R3 vs Perth Glory | Sun 27th Oct | 6:00pm | RoF/SS7 | City Mission Collection

1 goal in 3 games. It's both. 

Aaaand its Davila. Not that I'm complaining haha

well at least we scored a pen for once

We finally get a pen (and take it really well) and it means absolutely nothing

fudge yea! we won the second half!!! #clutchingatstraws

It's really both; it's hugely concerning that we're defending so badly - our attacking defencencies were expected

All 3 games have been the same. All good to have all the posession but there is no end product. The problem is that the build up is too slow allowing the opposition to get men behind the ball and shut up shop. Even the most technical players would struggle to create meaningful chances under those circumstances.  UT has to address this by tweaking the tactics and playing more direct, infuse some x factor, a bit more fire in the belly going forward.

As gutted as I am that it's another loss, there are several positives to take out of the result (again)

Firstly, we've played some of the best teams in the competition as our first games out of the blocks with a brand-new XI and only ever lost by 1 goal margins. Sydney and Perth will definitely be in the top four, and Western United have started very strongly (will be interesting to see where their 30+ y.o. players will be at season's end).

With our starting XI looking more and more settled with the addition of Hooper, we just need a run of games against the Roar, Jets and CCM to get some confidence in the team, goals on the scoresheet and points on the board. Two upcoming games in Melbourne don't bode well IMO, but after the bye week, we've got Adelaide and Brisbane. 

Definitely chances there to get things rolling properly.

Most of that fault for both goals sits with Scott, a tough introduction for the young lad, but as long as he learns from it we'll be OK for the next game. I don't think the defence + Marinovic is that bad, and it's hard to gauge how we would have gone up front when you're down 2 - 0 and the opposition has men behind the ball.

Reminds me of the 09/10 season where the team looked good but struggled to get results for the first 10 rounds, but it always felt like once things came together we'd absolutely smash a someone (GCU that season), and had a good run deep into the finals.

Never happy to lose but that was a good 2nd half from us. The late goal will give the boys just a little heart ahead of next week's game.

How different might things have been if we'd been playing against 10 men though?

Sure, Scott was the last to deal with it on both occasions, but the lead up defending was just as poor. The in-the-box defending has been shark in every game this season.

Much better second half. Piscopo certainly wanted to go forward more which was good. Waine & Hooper solid in their cameo. Davila & Ball good game again. Once we stop conceding silly goals, we’ll be away. Until then, we keep making it hard work for ourselves.

honestly, i think we're about where we should be given the new players, lack of professional experience of a lot of the new players and the age of the squad

the question is whether we will improve and after last week's performance i think we will

bang on. Perth won the league for a reason and they're up against a team which still hasn't gelled so I'm not surprised nor worried

I see what you did there hahaha.

Again quite a few positives from this one, but still nothing to show for it on the points table.

Hope Hooper can get more minutes over the coming weeks, a little bit of a worry he's 'not match fit' and only logged 15 minutes today. I'm sure he'll get there... Him, Waine & Piscopo gave us some impetus going forward when they came on.

Agreed, it's impossible to tell where he's at from a fitness point of view, but in 15 minutes he managed to win a penalty so extrapolating that we could have won another 5 penalties if he was starting which should probably win us most games.

Time to give Waine a start. Bring Sotirio on later in the game. (Assuming Hooper will start on the bench again)

Also Marinovic; I felt as though the forum group-think during pre-season had basically written him off being anywhere near as competent as Kurto. He's been great so far.

Don’t know what game you were at.

i think a player like sotirio could be a real asset to us

for example, even in the current tactical setup, you could get him to play close to the opposition left back and manipulate his opponents impact on the game

against clisby, he could 'cheat' and sit forward and wide, without tracking. clisby would then have some decisions to make and whatever the outcome it could really open up the left side of their defence allowing the other striker to really get at rowles

against jamieson, he could nullify his attacking threat and also look to do the same as above from time to time

If it weren't for Stefan we'd be something like 5 goals down at halftime

he's better than Kurto imo.

Kurto had a very good defence in front of him.  My biggest criticism of Marinovic is that he's sometimes way too slow with his distribution. Allowing the attackers to get into position.

My biggest concern is the tactics. We're far too slow in the build up, from Marinovic right up the park.  I thought it was actually Rufer that was at fault for the first, possibly the the second with slack passing that put others under pressure.  But i'd need to see the replays again, but he didn't have a good game at all. Scott, looked nervous and as someone else said, killed so many attacks by not going forward.  Equally, Fenton, he knows he hasn't got a left foot, but fudge me, bomb down the wing and get some crosses in. He was equally as guilty as Scott. Although, we know what he's capable of and I just wish he'd have the confidence again to do it.

We just bought a marquee striker and you want Waine to start? Dont get me wrong, hes a good young player, but hes got to bide his time. Still a bit of learning to do from Hooper and Ball

    

Let's not argue about our best player on the pitch

There are bigger things to worry about

So much this while Scott and others seem to have been given most of the blame,1 goal in each of our 3 games has been the result of some shocking defending in and around the box. Dosnt matter how many chances you create up front if we are going to gift goals like those 3 its going to be another long season.

They are saying Hooper is not match fit yet, so if hooper starts on the bench again, I am saying this could be the last chance to give Waine a start.

Waine in his 15 min today, he created two good chances and bought alot of energy. Sotirio has had 3 starts now, and is not quite doing it well enough for me. 

The lack of red is bloody infuriating. Who knows what the score would have been if they had to play 1 down for over half a game.

Yea we have plenty of issues but bugger me, 2-1 isn't bad based on the errors and given we were missing a player because of a similar incident last week. 

Id be less mad if it wasn't less than a week ago the a league stance was that Libbys deserved for him to not play this week and that was just a bloody yellow. 

wouldnt mind seeing waine until hooper is match fit. sotirio has a good work rate but is honestly terrible at everything else, he can't dribble, cross or get into shooting positions. Waine was more effective in the 10mins he got than sotirio was all game.

Sotirio had one or two chances that a better finisher would've buried

Dunno what to make of that. We were so good at times, so piss poor at other times, and so frustrating on occasions. I do think Perth were pretty good, and on the one look I've had at the incident live I thought it was a red card. And we ended up not that far away after 90 mins. Some grounds for future optimism I suppose. 

The lack of variety of approach was frustrating. Even having a CB take the ball forward on occasion can be quite a weapon, like Dura used to do. Taylor and Devere just stay in the back and pass the ball sideways. C'mon UT let's vary our play.

Don't think we've figured out our best starting XI and not convinced 4-2-2-2 is working for us, especially on defence.

Would like to see Waine replace Sotirio up front for the next game against City, with Hooper replacing Waine once he's fit enough to start.

Piscopo deserves a start after his performances off the bench too. Don't think this will happen, but I'd like to see Rufer on the bench with Davila playing alongside Steinmann. Davila seems much more comfortable playing centrally and this would make us much less vulnerable down the right on defence.

That would leave us with Piscopo, Ball and McCowatt playing in the space between Waine and Steinmann/Davila.

We have spent alot of time playing 4-1-3-2 chasing games. And have looked pretty good in this formation.

I think the group think was- wasn't Sail great last season and could be starting 

But Marinovic has been in Beast mode!  3 amazing saves in two games 

That's fair enough, but Sail is young enough and will get his chance. I prefer having a proven shot-stopper in goal with such a fresh team though.

Also on Davila, he was very good tonight, and as Valeo said he's improving every game. Right now he's reminding me of a Carlos Hernandez with an actual work ethic.

I thought despite a couple of errors Scott had a great game. Was pretty intent on attacking and was linking up well with cal.

Also thought that Matti was our best player and has been solid all season.

Again really encouraged by our performance at this stage of our development. It's such a new side, and Perth look potential prems if Fornaroli and Castro can stay fit. They were so good.

Gutted to concede so early again with stupid defensive errors. But know that will be sorted. It has to be. Stefan kept us in the game. He was great. But right now, it's an open invitation to create & score down our right.     

Outside the errors, thought Scott did well going forward, Davila & Ball were excellent, and the goals will come.

Crowd seemed happy enough again with our attacking intent, and giving the boss a bit of space to work this thing thru.

But not too far down the track, the crowd numbers will dwindle if we keep conceding early. You can't chase 3 goals to win a game every week.

So no-one's saying TALAY OUT yet?