Reds upset Roar 2-1

Waz - An analysis to find out what is wrong is not achieved by looking at certain occurrences, but in the team's make up and therefore performance. McLaren is today a "marked man" and simply because of this the goals have dried up.Now as you are well aware there are more ways than one to "skin a cat" and the obvious question is,why wasn't the lad given a support man to play beside him and take the pressure off him somewhat. This could have been TRIED once to see what happened, but was it????. Matt Mackay is persevered with in a position he should not be in. It has been known for a long time that Matt ,despite his undoubted drive and energy, is no "finisher" and yet he is consistently used in a left sided attacking midfield role where his forays forward often leave him in a position where he is of no help to his young fullback should he,the fullback ,find himself under undue pressure during the ever present fast break opportunity.. This means North can be drawn out wide,leaving gaps in the goalmouth, sound familiar??? Matt has to be made aware that his influence to this team would be better served playing in the central screening role, playing laterally rather than longitudinally.. These are only 2 areas in which things could be tried to see if you fans get an improvement but what do you get week after week ,the same old ,same old. Cheers jb.

You can partly understand he Roar's frustration and their on field response, Aloisi brought it up in his press conference, the Perth goal when the ball was clearly out, the square up penalty against City (I always thought that two wrongs don't make a right). Aloisi said when the club followed up with the FFA and were told there had been mistakes but there was nothing the FFA could do because those games were over. The only thing that has deteriorated more than the refereeing standard this season has been foxsport commentating, has there been a Roar tackle in the twelve years of the A-League that Harper or Slater haven't thought was worth at least a yellow card if not a red. When Berisha was at the Roar how many times was he accused in the broadcasts of going down too easily, yet Brandan and Fornoroli are considered to be clever when they hit the deck when barely touched. . If Berisha's red card was rescinded because it was deemed incorrect, does that mean Kristensen's yellow card (his 5th for the season) will be rescinded because he didn't touch McGree. Considering the uproar when the North incident against City earlier in the year and the calls for a suspension for trying to get someone carded, we all await the match review committee's report on McGree. Unluckily for Theo, only Teflon Timmy seems to be able to elbow people in the head (Baro and Castro) and nothing happen.

jb - we can violently agree on this one. Another thing I don't get is why last season they could score but not defend for toffee, this season they can defend (most of the time) but can't score for toffee.

Waz - We can talk around these perceived problems all we like but we will always come back to the same question,why does this team not score the goals that it's outfield play appears to merit.???. The simple fact is that the management of this team has consistently,all season , appeared to ignore this obvious weakness.The end result of any analysis that is attempted is that there are certain positions in the team that appear to be sacrosanct to certain players. Under the guise of supposed "rotation" we have watched as two reasonable goalkeepers have had responsibility shared, but there the "rotation" stops. The system of play used is a very basic 4-3-3 with slight variations,and the wing positions have been shared by Borrello,Oar, Broich and Oar not one of whom to me could be described as a "classic " winger.,fast,,tricky, direct, and most importantly ,dangerous. McLaren as a lone striker is a total failure,he has been played out of the game so often now that people are questioning his goal getting ability,rather than question the service he receives, and to me they are missing the point,they are looking for another Berisha when the lad,in build,style and attitude is totally different from the Albanian. Three or four weeks ago a little "ray of hope" appeared in an 18 year old kid,who has an existing, in- bred talent for fast transition,that is, receiving,controlling and moving a ball all in one movement and yet we have seen him dropped to accommodate two injured midfielders,both obviously rushed back to the team at the expense of this "ray of hope". Again we are left to wonder at our own observations,just what is going on??? I could go on, but the sheer exasperation in watching this never changing picture is, finally,,after all these years ,getting to me. Even my wife,a casual observer ,is starting to ask fair questions that need answers that are not forthcoming. My heart goes out to the long suffering fans, they deserve better. Cheers jb..

McGree's behaviour was pure cheating, and for an 18 year old to do that its worrying because it's either been coached in to him or his playing role models do it so he's copying? But the FFA have no appetite to deal with the issue so we live with it spreading through the game. The Scottish FA introduced retrospective bans for simulation, our FFA should do the same once VR is introduced. But Roars response on pitch deteriorated from that moment; Kristensen's reaction got himself booked but could have been sent off for waving a finger in the refs face, Theo over reacted to a deliberate foul and did get himself sent off and lost the team a point, and the Roars assistant coach may have lost the plot completely and may be fortunate he's only facing an FFA investigation. There can be no excuses for this behaviour, Roar historically have always played fair and while little incidents have always been there (like Bes ripping his shirt off lol) they've always been isolated and few and far between incidents - this season looks like a big drop in standards on that (although going in to this game Roar were in first place on the fair-play ladder)

There was a great irony in that one jb - Holman played really well after Caletti came on.

Foxsports website is reporting the Adelaide assistant coach was assaulted in the tunnel. Was he actually assaulted or someone got too close to him and he went down like McGree.

agree Waz, we should be winning these games and hitting our peak this time of year. I'm not saying we're going great, what I am saying is we weren't poor - we were the same really, no finish in us, but we did enough to at least draw and I thought were the better side, far. Nothing getting done - well, our game plan hasn't changed, yes. Can't see JA changing much this late tbh. Interesting that Gui Amor was not celebrating the win, In fact, he stayed seated while his bench celebrated the pen, reports are he was embarrassed. And we wonder why we have Euro snobs?

Well it's not just today right, how did we do against Nix at home? and Jets at home? We were poor today and tomorrow's headlines will overshadow that, this was a "must win" game and we fluffed it. People have been defending Maccers and he gets one shot on target; Holman who is a marquee next season, how? There's nothing new in the problems, but nothing is getting resolved either.

waz - Same old,same old, same old problem,and with Arana in place of Oar/ Broich, can we really expect anything else. The boy Caletti ,dropped after some top displays,is introduced when a half fit Mackay finally succumbs to the inevitable and almost immediately Holman starts to function being given balls he can do something with. One has to ask why ,why, why,. Not so cheerful jb.

mm, Arana's not up to A League standard, Oar and Broich are injured, Petratos left early, Holman is overrated by the Fox Sports experts and is surely no marquee man, and our youngsters lack game time. Our schedule has been burdensome, but no excuses. We were the better side tonight, no doubt. Even when AU got ahead in the first half it was from a corner set up by a Holman speed ball from thirty metres out. They didn't really have any other chances, credible chances, until the final penalty. They were poor, we should have won by a couple of goals. We got through them several times, down the right side as the Fox callers kept saying. But our cross in was, like, into the defender. Time and again. We've been doing it all season. But I wouldn't say we were poor, in comparison to Adelaide (which is all that matters). McKay has not been fit for a few weeks now, playing below his best so I'd rather he be injured than play injured. We're still in with a decent look. Better not to get that third spot imo, fourth is just fine.

lol. That should kill that rumour however that's all it was. But JA without Ross staying at Roar, who knows?

John and Ross Aloisi not to succeed gui amor i would have to guess. And to think they could of lived in Adelaide next year. Talk about dodging a bullet.

One of these days Adelaide!!! To the moon!!! I have to agree though Waz. Not the worst performance ever but still rather poor. I too have been impressed by joe caletti in all of his appearances so far though poor defending at the corner and the penalty proved to be too much. I've thought for some time our 433 or die approach is a massive disadvantage at times and did so again today. A 442 i believe would of helped out alot in midfield and j mac could have played beside borello up front with better service. The two wide midfielders(broich/ arana types) heading to the top of box while brown and hingert cross in would provide more options in attack while mckay/kristensen mids stay behind to cover any potential counter attacks. If possible keep tk from having to defend penalties.

Ignoring the last couple of minutes of madness for a moment (and what seems to have followed in the tunnel) how poor were Roar. Caletti was a real game changer but not changing it enough.