Is 2014/15 really our best ever squad?

could be a special year

yes. Beyond doubt

The midfield really clicked yesterday against the roar. REALLY clicked. we bossed them especially from about 50 - 65 mintes.

We are the form team of the league.

I think we bossed them for the entire match. I can only remember Moss making one headed clearance, and a pretty regulation save from Solorzano and catching a couple of crosses. We could have easily had another 3 or 4, Mannys second chance, Rolys first half thunderbolt over the Bar, Rolys delicious Volley (would have been goal of the year) and Rolys effort from the edge of the Box saved by Young to name but a few!

Just how good is Roly?

Did we really boss them?

Yes Moss didn't have much to do, but I thought the midfield contest was extremely scrappy.  I would say that Roar coughed up the ball more than we did rather than us bossing them.

Ernie beefed up the midfield which negated Roar's game but I felt that our own "style" of quick on the floor passing was also compromised - maybe because there were lots of physical challenges coming in quickly (from both sides), maybe because we were tired at the end of a long week of games/travel.

Roar were certainly lacking any "thought process" or "individual brilliance" up front, while our play from mid to attack was a good mix of long ball and wing play (Weemac, Rodiguez and Roly ... and Lia doing the business for the through balls).  So from that part of the game we dominated.

But was the Roar coughing up ball due to our pressing, which we did in numbers and quickly, so they rarely had time on the ball? Brattan was largely ineffectual which s something that is fairly rare.

Yes - due to our pressing, but we in turn were also harried and pressed (ooh err).  Exhibit A: Roly.

My take is that if we had bossed them we would have been able to play the game in a relatively fluid fashion, with good ball control and crisp passing.  I didn't see that much.

(Not knocking the team or the game, just saying that we have played better and "bossed" in other games. Exhibit B: vs CCM at Orcland ... which we drew!)

good points. I suppose the counter is that CCM largely parked the bus for that game and were happy to just get numbers behind the ball. With Manny scoring early yesterday, the Raw had to chase the game a bit more.

I agree, to an extent we were our own worst enemy, especially in the first half when our passing was all over the shop. Even so, Roar were simply dreadful and we could easily have been 3-0 up by half time. My jaw hit the floor when I read one media report that for the first 50 minutes the game was even.

The experience of Durante

The Riera smothering 

The class of Roly, WeeMac & Burnsaldinho

The toughness of Manny, Vince & Siggy

The emergence of Roy as a force

The growth of A-Rod collecting victims

The shot stopping Moss

The bench delivering. (who dat kid? as whispered by Adelaide)

E. Merrick

Half way. It's something to be excited about.

You need to change the %ages in your signature file mate. This is not the first piece of thoughtful in depth analysis from you lately...

If we can consistently match Perth, Victory, Adelaide and one more "in form" team (pick your own choice there) then I will say we are the in-form team of the league. We play each team three times so there is still time to test this.

We can't really say we boss Perth or Victory much, on average. We are about equal with Adelaide at present, injuries and national team callups permitting. I agree with Ernie that we need to focus on staying top four, as this means consistency. Anybody can have a lucky win on any day if the lucky factors conspire.

It didn't feel like we were bossing everything- it wasn't our most virtuous performance- but it did feel like we were taking the piss and mucking around- the game seemed more about sending Brockie off than playing the Roar- I mean Brockie scored twice, including one penalty (seriously- missed a number of pens and even more chances) and Manny scored...

If we'd chucked on Luke Adams he might have dribbled out of defence and scored from 30 metres out tonight...felt like we were having a party tbh and Brisbane were invited to be the Washington Generals. *events may not strongly corrolate with reality, but this is how I remember them...

That and a good level of fitness.

Based on points to date and our ability to win away this has to be the strongest squad so far.  Thinking about our 2009/10 squad our strenght was our home record and I can't help but feel that the crowd was part of that - we were openly hostile to the opposition and the refs if needs be. These days I feel we are a bit more genteel... hipster even.

bwtcf - sig changed for you.

We are looking good, but until we dominate (or even look competitive really) against the Victory in Melbourne I'm not going to get too excited.

I went to the Melbourne game. We went behind from a lucky Finkler free kick, and late they caught us on the break when we chased the equaliser. Considering we didn't create much the game was not one sided, far from it in fact. 

The Melb makeshift defence was good that game, but during this extended period of having key defenders out it has shown they are nothing special as a squad.  However Finkler is the key man and the Tunisian is a fine player, the rest we can boss.

Lock up Berisha too.

Try unfurling a banner saying Nëna juaj është një gomar and see if his head explodes.

3 clean sheets on the trot.

Have we ever done that before?

We conceded against Adelaide.

Berisha needs service and down at Geelong against Perf the other night he was dropping reasonably deep trying to create things himself. He did a reasonably job I must admit but his speed from a deeper position will not hurt us if he continues that.

Fixed.

We've definitely done that before, the end of 2010/11 springs to mind.

It's nice having a proper midfield

Agree, that's why I only quoted the first line of MetalLegNZ's post, and not the second one...

It seems that a hard-core midfield can make up for No Strikers.

The answer to the question is "Yes".

IBTL.

Guess we will always need something.  But is this our best squad to date? Absolutely!

Best does not mean perfect. Such a squad can never exist in a salary capped league.

True but Fenton is one of the better options we've had there. Who was the 10/11 RB, Hearfield? And we still have Muscat who is easily the easily the best RB we've ever had.

I think LB is more of a problem, Doyle is OK and may be quite good in the future and Manny just isn't as good on that side, although his performance against Roar...

If we signed a class fullback on either side we'd be much more intimidating side for sure.

If we could somehow find a class A-League left back (not easy to find) it would be perfect with Manny back on the right.

Tell me about it. I was just looking at A-league squads, someone (Junior or 2b?) was saying that Fullback is problem position for pretty much every club and it really is. The best fullback pairing in the league probably belongs to Perth with Jamieson and Risdon and that doesn't even look that fantastic.

Lia covers Fenton enough to get by.

Don't we have the best defensive record in the league? And the best attacking record too? On that basis you can't criticize our fullbacks too much! Also, I think that Ernie often plays a narrow midfield with no real wingers so our fullbacks are expected to do a lot more than their equivalents in other teams (including the Nix of the Ricki era). Therefore they're more likely to get caught up the field or overrun by opposition wide players, so maybe they seem worse than they really are. Of course, the payoff for that is fluid attacks through the middle of the park and quick tricky forwards who drift wide, and we've all seen the benefits of that.

We have the best kit in the league.