Two long distance goals from Marc Janko and Milos Dimitrijevic condemned Brisbane Roar to their third defeat in three games at Lang Park on Friday night, while the hugely impressive Sydney FC have had their best start to a campaign ever, moving to nine points from their three matches.
Sydney were unaffected by playing their third game in six days, and put together a well organised and committed display to further build on their excellent start to the A League in 2014-15.
Mike Mulvey, who managed his 50th A-League match tonight, will be hoping to use the bye week next week to regroup and pick his team up.
Brisbane do not look the same side that won the title last year, with players missing from last year’s championship winning side through transfers and injury. Results will need to improve soon if they are to mount a decent title defence.
The Roar’s typically possession heavy, passing game, relies on great close control, accurate passing and great movement from 1 to 11. It only takes one of these factors to be off and opposition teams can start to cause them problems.
Graham Arnold organised Sydney perfectly and as a result they were able to disrupt the Roar’s movement and force the midfield to rush their passes, resulting in scrappy play and constant turnovers in the first half.
When it was announced that Michael Theo was going to be injured for the first few games of the season, I felt Brisbane could struggle. The Brisbane keeper plays such an important role in terms of maintaining possession, acting at times as a sweeper, as well as his excellent shot stopping ability.
Theo has excellent feet, and without him, Brisbane should adapt and try not to involve the keeper so much in maintaining of possession. This is easier said than done though when Brisbane have built a lot of their success on building from the back, and Young was placed under a lot of pressure in the first half by Sydney’s high line.
Sydney’s opener, on 28 minutes, came from a misplaced kick from keeper Jamie Young, who’s under pressure clearance was controlled by Marc Janko, who then nonchalantly thumped the ball into the far corner.
Despite Arnold being unhappy with Sydney’s schedule leading into the game, with an FFA Cup tie on Tuesday night, his players showed high levels of energy and superb discipline to impose themselves early and stun Brisbane.
After gaining some confidence from a spell of sustained possession at the end of the first half, Brisbane came out looking better and more confident in the second half.
Their good start was undone however in the 55th minute, when Milos Dimitrijevic scored a stunning 30-yard goal, firing past Young who was well beaten despite being slightly off his line.
If Sydney were fortunate in regaining possession from a loose clearance that deflected off referee Peter Green, the interplay to create space between the defence and midfield lines of Brisbane was exceptional – and the finish was also top quality.
This is the first time I’ve seen the defending champions this year, and I was surprised at how insipid they looked in front of the SBS cameras in the first half.
Brisbane did have some back luck leading into the game, with key midfielder Tom Broich going down with an injury to the outside of his knee in the warmup. Despite being cleared fit to play, this seemed to have a huge effect on the German, and without that focal point in midfield Brisbane did struggle.
This match highlighted what a number of people suspected, that in some games, Brisbane will struggle without Berisha this year. Not having a recognised target up front hurt Brisbane tonight.
The biggest crime in sport is to remain still when everyone else around you is moving forwards. And arguably, without Besart Berisha and Ivan Franjic, Brisbane have lost two of their best.
Theo’s absence is also hurting them, and his return can not come soon enough. Hopefully for Brisbane, they can arrest the slide, and pick up their elusive first win.
Sydney on the other hand, improve their unbeaten run in the league, and look to be the early front runners this season.
Cameron
Roar Guru
Agreed. The keeper was the last person I was looking at to blame.
Qantas supports Australian Football
Guest
Half agree there---Bris had 60% to SFC 30% so the midfield is still fairly good. The problem with Bris now is that they don't have a striker or strikers who can move the opponent's defence around. Berisha was very good at that. The players they have up front now are very static, and won't, or are reluctant, or are unable to move their opponents around. Can't find holes, or move into the holes. They don't even try to create space for themselves off the ball.
Towser
Guest
That's him.
Ian
Guest
yeah, Fussball i give him credit, he does know his football history and fights the fight, but Brisbane as a successful club is one of his least favourite and his downfall. Perhaps Melbourne Roar can win the double this year and get back to being the most successful club with the most trophies. There isn't too much talk of Muscat inheriting Ange's systems at Melbourne Roar of which no trophies were acquired in those two seasons of which Ange had a full preseason in 2012. Mulvey has done a fantastic job. We'll have to wait and see if anything is going on behind the scenes other than lack of determination and any entitlement scenarios which is what Mulvey inherited in 2012 and got rid of. The lack of recruitment was evident in the off season but I still think the squad is more than capable. Whether its enough to be a top 3 side I don't know. I think Henrique has been one of the best in the 3 games so far along with Broich IMO.
Realfootball
Guest
Agree, Mid. Mulvey inherited an outstanding squad. It was a dysfunctional squad and he did an A grade job of pulling the team back together and reinstalling its mojo. But as you note, the challenge now is very different. I hope he can pull it off but whether he can remains to be seen. This is a much sterner test than last season.
Realfootball
Guest
Ah well, after years of disappointment it must be nice to gloat. I'm happy to allow you that. And I'm thoroughly enjoying watching Victory play this season. I'll even overlook the fact that 2 of your front 3 were nicked from Brisbane in the first place. Roar fans have also had the considerable pleasure of watching 3 winning Grand Finals in 4 years. I'm philosophical - this was always going to happen. As others have noted, the signs were ominous in pre season. And yes, I do hold Mulvey responsible. The need to recruit quality players to replace Franjic and Berisha and the need for squad renewal was obvious at the end of last season and he has sat on his hands. Now why he has sat on his hands is another matter and he may have had no choice because he had no money. We shall see. What is certain is that after outstanding work last season, Mulvey faces a really tough test this season.
Ian
Guest
I was quite surprised too on only 14,000 plus last night. Was expecting 17-18,000 as SFC is usually a good drawcard. Wonder if its only the ADP factor. The next home game vs City had big ticket sales anticipated because of Villa - at least pus 20,000 ...now he's leaving next week before that game so we'll see the impact on the crowd that night.
Ian
Guest
true jb - perhaps I took him too much at his word when he said he reviewed the Roar Glory game and noticed Young off his line too often. As you alluded it took the ball hitting the ref for his plan to work, so that's not much of a plan.
j binnie
Guest
Ian - Arnold made those comments post-match and I bet he did so with his tongue squarely in his cheek. Lets look at the incidents,Young received a passback supposedly aimed for him and was drawn far wide of his goal to intercept and effect a hurried clearance which travelled at least 35 metres to an unchallenged Janko who had the control and accuracy of shot to immediately send it goalwards into the net after a colossal bounce as it dropped from the sky.The second goal,a very good strike ,was made possible by the referee getting in front of a hefty clearance and the ball broke to Brosque who set the lad up for his shot. And now we are expected to believe Arnie saw all this happening pre-match in his--------crystal ball. Bull...t jb
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
That would just tend to indicate a greater proportion of those people that follow soccer have pay TV. As you'd expect. Most rugby union fans are in the same boat - ignore the Bledisloe Cup games because they get the theatregoers watching (similar to a big Socceroos game), but most Wallabies tests have a similar ratio between FTA and Pay TV as the A-League - as the vast bulk of rugby programming is on Fox. NRL and AFL followers - well a lot of those just won't have pay TV because they don't need it. Plenty of it on FTA.
j binnie
Guest
Towser- Glad someone noticed. Last year with ADP playing in game number 8 the crowd was 21,841 compared to last night's 14,141, a reduction of 35% or 7,700. Conservatively this cost the club around $230,000 not counting "extras".The bells should be ringing. jb.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
Quite a few shows actually. Commonly shows like Big bang theory and other sitcoms are on both and the difference in TV numbers is noticeable. The same show on the main channel seems to get around double the viewers. Funny you mention the AFL - in Perth 7 have games on both 7 and 7 mate and the games on 7 mate rate much less than a similar game on the main channel. You don't seem to realise that most viewers, no matter what the program, are not hardened supporters like most of us here on The Roar. They flick the TV on, go to the channels that they're used to watching and when they get to something they like, they'll stop. You might know when games are on and on what channel, but you're the exception rather than the norm.
Ian
Guest
Not sure who gave a lecture about Berisha being a bit player. Brisbane Roar faced the situation of keeping Broich or Berisha. There was no question if you had to pick one who it would be. That's just exaggeration for the sake of saying Berisha has gone to MV and he's scored one penalty goal and MV have a win and a draw so far. Playing well though. MV wouldn't offer 750k for Berisha if he wasn't worth it. There's more going on at Brisbane that Berisha being gone - and I'm talking about on the field, not these assertions from Ray Gatt on twitter that he will reveal in two weeks. This reminds me too much like the start of the 2012-13 season - hunger and determination is missing in spades. Though on another angle we've won 5 trophies in 4 years so can't win all the time. Last night's performance was lacklustre and those blaming the goalkeeper solely are incorrect. He had some bad positioning which Arnold has said he tried to exploit. But there is more to it than that. and it was two long range wonder strikes that got Sydney their goals. They did play better and pressed well also, which I think is troubling Brisbane Roar so far this year. I also don't agree with whistling your own goalkeeper. He was distraught at the post match function too. But as I said - he isn't solely responsible for what happened.
Ian
Guest
are you thinking of Stefan Nijland in 2012-13 season? Henrique did a decent version of a wonder strike last week vs Perth.
Brisvegas
Guest
It seems that the only people not surprised about the Roar's start to the season are Brisbane fans. It was clear to just about every one of us that we'd struggle this season. I don't think this has anything at all to do with Mulvey; he's not in charge of the purse strings. He did an extraordinary job last season. To win the competition by so far in a league like ours is an amazing achievement, and I doubt whether he has become a bad coach during the off season. The blame lies fairly and squarely with those that finance the club. Here we had a champion team that needed to replace 2 high profile players and some regeneration to give depth and variation to the squad. This is almost a perfect platform to kick on and dominate the league again and then to set its sights on the ACL. But we got half-hearted replacements (one of whom is injured and has played very little football for at least a year). In contrast, just about every other team spent it's time strengthening. All the games so far this season have shown that imbalance. Brisbane aren't worse, it's just that everybody else is much better, which makes Brisbane look worse. The powers that be at the top have made no effort to progress the club, and in a competition like the A-League, which is evolving rapidly, you have to be proactively strengthening every year. I'll be glad when we get rid of the Bakries. I'd even welcome Mike Ashley over those guys.
Midfielder
Guest
I watched Branko Culina coach SFC and in his first season he did well ... but his down fall was being able to pick replacements and built a squad.. Mike Mulvey got AP's side and before then Bligburg's side... Phill Moss at the Mariners is having a similar problem his replacements for Abini, weeJudas & Flores have not been in the same class. Whereas Kenny Lowe, Muscat & Arnold have recruited well... A large part of coaching is player replacement and squad building with both Mulvey & Moss under real pressure to prove this part of the job..
Steve
Guest
Ummm no. The vast majority of nations do not show live football on FTA, let alone European nations. Football is the backbone behind many Pay-TV networks. And this is generally if footballing strongholds too.
Steve
Guest
Not a "myth" at all for the commercial FTA networks. You have rocks in your head or ahh]ve not analysed any data if you think a 7mate or GEM rate as high as 9 or Seven, even for Sport. But for SBS, it would appear that there is little difference between SBS1 and SBS2.
j binnie
Guest
fadida- An excellent summation jb
j binnie
Guest
Cameron I agree with your observations but having watched Roar for some time I have seen various keepers,obviously playing to instructions using the "throw out" to a teamate rather than a lofted punt up the field and I would say Young has been issued those same instructions.(Coe,signed by Ange at Victory ,does the same thing) However there is something "readable" about this tactic and Brosque for one capitalised in that fact last night.Due to the almost continuous advancement of the regrouped Sydney team a growing pressure was put on Roar's midfield and back four which in turn saw shorter and shorter back passes being put back to the keeper,some not too well directed, and this in turn served to draw him out of position.The misplaced header from Smith that saw Young almost outside the box,and the pass back from Lustica??? that drew him way wide to his left where,under pressure he was forced to kick a 40 metre punt that landed on the chest of the totally unchallenged Janko who seeing him so far left took another punt and scored a spectacular goal.are just 2 examples. The question,who is at fault,the goalkeeper or the bad passback that pulled him way wide of his goal???? In the second half we saw a back pass being attempted from inside the penalty box that saw at least 4 Roar defenders tied in knots while the commentators again bagged the goalkeeper.Who passes a ball back when they are less that 15 metres from the goal and opposition players sniffing around.??? No Cameron,blaming the keeper is the easy way out,there are much deeper concerns at Roar. jb