Just an aside, 10-15 mins before the game I took a shortcut around the back of the club-rooms and saw Rudan there, by himself (in the dark), looking at his phone. He was there until the game started. He comes across as a bit of a strange unit.
Anyway, now I've calmed down a bit from last night, big concerns are;
- DM, Kopy does not look up to it. Was outplayed and out-muscled by amateur footballers. I can't see that magically changing. As this was our most important signing, this is a big issue.
- Striker. We do not have one. We were absolutely directionless up front, but I can see there's something there if we have a focal point to replace the dancing, ineffective feet of Nathan Burns. As we've, for some reason, used an import spot on a keeper - we will now be (imo) at least one major player short. I think Williams could do a job, but he's similar to our other forwards.
-Cacace. I was standing on his side of the pitch for the 2nd half and he lost the ball on quite a few occasions, in dangerous areas, in very simple ways. It was concerning. I thought we were instantly better when Doyle came on. I really rated Cacace this year, but it's not abnormal for young players to burst on the scene and then struggle to find similar form again.
Fox was also terrible but it's hard to rate him as he was obviously out of position; that missed header for the corner was...woooof. though.
Looking for some positives/silver linings, they were;
-Singh continues to look good; he was the opposite of Kopy in that he was outmuscling bigger players and fighting/scrapping for everything. It was pretty impressive to watch.
-Krishna looks hungry. Was the best I've seen him for a while, but he just NEEDS support. He can't be the focal point.
-Nichols worked his ass off. He was running up and down defending the entire game, usually due to the fact we had no midfield, but he really did work hard. Unfortunately the team didn't go with him in that regard.
Just one game, don't go writing players off just yet.
Eh, I am taking experience from the last however many seasons of pain; first impression has usually been the correct one. Though Paracki did look good those first couple of games..
Kopy didn't just look off the pace - he looked like someone who was trying to take a step up in quality and struggled with the pace of the game. Considering the game wasn't even that quick compared to your average A-League game, it's a worry.
Look you don't get to where he has i the game if you're below A-League quality. I'm not saying he's going to be a super star, and I too was far from impressed by last night, but there has to be a reason why he's had a number of seasons as a pro in a good European league
Plenty of imports have come from being a 'pro in a good Euro league' and done poorly in the A-League.
Kopy was out of favour there, and from fans comments seemed to be an average player in their eyes and no big loss.
We'll wait and see, but first impressions aren't good.