R24 vs Perth Glory | Sun 20th Mar | 5:00pm | SS Pop Up

Winning the useless possession stats? Try to go thru the middle of 2 rows of 4 defenders?

My hopes for yesterday game was some entertaining football, nothing to loose, just try to score some goals. If we had lost, so what? You get out of the seat for a few times, but this was just boring.

I won't say say all the team is shark and or have to replaced and I guess most of the players are privately really nice dudes and it's hard to be angry with them. But from a fan perspective, I can't see much of positives of this season, certainly nothing at the last home games. They did not played well while and after the license issue, they had the occasional luck scoring a few goals vs shark defending teams. We can't more excuses, but if people do not show up to games and leaving after 75 min they have a problem.

I thought I would see 'Top Gun' but all I got was 'Eyes wide Shut'

Well at least i boosted the crowd numbers with three extras . haha five thousand .what a joke .

horrible turnout for a perfect day in the capital . But what can you do for a losing team .

At least the beer was cold same with the chips   :/

Fact is that we have had other things this year that have contributed to the season as a whole. Yes we got some recruitment wrong, yes we have had licence issues that you cannot tell me have not played on anyones mind and we have had some injuries and discipline issues that we could have done without. We had a squad that was deep to about 14 but it needs to be deep to about 23. We have also underachieved with the talent we have had and failed to get runs on the board against teams that as bad or worse than us.

It certainly not a case of throwing everything out when pulling the plug and letting the water down the drain. However to advocate that EVERYTHING is shark house, well that's only looking for a reaction when its quite plain to see EVERYTHING is not. Hence why I call him a troll.

I certainly would love to see him advocate for the other side of the argument from time to time but he NEVER does.

A-Rod playing a whole lot deeper than he usually does, kind of taking a CB role at times and a deep DM at others. It meant we lost a whole lot going forward, Roly had to drop back and pick the ball up and look for a pass, rather than recieving it further forward from A-Rod like has been successful in recent weeks.

Moving away from the personal bunfight, I thought it's worth to address the "inconsistency" argument. 

As I said earlier, I cannot comprehend us not beating CCM or Jets even once this season, since other teams (mostly) did. My conclusion is that we are close enough to these two in terms of quality this season, and they simply had more motivation / mongrel factor / when playing against us, and did not get carded enough for it (except O'Donovan).

I thought we won 4:2 at home against Adelaide because there was a lot of motivation and "mongrel" on our part that day. Even Roly took a punt to shoot on sight. That mongrel was missing last night, while skills and personnel were (largely, not fully) the same.

I however agree with the earlier comment that all squads go through inconsistency, and Brisbane Roar is a good example as much as Perth Glory. Brisbane Roar is a bit of a yo-yo, in the season, while Perth had a shocking start to the season but are clearly on the ascendancy now, just like Adelaide is.  In contrast, Sydney FC are clearly having late-season wobbles, and we were a better team on the day we played them.

I honestly think that the license situation has made this season a write off. Firstly because it likely impacted our recruitment and secondly because the psychological impact of months of uncertainty on players and coaching staff can't have been good. I've worked in places being restructured before where it looks like entire work teams will be made redundant and it is brutal on morale and motivation. Can't see why that would be different at a football club.

That might be my fault, I like to call for Moss and the defenders to shoot from our third.

Better chance of them scoring from our defensive third then there is when Roly has the ball on the edge of the penalty area, facing away from goal with three defenders on him. But apparently Roly should shoot in those situations.

so we can look forward to three defensive mids next year with the fullbacks not getting forward.

Not sure what the plan was with Weemac playing narrow, but Doyle not prepared to get on his bike and get outside him.

Ernie wasn't exactly  making wholesale tactical changes,  Patrick. 

They weren't wholesale changes, you're right. But they were slightly different to usual and had an effect on the game, which is what I was trying to say. 

Did I or did I not see him on the telecast shouting abuse at our/his team? maybe I was mistaken.

NB Just read DomPost Stuff match report : "No matter what I did I couldn't keep players on them (Castro & Keogh)". Seems to chime in with ^

so Ernie is a shark coach?

Better to try something to see if it works in a meaningless game at the end of a season rather than fudge up the start of next season by doing it.

I don't think there was that much of a tactic change,or if there was it wasn't the tactics that Ernie wanted. He said in the post game interview "We worked on it all week and we had a plan. I think sometimes in the heat of the moment, with the distractions and movement of players, inexperienced players just have trouble doing the job they were trained to do. "

Or am I being naive? I really don't know anymore.

Over-analytical perhaps. [read: desperate for answers]

Over-analytical perhaps. [read: desperate for answers]

Where I come from we have a saying that goes something like this: 

"Chess is for people who don't understand football"

#sackjackreacher

So when we beat other teams they're having "horrendous off days" yet when we lose we're complete and utter shark?  Fudge man, oh to live in such a binary world..  

My Bad, got to be more careful with a bit of fun in the future.

on a positive note, the sun was nice and the queues for beer and wieners were practically non-existent

For my 2 cents worth. Turned up early to find an awesomely nice breeze and a sunny day. Got a Fritz that was awesome and then tried the whatever-it-was and chips. I'm sure it was not fish. The game was fairly even with them having the better chances and shooting from various distances. Yet again, we are trying to shoot from 8 yards out. To Perth's credit, they packed the area when we attacked. 

It was a weird kinda game and I felt we got worse as it went on. Yes, I missed the Doyle goal. And Yes, I was one that shouted "shoot" whenever we got within 35 yards of their goal. namely because no one would take ownership and kept passing the ball from one side of the field to the other and back again. A piss poor crowd number when conditions should have seen 10k. 

Looking forward to next season and see how it pans out. Will still be there for the rest of our games though. You never know, it just might "click" and we rip someone apart.

We still have a professional football team. So stop complaining and keep on buzzing. Yes, it has been a disappointing few home games but the alternative of not having a team to support would have been worse. 

I enjoyed the fish

Perth really did Cruise to victory...

Oh no.

Not this again.

Sydney, not so much since they appear to be rubbish at the moment, but I don't think it's stretching it to say WSW had an off day when they played us?  It's defined as an off day as they are otherwise doing well.  Us on the other hand...

In some / most of our recent defeats we haven't even been close - yesterday, the 4-0 home defeat to Adelaide, the 3-1 'home' defeat to CCM.  We were a bit unlucky away at Newcastle.

I must be watching different games and looking at a different league table to some of you.

At the end of the day, the home form and performances are very poor.  I don't think many can deny that.

Jeff - stop lying.  I've called you out before, and I call you out again.  I was posting positively last season, funnily enough during a positive season.  I've barely posted AT ALL this season, but felt compelled to last night after witnessing yet another insipid home performance during a season when we've won 3 games at Westpac.  That's $60 per win from my season ticket so far.

Other than Krishna, who could hardly get a game last season, that was our strongest team out there yesterday.  The fact that most of them have re-signed (other than Roly, our best player) and this has been touted as some sort of great success is very worrying.

The licence issue was a problem.  We were told the players didn't worry about it though.  Was that not true?  Possibly.  Anyway, since that weight has been lifted, we haven't really improved a whole lot, so I'm not sure what the excuse is now?  Just not good enough.

It was a terrible performance, and this is a thread about the game.  End of story.  I do not have to balance every negative post on a game with a list of positives to please the likes of you!

"yeah the game was terrible...but I see Kosta has signed, and what about that training centre eh?!".

Krishna was a regular starter last season, he could hardly get a game the season before.

19 starts apparently.  I stand corrected.  Anyway, I like Krishna, just not sure we should be pinning ALL of our hopes on him.

Edit - and having signed Kosta, we're not. 

God that second half was dire. For the first time in over 50 years of watching football I almost walked out with 15 minutes to go - lots of others were doing it.

I stayed and was rewarded with Doyle's goal. At last: somebody shoots. Why can't somebody shoot? Covic would have been embarrassed picking up his win bonus for that. He could have a weiner or two and no one would have noticed.

And still no doughnuts!

players have said before they are actively discouraged by Ernie to shoot from outside the box.

Ernie has said before that he actively discourages players from shooting, that long range screamer that Rolly got what seems like an eternity ago now Ernie said he was sitting there saying to Greenacre "I hope he doesn't shoot".

Reminds me of Ange exploading at the Roar after they demolished a team because they didn't play to his game plan.

I understand it to an extent, but we often end up losing possession due to our attempts to walk it into the net. 

Including yesterday, we're actually not too bad at the long range shots and should have a go more often!

I agree with that comment.  I almost got eye fatigue from seeing yet another Nix attack through the middle easily dealt with by the packed Perth defence. Does not hurt to try a shot now and then assuming it is at least on target.

Are the same people who scream we should be shooting from all over the place and to "get the ball in the box" the same ones who would mean about our direct approach under Ricki ?

No. But after 90min the 'only shoot inside the box' approach brought us nothing, zero! There is nothing to loose to shoot from a distance. I shouted shoooot on Siggy's solo run, more as joke. You need some alternative plan if it's not working.

Did you see Doyle goal? They where ten Perth players around the box and he was the most advanced Phoenix player (remember he his a left back player), he had no other option than shooting from outside. I guess the all the rest where waiting for back pass.

thought he was in the box when he shot?