R5 vs Newcastle Jets | Sat 4th Nov | 9:50pm | SS1

Another chance to get 3 points this week. Newy have been in great form, have scored the most goals in the league so far. However they haven't played any real decent opposition til their draw against the Wanderers last night (which WSW probably should've won). Our boys will be hungry for the win after what happened to us on Saturday, so I'm really looking forward to this game. I'd expect it to be a heavily attack-minded game, but this is the A-League so who really knows what will happen right?

2-2.

Early days but our losses and only points from draws is a worry, similar to recent seasons. It won't be long before we look at the table and see several sides too far ahead to catch and, therefore, we're fighting for one or two finals spots.

With any luck we'll have both Dura and Rossi - do we know how badly Galloway is hurt? If we can get our backline settled then I think we can go on a good run. The first 20 minutes of Saturday night showed we can foot it with anyone in the league.

Galloway out is not exactly a bad thing....

And the last half showed how important having a settled, injury free team is. 

We haven't banked any points yet and we need to start putting games away. At the moment we feel confident about defeating....CCM? I'd like to see us flip the switch and finish the game against these guys. I want a win. 

I beg to differ, he is not the worst RB by a long shot and has enough experience, skill and muscle to be a real asset for us.

Galloway is what Mullen should be (and what Fenton never was).

Let's not be getting ahead of ourselves

I'm confident in a win.

This is a team that came into the season underdone and every half of football played they improved exponentially - until the last half.

But, I see the second half of the game vs the Roar as a blip.

It was simply a nervousness thing, they found themselves in the unexpected position of having a large margin and sat back, then as the Roar started to come back at them they lost a bit of confidence and sat back further. The ref didn't help at all.

If the game was closer and the Phoenix were on the attack the whole way through they would have won it. With a couple of victories under their belt they would have won it.

You might be right. The (correctly) disallowed fourth goal looked to me a turning point in the game.

Moral of the story: always get the fourth goal in before relaxing.

Kick Ernie's ass

Galloway has been fine so far. And the alternatives are Fox and Mullen - I'm not sure either Abbas or Doyle play on the right. Yeah, Galloway any day thanks.

Any word on Galloway's injury? (Im in Twitter jail atm, so no idea if anything has been said yet)

Did you watch the Melb City game? lmao he couldn't even cross a ball, mate. I counted 3 that went BEHIND the goal in the first half alone. Our defense is in a bit of a shambles because both Dura and Rossi are out. Galloway? You're late to the comedy fest, my brother.

Galloway has been really promising. Great in the first two rounds, had a poor start to the third then came right, then came off super early in the fourth. In our backline, Galloway certainly isn't the one we should be worried about 

I thought he was poor in the first game, ran into blind alleys, seemed to dribble without getting his head up, got caught too far up the pitch multiple times. Has improved since then, wasn't the worst player on Saturday. We did look worse when he went off but we also had a CB playing RB while someone who could play RB was playing CB when Fox was on and Mullen was still in the middle. I personally thought Abbas was a weak link for us on Saturday but it  seems other people thought he had a good game....

On a more positive note, how bloody good have WeeMac and Vidosic been! Their form has flown under the radar a bit because of how good Paracki has been, but both have been really fantastic, can't see Finkler getting in the starting team any time soon with how they've been playing. Mikey is 2nd equal in the league with chances created (13), equal with Ninkovic and one behind Leroy George (who has been incredible). As good as that is already, he's played a game less than every other player on that top ten list - plus he has two assists to his name. as for Dario obviously his dribbling, passing and heading on goal has been great (2 goals, 2 assists), but his defending too has been immense - 7 tackles, 8 clearances and 6 interceptions. these are even better numbers than Paracki has stumped up, or indeed anyone else in the team. And now with Roy and AK very much in form, Paracki and Ridenton busting their lungs in midfield every week, if we can just tighten our defense we can be such a threat and should be in the top six no doubt

Abbas generally had a cracking game. Perhaps Yellow Fever can get us a special discount code to Specsavers!

AA already does that...

Here's the highlights if you want a reminder of what I'm talking about for the goals/chance at the end

I hope we win

Or even not throw away a 3 goal lead

Jest Grrrrrrrr!

FTJ!!!

Welcome back, C-Diddy. We missed your lengthy posts.

I can't wait for Ernie's press conference after we beat them

FTJ

I think your problem is that you only focus on the attacking aspects of being a full-back - not, you know, the most important part of being a defender (defending)

I do not rate Abbas' defending at all. Possibly the worst defensive full-back we've had, and we've had some doozys.

I miss Tratt

Georgievski is out with a hammy tear, Hoffman will probably come in for him. The Jets defence isn't that fast, hopefully Krishna can exploit his pace and get in behind them.

Sooooooo....

Have I happened to have ever mentioned just how much I hate the Jest?

Can you remind us in 3 characters or less?

Maybe it's just me but, when I'm looking at defenders, I tend to look at their defensive qualities first. In my, admittedly useless, opinion a defender's worth is not, and should not be, determined on their ability to cross the ball in attacking situations. But yeah, defender can't cross a ball, okay then...

It seems to be the current thinking in the modern game.Less emphasis on defending more on attacking ability.

this this this this this this this this this this this this this

It's especially that way when it comes the current fad of 3-4-3 type formations that is sweeping England. Fullbacks are basically wingers at the moment for a lot of teams. If a fullback is a good defender and not that great of an attacker, then he tends to play as one of the CBs in the back three - guys like Azpuelicueta, Monreal, etc have converted to CBs in a back 3, while guys like Moses, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ashley Young etc have been playing as wingbacks. 

Message to Louie Fenton:  come back, apparently all is forgiven.

Still hate them!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!