R25 vs Melbourne City | Mon 28th Mar | 9:30pm | SS4

This season is pretty much like 2013/14 all over again. Possibly worse though.

Can't complain too much about last season but in hindsight we really had a great chance to go and win the minor premiership but completely blew it. 

I don't think Ernie is going anywhere but another season like this next year and he must go. Or even if we start next season poorly.

Whoa there Nelly. I think I would rather have Ernie and better players, than same players (as signed now) and a totally different coach.

All I'm saying is that if he has a third poor season out of four, he has to go.

Four years is a MASSIVE amount of time in modern football. He's got to produce next year, no excuses.

So could we sign Kisnorbo from City,he's out of contract at the end of this season and we so desperately need a good centre  back or would that mean ditching one of our foreign players ?I'm thinking Rodriguez would be the one to leave if necessary. 

Fenton has struggled for two seasons now and really must be on thin ice,Lia well lets get real his time is up a the Phoenix surely,Muscat was skinned on that wing so many times it wasn't funny ,i cant believe he's still going to be in the A league next season at least it wont be with us !

That was a shambles tonight,I know we were playing against the team that will probably lift the gold  toilet seat at the end of the season but not even one serious pop at goal in about three games is really taking the mickey out of the fans!

Market-value wise, Fornaroli is now worth a cool million Euro, Novillo and Mooy 750K Euro each.

Their right fullback, Paulo Retre, is only 23 and worth 100K Euro, and off contract in June 2016. Australian of Portuguese parentage (no visa issues). Something tells me he is a fitter, more skilful Fenton, and I would be happy to consider him as astraight swap with City for Muscat.

Wow I don't visit here very often these days, so we're all anti Ernie now??

People agreeing with Steve-O?   f*ck I'm off.

We had nothing to play for, City were playing for top spot. Not surprising one team was ruthless and fired up and the other was uninspired and disjointed. No doubt they are a better side than us by some way (or else they wouldn't be so far above us on the table, duh) but we did beat them a month ago. The margins between good sides and bad in this league aren't huge. Look at Sydney last year vs this year for instance.

It was also interesting that Powell and A-Rod were benched and Watson and Lia started when neither of them have contracts for next year.

We do desperately need a new RB and a new CB, and I think they could make a big difference not just to our defence but to our attacking play as well, by giving us a solid platform to build on and a better option overlapping out wide.

Ideally I would want a new LB as well but Doyle is adequate.

What does need a bit of scrutiny is Ernie's tactics and recruitment strategy. Clearly he wants us to play narrow up front with the fullbacks providing width, but he signs another attacking mid with our last import slot when neither of our fullbacks who look likely to start next year have the goods to do all that work tearing up and down the wing. And that's not even mentioning our blatant need for a new CB too.

I really think Roly must be leaving us or else the decision to sign Finkler to the last import slot when our midfield already has Roly, WeeMac, Riera, and A-Rod plus some promising youngsters coming through is idiotic. Or if A-Rod isn't going to be a starter, then why re-sign him for one season of benchwarming on an import slot?

So to sum up, I don't think we are too far away from a competitive team but we aren't going to get there without overhauling our backline and critically evaluating the best way to utilise our squad, rather than just jamming whoever we have into Ernie's overloaded midfield/no width philosophy.

This season was a write off because the license shark hampered our recruitment and clearly fudged with us psychologically. But there's no excuses next season and if our recruitment again doesn't address our obvious weak spots and we keep playing like this then it's curtains for Ernie.

Bloody hell reading the way some of you go on makes you wonder why Welnix even bothered.

We've lost 14 of 25 games this season. Is that close to good enough? When does the manager get questioned, if not now?

Edit - I'm not necessarily anti-Ernie. I like him, last season was great and his first season was decent with a late collapse. This season though has been very poor. Losing Burns and the licence situation are a couple of reasons, but surely not the ONLY reasons for a season where we've been so much worse than last season. Poor recruitment and a steadfast refusal to ever change tactics/formation don't help either. We switch players around but the game plan is always the same - it's no wonder teams have us figured out, including the absolutely awful Mariners.

While I agree with all the above, I need to point out that Fenton was sorely below par covering for Doyle.  The number of times our left flank was ripped to shreds was not funny. I realise he switched to right hand side eventually but it was not much better there - he looked like a nice, well-mannered young man who really just wanted to sit down and read a book. That's why I mentioned Paulo Retre in another thread - Melbourne City right fullback whose contract expires in June - I would consider a straight swap for Muscat.

The thing about recruiting last season is that a lot of decent players would not sign for one year only and as it was no one could guarantee we would exist after that. Same with this year. Players like certanty. We can now offer up to a 4 year slength of service.

I think the FFA have not exactly done this club any favours within the last 3 years, expecially the last two. That Welnix still want involvement is great and now we as a club might just progress. It is also up to us to start turning up. I am excited about seeing Finkler and Kosta so another season ticket coming.

I'm actually kind of disappointed in our reaction post-license renewal. I thought it would've refreshed us. Instead, it looks like we already gave up.

Merrick may have been a force.

He is now a fuddy duddy.

Didn't watch it so have no angst. Seems that there are some people here that have enough for my quota so I'll leave them to wallow in their mire

Righto, most of my comments still stand, then... see above, now fixed!

That's the beauty of this group though, isn't it?  There is tons of room for more than "50 shades of varying degree of angst" between two opposite reactions, that of JV and Steve-O.

So you will be equally as scathing of the loads of folk who think that all is rosy/nothing needs to change/ we will win the league next year by doing the same things? 

That's very much the case.  Most of the Australian sites are far more, well, .... populist.

As for angst, it is a bit like visual acuity (eye strength).  If you are myopic you can miss the wood for the trees. This is why I particularly liked today's post by Conan comparing all A-League teams participation in playoffs over the last three seasons (including this one). It clearly showed the dominance by maybe 3-4 clubs who always make it or win it, maybe other 3-4 "likelys", and the leftover - the "also rans" who make the finals occasionally but do not win the league. We are clearly in that last category with the Nix, and while I would like us to win the league, I won't cry if we do not win but play well, weekly frustration or weekly tears of joy notwithstanding

I would guess that this is not very different from almost every other "premier" league in the world with either reasonably even finances, or with capped salaries. As I said, that is just my wild guess, I have not checked.

Something has changed - we got a license extension. It will not make us win games this season (as some have proposed), but it will make us buy good players, both because they will feel safer to commit, and because there might be some more outside money if we have a future.

"When  I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun" - (misattrib to) Goering, Goebels, Himmler.

I think there's disagreement about what needs to change (defense, midfield, strikers, tactics, coach, owners) and how much it needs to change but I don't think anyone is saying everything is fine as it is.

I dont care what anyone says this season is a complete right off for reasons largely beyond the clubs control. The crap the club has had to put up has had to have had an affect not only on the players currently with us but those maybe considering joining us.

Seems like some on here just expect Ernie to recruit players out of thin air and make them want to come here. It has always been a struggle to attract players and ii seems like some of you think we should be able replace most in current squad with a team thats going to win the league.

Can anyone, with more brains and free time than me, check if any of the A league teams went through a change of more than *)50% playing squad (starting eleven plus backups / reserve bench)  from one season to another?  Unless I am mistaken, the biggest one-off cleanout was at the Jets. I do not include Gold Coast or the Fury as they did not continue.

Even where a change of coach took place (and that surely is a biggie), teams like Bne Roar and Mlb Victory largely kept their squads.

The point I am making is that a decent coach can improve team's performance with better players, but no-one has ever chucked all their squad out, bought new and then won the league. Most teams had one or at best a couple of significant changes that made a whole world of difference - consider how Melb City stopped leaking goals once they brought in Alex Wilkinson to central defence.

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*) make it 33%, a third

Wsw had a pretty big clean out in the off season, replaced at least half the squad.

FFS Mainland FC stop talking logically its just not allowed and im sure it goes against a forum rule somewhere. 

I do not know the facts behind our recruitment decisions or otherwise, but nothing I have seen or heard indicates to me that we wanted to sign more experienced defenders and couldn't because of the licence situation.  I we were unhappy with these players why have we extended their contracts?  Maybe, being charitable, Sarpong was the best we could get but we signed him on a 2 year deal anyway so why was the licence an issue with that signing?

I think the club went into the season thinking things we went pretty well last year, all we need to do is replace Burns and we should go ok.  Let's sign another winger and turn him into a goal scorer,  Instead Siggie's luck with injuries has run out and Sarpong was a dud.  At the same time Manny and Riera's legs both look to be going and Durante and Mclinchey have both been really inconsistent - maybe both have been trying to do too much.  Our other signings were very much squad fillers and not intended to put pressure on our starting XI so there has been very little internal competition and no-one has come from within the squad to compete for starting places, maybe Powell aside.  We've had to keep playing guys who are way out of form. There is still a gap between the first team level and our young players, none of them are ready yet. 

We have leaked goals all season and we look disorganised at the back.  To me the issues are mostly on field, not off field.

nah it's all cos of the licence JD

Agree.

But we put together a pretty bang average squad pre-season and someone needs to own that.

We lost Boxall, Hicks, Cunningham, Boyd and Burns. We gained Sarpong, Doyle, Powell, Watson (later) and Danaskos.

Moss, Muscat, Sigmund (part season), Durante, Riera, Bonevacia, Fenton, McGlinchey and Krishna (part season) were here last year.