Darije Kalezić: We hardly knew ye.

yes absolutely, speculation does not belong in an establishment as fine as this.

What's the worse thing to be at the Nix?(player or coach)

Yes. Worse that 15/16.

I am bemused by this rumour - surely no player is bigger than the club, and attempting that sort of thing would ring alarm bells when you're trying to build a cohesive, non-toxic squad environment 

Times up Darije.

Players you want or not, this is unacceptable. 

Sure, we do not have the talent to win the league, but we do have players of sufficient quality to finish mid table.

We look clueless, and worst of all, passionless.

You have talked the talk but not it is time to walk.

I agree 100%

He's had enough time and his tenure has been an absolute disaster

A new coach now would have a chance to bed down some plans for next season and sign the (albeit small amount of) players he wants to retain

I was supportive of him at the start, and even mid way through the season - but he's shown the worst quality a manager can have; a lack of commitment to their own tactics. He's chopped and changed basically every single game.

Go to this link and look at the top comment. That sums up how his regin.

You still don't get it.

The players are not  good enough.

Neither is The Coach

So do we give him another season?

This is the guy that’s brought in players this season, has had 20 games in charge, and with each game has made us look worse and worse. 

Yes the players aren’t amazing and certainly aren’t going to win the league. But a good manager should be able to make them at least competitive and put up some sort of fight, but we just look like a bunch of guys who have never played with each other before - there’s absolutely no team unity.

I honestly don’t see what he can do to bring us the finals football that we desperately need next season.

How do this seasons results compare to Ernie's first season?

I agree Leggy, in fact I think most of them are a disgrace, but they're not as bad as they are playing and this guy has destroyed whatever good things we did have in place prior to him arriving.

There's absolutely no evidence that he knows what he's doing, nor does he seem to have any proper track record in the game.

He has some good excuses though, he seems to be good at that

Agree with most people that maybe time for him to go. However i really do fear who we may get as a replacement.For a couple of reasons number one is who is going to decide his successor, the same people who employed him that could work out just as well. So who is going to make the decisions on the players until a new coach arrives.

So they sack him then we have to start looking and the process gets dragged out as in the past. Before anyone realises the new season is here again and so the same old cycle begins.

Amazes me all these people saying the squad isnt up to it. Hindsight is a great thing dont seem to recall to many on here questioning the strength of the squad if anything there seemed to be some optimism.

He took over a team that was one of the form teams towards the end of the year and on an upwards trajectory. They narrowly missed out on the finals but the main thing was belief and momentum.

I think he's a good coach, the chopping and changing is actually him trying to setup the team to give them the best chance of beating the opposition and is showing a lot of tactical awareness and flexibility which I like. He said in one of the post match press conferences that we saw at the start of the season how they want to play but they didn't have the right players so now they're being pragmatic, that to me is good.

Also, we forget how good the team looked in the first few games, and how many of our bad results at the start of the season were bad luck or individual errors. A lot on here think the teams performances in the first few games were down to Rado, Darije's comments seem to indicate that's not the case but we're unlikely to ever know.

Anyway, as I said, I think he's a good coach and if results went our way at the start of the season perhaps the team would be full of confidence and riding high, but as it stands now they have no confidence in themselves or in the coach and next season is too important to risk another season like this.

The club has two seasons left, they need to go all out and I think they should be derisking as much as possible which to me means not gambling on Darije turning things around, he might be brilliant and a victim of a bad team and luck but they can't risk it. They also can't go conservative because the team has to succeed. 

I'd be looking to throw as much money as I can afford at Ange or Popa personally.

This last game has finally broken my faith in him. Picks an attacking line up, sets them up to sit deep to defend and absorb pressure against the 9th place team. Shambles. I want him out, and I want the club to do it before the season ends. We've learnt our lesson, we should sack him and replace him immediately. It's perfect, for whoever comes in as coach because most of the squad is off contract, so he really can start with his own style of team for next season. Would likely mean that Rossi, AK and Paracki would leave, along with a bunch of Aussie dead wood, lots of room to mould your ideal squad. Hope the club is already looking for other coaches, I'd be disgusted if they weren't keeping tabs on any

I feel we have gotten worse under Kalezić. 

I think the players are letting him down big time, we have gotten worse over the season, but I refuse to believe that the coach tells any of the players to go out there and make the howling errors they have made that have in effect cost us the game. So many individual errors have led to goals. We've seen errors from Italiano, Smith, Durante, Doyle, Mullen, Galloway, Paracki, Ridenton, Burns that has led to goals or free kicks which have become goals this season. There is clearly very little ownership being taken by the players at the moment. I've said it since last season, Dura seems to be nothing more than a grumpy old man! Screaming/abusing his own team yet not really backing them up. The one I recall in particular was this season where Fox had covered Dura when he was high up the park and missed a key tackle which led to a decent shot - Dura went spare at Fox but it was totally Dura's fault for being out of position. The attitude and determination has gone from the team, they just don't seem to care.

IMO, you have to give the coach next season to remove the players he wants gone and bring in those he wants.

If you sack him now when the team is in free fall you risk getting no applicants - who the hell wants to be the coach of a team that is not wanted by the league, has players that are not up to it?

We don't have time for yet another (failed) rebuild.

We need to get the best out of the players we have and DK is very clearly not doing that. Like many I was optimistic about him earlier - but much like my other club; the time is now.

Get someone local with some passion in and get the technical support around them... hell, even get on a plane and give Rado what he wants. We have two years... ideas, plans, hopes and dreams are no longer enough.

Fire. 

(the fudge)

Up.

Face it Rado aint coming back, why would he?

If we sack DK who are we bringing in? And while we search for this person are we going to re-sign all the current squad for them to avoid losing them in the off season.

If we sack DK we effectively will do to the new coach what we did to DK, re-sign players they can't use or that may not fit into their plans. Unless of course they have a back up in mind already. We have to giv e DK one more season to make the changes he has planned, this season was always fudgeed.

They way Ramon has been treated by us means it’s unlikely he’ll come here, but I’ll take him in a heartbeat.

If they have other guys whom they know would actually sign on and have a different coaching style to DK then yes, I say sack him. If they don't, then I'm not having some interim coaching team for the rest of the season before hiring another European guy who has his hands tied with a number of players, eg. Kalezic

He has directly been involved in the signing of AK9, Goran, Ljujic, Burns, Galloway, Mullen, Patterson, Tando,  off the top of my head.

In addition, Dura, Rossi, Doyle, Fox, WeeMac, Krishna and Ridenton, should be considered serviceable A League Players, although not necessarily living up to that at the moment.

So that is 15 players he has either signed or could be considered serviceable in the A League He has had the side for a full off season.

We look like a shower of shark with little plan and have steadily gone backwards, apart from a wee bounce when Burns arrived. No coach gets to work entirely with a side they want.

Our time is limited, and I understand what you are saying but what happens if we are 6 games into next season and things are no better?

Who do we bring in? There are always coaches available.

Sacking him now could be a disaster for all the reasons mentioned above. It would only work if a really good coach could immediately take over the reigns. Now, not at the end of this season. Someone who wouldn't take months to get up to speed, and who could start planning now for what needs to change before the start of the next season. Does such a person exist? Anyone got any bright ideas?

of those 7 Id suggest that only three are in his future plans - Fox, Krishna and Ridenton. Which would suggest, as he has in the media, that half the squad are on notice.....and that natural selection will take its course. Excluding the players he brought on board in January I'd guess that he had very little to do with actually signing them. I'd suspect he was told that this was the squad and these were the players coming in and he simply agreed.

Everyone is saying there's going to be an announcement from the Nix today between noon and 2pm. Anyone reckon it's Kalezic packing his bags, either voluntarily or not?

. I would add that if he does not want Doyle, he has rocks in his head, but the fact remains a Manager has to work with what he has. If we had seen some improvement or at least the signs of a vision of how he wants to play my view would be different.

it's quite difficult to assess players when the team is going so badly. i think there are quite a few boys on board who are what @sthn.jeff calls serviceable, but we are not seeing this from them right now. i'd add mullen, tando and burns to @sthn.jeff's list and would begrudgingly agree with his assessment of mcglinchey but only on the proviso that he is used in the correct manner because i really do not like him much right now!

him leaving/being sacked would be a bigger disaster. If he stays he can at least implement his plan, if he goes we are back to before square one with players 1 year older, season of continued failure that a new coach has to repair rebuild with the threat of being kicked from the league even more immenant.

There was mention on one of the FB fan pages that apparently Piney has said there'll be an announcement today. 

doyle's got some massive holes in his game, but boy he'd be one of the first players that i'd keep because he has some outstanding attributes and could be one of the a-leagues best defenders even if he stays on what is currently a pretty moderate development curve

McGlinchy has done absolutely zilch since he came here, like barbarousous, finkler and all the other so called stars that have come her and squatted on a contract. 

What is this plan though?

I think the problem is he doesn't seem to have one - we chop and change every week and get worse and worse. If he has some master plan for next season then great, but on current showing I wouldn't have any faith in his ability to execute it. 

He's chopped and changed to see what actually works. He's said as much in interviews. He's trying things not just one plan and expecting results. He's also said he doesn't think the current batch of players he has are not up to what he needs to do what is required - there will be changes in the off season. There is no point in sacking a coach after one bad season which was set in motion by another coach bailing after a run of bad form. Yes its painful as a fan, but it will be more painful when a new coach comes in and says exactly the same thing next season when he has the same players and we are still losing.

Face it the league has improved and we have not, we've been hamstrung by a glut of "squad" players at best and expensive stars who come here and fail.

I put this season's failure firmly at the feet of the players, and it starts with Dura who should have retired a season ago.

even if he did have a plan I wouldn't trust it. The guys a trainwreck

It's not often I see eye-to-eye with Ballane, but remember: the people who would pick DK's replacement are the people who picked DK. No, wait, even worse:

- the people who gave Greenacre/Buckingham half a season when DK was ready and waiting;

- the people who set up the brilliant idea of a DK/Rado partnership.