non imports - that gifted us Brockie and Moss and is why we just about have the market to ourselves for young Kiwis.

Finally I live in hope.

 Understand what you are saying,but for  "smart men" they seem to have made some silly errors with some of their comments.Realise we were tied in with players contracts at the end of last season but there dosnt seem to have been much effort in attracting players to fit into this new style.As fo the young kiwis i hope these guys have more success in getting these guys to perform for US and not show their best after they have left us. 

Like you i live in hope but they sure are testing that hope currently.

I sent a text to radio sport today complaining - got this response back

Cheers for the text - the winds of change aren't blowing at the Phoenix just yet, but the breeze is picking up

My hovercraft is full of eels?

Herbert has shown what he can do with this group i.e. not much.  Why retain him?  This "new" brand of football has basically has turned us into a light weight side that is capable of controlling the ball but never looks like controlling a game.  Trying to play this game plan with this group of players is just compounding the problem of having recruited them in the first place.

And it's worth remembering that even before we supposedly changed style we were losing far more than we were winning.

Every area of the pitch needs improvement and players are going backwards.  This has been a disastrous season and while Ricki may claim that we are "building something fantastic" there is very little evidence to back that up.

The pronouncements by Morgan about our playing style were effectively a vote of no confidence in the manager - even if they have backed him to make these changes they have effectively said that they don't believe in him or his style of play.  I almost feel sorry to Ricki but they need to do the only sensible thing and pull the trigger at the end of the season - or let him coach the team his way.

Why should we be happy with him?

What success have we really had with him. This is his 6th year in charge and we're counting our trophies. Every year that has been at least 3 clubs better than us in the league and more than that most years.

That second half on Sunday really made it clear that when Plan A doesn't work there is no backup. It's just continue plan A and hope.

GREAT! :)

This a very good point JD. Personally I still think that Herbert has too much knowledge of the A-League to be just cast aside by the Nix, and some kind of DoF or GM role would seem the best way to go. But it's the content of the job description that will be key and I can potentially see a lot of overlap with Dome's current role. On the other hand there are still some things in the GM space that you will never see Ricki do, like marketing. It's a tough one.

To be fair you don't see a lot of that from Dome either.

Might take a '' banner to next home game