R27 vs Perth Glory | Sun 28th April | 9pm | SS3

It's difficult in the middle with so many changes all around him. He is not familiar with runs, reactions in tight situations...

Has to be replaced.

While we've served up some crap- we've also scored some cracker goals. Absolutely amazing top notch goals. As well Rufer, Cacace, Singh and Fenton have become fixtures in the first team, 3/4 of them playing consistently well. Singh had some weaker games, but is an exciting creative player to watch.

This is part of it too.

We've also been much more likely to win late on than lose. (If we've been going to lose we tend to signal that early!)

No, totally agree. Kurto has won us points this season. 

Terrible end to the season, Rudan seems to be on holiday already. The one positive about this game was the young kids get to play, it also highlighted the players that need to go i.e. sheridan and golec who are terrible. 

David Williams is not a right back nor will he ever be, maybe Rudan thinks he's Van Gaal in the 2014 world cup? playing people out of position and not pressing on the best team in the comp is not a stroke of genius.

Judging by big stevies comments after the game non of the players were ever that committed to winning in perth.

Hopefully a better performance in Melbourne- 2-0 or 3-0 loss. 

I've found Singh to be weakest when he's forced into a wing type role, he seems to think he has to take on the entire defense from the flank. He is also too one footed to be putting in crosses.

Oh, I absolutely agree that having Singh, Rufer, Libby, Fenton, to an extent Doyle, and also Sail and Waine in limited opportunities, perform for the most part has been a fantastic sign for the club, and once again demonstrates that a blueprint for success is to have a strong NZ presence in the team interspersed with a couple of good Aussies and couple of good imports. Nevertheless, it was Krishna's and Williams' contributions that pushed the team over the hump - 8 or 9 goals less from them this season (i.e. basically an average season for both of them), and the team probably doesn't make the top 6.

Another way to look at this season is this - I mentioned in another thread that basically what decided the season for us is the three games against Newcastle. We got 7 points from those, and they got 1, and that's basically what ended up being the difference between the teams at the end of the season. What that means, of course, is that if you put those three games aside, Newcastle actually have more points than us from the other 24 games. And when you look at this season with that lense, for me at least, it shows it in quite a different light.

I very much agree with this. While I have not looked at the stats of our record against each individual team this season, I have an impression we were not able to dominate by winning all games in the season against a team, except CCM (I think; someone else may want to correct me on this). That would then suggest that we were "work in progress" most of the year and it is the second season under Rudan that would have been the real proof of his quality as a tactician (a point I tried to make earlier).

Yep, CCM is the only team we clean swept this season.

Would a second season have made much of a difference? We gave Ernie a break because he inherited an older team with most players under contract. But for Rudan, he basically was able to recruit his entire team from pre-season. The system he played wasn't a work in progress, he settled on a formation and a system mid-way through the season and only made minor tweaks here and there. All you can say is that in the second season, maybe he would continue to get the young players making huge improvements and with a few international players off contract we could win the foreign player lottery with the team possibly having a slightly better chance of attracting better talent with all the good things being said about him. Then again there is the mentality thing, maybe that would improve and make a difference too.

I disagree with both of you. I still hate the Jest regardless of where they finished on the ladder!

Question I'm answering is why people came to watch or what made it entertaining. We created a lot of chances that we didn't put away and when we put on pressure it was relentless and good to watch. We went forward quickly.　Besides the two top lads Mandi, Singh, Taylor, Louis and Cacace scored some top quality goals.

Also I remember looking at Sydney's dominant season- they had just 3 scorers. I think if they'd had an average season he'd  have been benched like Williams was early or cut like Butters. I think two main scorers was a systematic feature- he adapted to form. Maybe Singh and Butters might have been anticipated to take more responsibility, but Krishna and Williams were our main forwards. And the Sheriff hasn't pulled the trigger. 

Williams is playing RWB because its the best thing for the team. We have adequate replacements further up the pitch, we don't at RWB. Williams on the right and Sheridan/Burgess in the XI > Gulley/Lowry/Elliot on the right and Williams up top. It really is that simple.

Some of that is on Rudan for not signing backup to once of the most injury prone players in our history but at the same time, that's the nature of carrying a small squad.

There's about a 0% chance the effort and performance against Victory will be at the same level as against Perth.

When you say we were not fussed about winning this game do you mean the supporters or the players? If the players, then they should go and play for another team. I don't believe that they were not fussed as most players should have pride in themselves.

I don't think we're arguing here, but I just find this quite interesting - the more I look at it, the clearer it is to me what a huge difference Krishna and Williams made this season. When I said average seasons, I didn't mean Burns-like (the dude hasn't scored a goal in a game in years), I was more thinking something like 12 goals for Krishna and 8 for Williams, which would have still been considered pretty good seasons for both of them, yet would have meant 9 goals less for the team this season (so, from 46 to 37) and that likely would have put us out of the playoffs, regardless of the other goal-scoring contributions, given that we still conceded quite a few this year. We've given up the most goals of any team in the top 7 (43); the second worst behind us in there is Newcastle with 36; all the other teams in the top 6 have conceded 32 or less. So we absolutely needed Krishna and, to a lesser extent, Williams, to play out of their skins which they did. 

It does make you wonder what happens with the team next season if they're not here though.

Finals Melbourne victree is a very scary prospect, and then if we make it we get to go right back to Perth. Did we really want to try and get the most difficult route to the GF? 

if its a nothing game, why not play Elliot at RWB, unless he actually wants to play Williams there vs Melbourne. In that case, we are fudgeed, because williams offers nothing in defence and can't cross the ball to save himself. 

I'm far from convinced that Williams is the best RWB option. You're not really gaining anything defensively by playing him there, and you lose a lot offensively.

Williams needs as many minutes there as possible to get as used to the role as he can, hence him starting the "nothing game" over Elliot. I agree Williams at RWB isn't a good option and he's not great defensively, but I really don't see any other combination of players that I prefer over moving Williams to RWB and starting Burgess. It is the best of a bad situation. We don't play Elliot there because in Rudan's own words at the start of the season "he's not quite ready for A-League football yet". Rudan obviously feels, as do I, that our best chance of winning comes with Williams at RWB. We may fundamentally disagree there but lets not pretend Rudan is making an inane, crackpot decision here - there's clear thought and logic behind it.

As a supporter I wasn't fussed about winning, as I'd rather play Victory than Adelaide. I'm sure the players were doing their utmost to win for 90 minutes. However, that doesn't work when the coach has put out a second string side with the intention of resting players for next week. We didn't lose the game intentioanlly but you can't tell me we were 100% out to win that game with how Rudan set up.

id be interested to see Kop at RWB, might be alright, I have a big issue with Sheridan atm and so would rather have Williams up front than him. Also what happened to Doyle? is he injured? would offer far more than anyone else considering he spent half his career playing as a wing back.

It seems Doyle was effectively shut out for failing to put in the required effort.

Really it seems the mistake was signing Gulley. Signed as a specialist RWB.

Has been in and around the side since pre season, trialling and so forth.

So Rudan and co have had a long time to consider his merits as an A League player.

He's given one game & then discarded. Sure he's been injured recently, but to be given the chop after only one game, and then replaced by a complete makeshift option in Williams - really is a slap in the face.

If they had doubts about Gulley back in the January window (and really if he wasn't signed after the initial pre season they had doubts), they should have secured a specialist backup RWB elsewhere. NPL or Handy Prem. Pity Colvey retired he’d be useful now.

The weird thing is that Gulley hasn't been a RWB in the Handy Prem either - for the last couple of years, he's been a part of a back three. So if they wanted to specifically have a RWB option for the second half of the season, surely they should've gone with Jack-Henry Sinclair, who's actually been playing that position, and playing it well, for Team Wellington for the last to seasons. 

The whole thing just seems so strange.

All the people that would rather play MV are naive I believe. They have more quality players than Adelaide and  just because we have had marginally better results against MV this season, it is a cup game and all other results count for nothing. 

Tbh I believe your wrong abt that Melbourne last few games haven't looked great and Kurz is a significantly better tactically than Muscat and they won the FFA cup final showing they're good at knockout games. They've just been missing a goal scorer all season that's why they finished 4th but now with Diawara back and Goodwin on form could be a dangerous side

MV backline is suspect like ours. Even though they won 1-0 on the weekend they have been low on confidence lately losing all ACL matches and 2 of their last 4 in HAL. 

Adelaide have been unbeaten for a while now. We have struggled against there structured approach all season only managing 2 goals in 3 games. They have a quality left wing in Goodwin where we have problems at RB. They have strikers starting to fire in Diawara, Stama and Blackwood. They are playing with more confidence now then all season.

Against MV I beleive it will be a more open match which will suit us better, there will certainly be goals by both teams. Adelaide showed how to shut down Honda. Boland did a great job on him in there last game. Troisis is also doubtful. 

I give us more chance to spring a surprise against MV. An open game is how we like to play.

Yeah but J-H S had a good stint at the Nix also, trialling in front of Rudan & Co. Obviously didn't impress enough to get signed.

Only seen him play on the telly. Twice. 

Against ACFC in the Handy semi, when he scored one of the best route one goals you will see. 

Against ES in the final, he didn't feature at all. To be fair no one at TW shone that day, but if he had had a big game in a losing side, would have pushed his case of being worthy of a go at the next level up.

I guess time will tell, but the facts are MV  this season better that Adelaide and us.

https://www.google.com.au/search?source=hp&ei=zrLGXL6-C8m2rQHVvaeQCg&q=a+league&btnK=Google+Search&oq=a+league&gs_l=psy-ab.3...0.0..525...0.0..0.0.0.......0......gws-wiz.#btnK=Google%20Search&sie=lg;/g/11fd6ddfg8;2;/m/04r4rv;st;fp;1;;

Our good games against Victory came against their depleted squads, and likely they'll now be with their strongest lineup for Friday (Troisi doubtful?).   Adelaide seems to be a completely different kettle of fish to us. They seem to strangle our game and exploit our weak spots, while Victory is - on a good day - "a better version of WPX" with an open, competitive approach that makes a game very watcheable.

I said many times before that loss of Fenton is season-defining, we struggle without him and makeshift solutions do not seem to be effective so far.  Hope he recovers well for next season as I would like to watch him on our right flank again, tearing the other team apart.

It's ONE game like cup football all hell can break loose (10 pints imoji) please 

If Doyle was any option at all (he’s not) Rudan might have swapped Libby over to RWB after Fenton’s injury.

Totally agree Williams is now starting at RWB v the Vic (yikes), but Rudan is picking the experience of Burgess/Sheridan to do the job up front as our best option. If it turns to custard early on for Williams, Rudan’s only plan B option would be to to play Lowry there and lose that avenue of attack - or stick with Williams as we’ll need that avenue of attack to score more goals. 

Looking at the players who've replaced him I'd say Doyle was an option...but maybe not with Rudan. Question is why. Consistency? Bad decision making? Errors?

So Doyle is completely on the outer?  I had wondered where he had gone

I thought it was injury that was not clearing up

I also thought Doyle may have been injured, but after his performance I'm happy to not see him again whether it's through injury or just being dropped.

Twas the all powerful and merciless axe of Rudan.