Victory go top after defeating Brisbane

JA just cannot coach defending. This has been being the case for 3 years, including the recent season. For the last 3 seasons from 2015 to 2018, the average GA per season is 39. It is ironic that Jamie Young got the best goal keeper award last year with 40 goals lost for the whole season. Should there be another goal keeper, the number of goals lost would be even higher. As for this year, the projection is 43.875 for the whole season. The GA number now reflects well the BR's current position, 9th. Statistics tells no lie. JA still have not improved the defence from the first day 3 years ago. There were voices 2 seasons back calling for a defending coach. However, is a defending coach normal. Can the defence be coached separately? In the conference, he said BR will become strong for the rest of the season like the last one. However, this year, there is no pre-season problem. Yet the result is worse in comparison. The lining up remains rather constant, despite the defence is bad. There are too many out-dated players. Are there many injuries like in the last season? JA cannot form a good squad. The recruits are either old (and near retiring) or lack of physicality. There cannot be too many small guys in a lining up (and the squad). As for Bautheac, he is just like Oar. How can he be a marquee player? He is good but just not very good. He said he would be different in this season. However, that is not apparent. There are so many players, who should not be playing in the next season, are still playing now. There are Bautheac, Kristensen, Makay and Henrique. Those who should retire or leave next season are Holman and Caletti. Holman had been a very good player. However, if he has injury at this age, he better retires. As for Caletti, he is just not physically big enough. After Phoenix lost 1-6 to Victory, Merrick resigned. When will JA resign? What will be the catalyst? The coach is the soul of a team. If the coach is not good, the team is not good. Phoenix, with a new coach, has just got a second goal against Mariners minutes ago.

Nem, you are right no one outside of Sydney likeS Sydney FC, hell even people in Western Sydney don`t like them.LOL.

Interesting to read the comments from Brisbane fans. I've no love for Brisbane Roar. Just as I have no love for SydFC. But, having watched all 8 opponents against MVFC & in other matches, I would rate Brisbane at, or above, SydFc. MV is playing well after the first round of 8 matches. We've had poor games when we won. We've had great games when we lost. I'm not yet convinced by Perth Glory. I find AUFC the next best team. Brisbane is up there after that, despite the lack of results. After 8 matches last season, MV had 7 points and were playing ok. After 8 matches this season, BRI has 6 points but I think they're playing better than MV played at the same time last season. Long way to go.

Unfortunately JA isn’t seeing the game the way many (most?) others are. The question is, who at the club is talking to him or is he allowed to exist in his own bubble? In the first minute Roar should have scored, but didn’t x3. Sound familiar John? And that was about the only chance they created from open play. Again, sound familiar? Within 15 minutes TK makes an unforgivable mistake and turns the ball over on the edge of the penalty area 0-1 within the first quarter of an hour (I’ll stop the “sound familiar” bit, we all get the point). On 21 minutes Bautheac flys in, by this seasons standards he’s not getting a red but he’s risking it. The Victory boys then fly in to try and wind Eric up and he takes the bait and gets a red. A deserved red. Opponents know Bautheac is a hot head so try and wind him up to get a reaction. The second goal conceded was a mistake by Ingham first (which is forgivable as he’s young) but then 4 defenders left an attacker unmarked in the box for 0-2. We’ve done that a few times this season. The third goal, the pen, was a deadset penalty. Any CB in that position knows the worst thing he can do is deflect the ball and take young out of the equation. So he either gets in or out of the way, unfortunately with his arm and the benefit of the doubt has to go the home teams way. The fourth goal started with a mistake from Bowles putting the ball out needlessly for a corner that should have been a goal kick. The goal that followed was quite frankly embarrassing and enough said that it was the third game running Roar had conceded on half time. That’s poor coaching. The second half was a giant waste of time. Literally, with both sides happy to take the 4-2. To be fair it was unlikely Roar were coming back but Aloisi is picking up criticism for not having a crack; his side went to the slaughter like lambs not lions.

He needed to dump his brother and get in an experienced assistant. Aloisi senior is a hotheaded bogan. A tactically astute assistant coach is required

Never a first team starter in the best Roar sides, he's now approaching 34. His re-signing was a red flashing warning light for this season. A coach bereft of ideas.

I think everyone wished John Aloisi well, and as Fad notes, he's an excellent TV pundit. But he can't coach, and he's dragging our proud club down with him. He's a master of excuses. This season he finally ran out of them - his squad, with a full pre season. Nowhere to hide. My only question now is how much more damage Nirwin Bakrie will allow John and Ross Aloisi to inflict on Brisbane Roar before they are show the door. Surely, they can't have any rope left. Another two losses - highly likely - and surely both must go. I'm sure JA is a likeable person. I wish him well on his return to the world of television, where he will be paid handsomely. But he and his brother need to leave Brisbane Roar, and the sooner the better.

Every Roar fans loves Henrique, but it's hard to get too excited about his name being called out at games anymore. Slow and ponderous on the ball and doesn't look particularly fit either.

Yes Jb, regarding Henrique that is the same conversation I had with Lionheart in another post last week but it is not only him, that is how they play and have played over the last few seasons. No willingness to take on defenders or get bodies into the box. They play like they are robots and scared of expressing themselves hence my comments about coaches evolving and allowing their students to do the same. I really value your opinions and knowledge on our wonderful game and it would be great to sit down with you and chat one day if ever the opportunity arises. How is the Sunny coast going?

Tezza - You ask for my thoughts and I'm not sure whether you mean on Roar or on football in general. Perhaps if we expand our horizons to take in football in general we find that when watching the top teams in Europe we find more and more the emphasis on controlling a ball quickly and moving it forward to a team- mate who has advanced into a space created by his own movement. Last night we viewed the very antithesis of this type of play in the performance of Henrique when he came on as a substitute. Without fail he would stop the ball and commence to dribble ,usually backwards, under pressure, until he was forced to try and pass the ball to a team-mate who by now had been "picked up" by an opponent. On the other side Victory were doing exactly the opposite ,moving the ball, and themselves into spaces, always trying to give the ball carrier more than a single option.(Shades of the European lessons being absorbed). Roar have a list of problems too long to be discussed here but remember we are talking about a team who not so long ago was vying for Asian club glory,although to be honest the lessons in that exercise do not appear to have been heeded. Not being a sports psychologist dare I say that this Roar team gives the distinct impression they are beaten before they take the field and if their opposition happen to snare a quick goal then that feeling is accelerated. Not good. Cheers jb.

Yes JB, not only a roar fan but a Football fan and it frustrates me when you see teams that have the capability of performing but are held back by the decision makers not on the park. Victory have taken their play to another level under a coach who (whether you like him or not)seems to evolve from season to season whilst others just stagnate and think that changing their playing roster will help. Your thoughts?

Aloisi is dead wrong going on about the referee. Bautheac was stupid to get himself sent off and that cost them the match. In that humidity, you cannot compete when you have one less player.

Tezza - As a Roar fan one can only feel sorry for you after that "schmozzle" of game last night. You single out Mackay and Kristensen for mention and that leaves me a bit puzzled for if you start from the goalkeeper out to the left wing there were very few Roar players worthy of a mention ,good or bad. Young and Papadopolous could be excused from that but as for the rest it was a case of "men against boys" on the night. For the third year running this decline in Roar performance has been steady if not spectacular, but last night Victory demonstrated to the Roar team how the game is played today, and it wasn't pretty to watch. Despite the threat of bad weather forecasts, the 10,000 or so who braved the elements were to be congratulated and for their sake ,if nothing else, it is time the club power-brokers started to seek answers to their obvious problems. Cheers jb.

Agree Fad, it wasn`t the Ref who made the tackle and then carried on like a pork chop or failed to finish from 2 yards in the first 3 minutes. Had Aloisi had a word with Bautheac 10 minutes earlier and told him to settle down instead of him and his brother carrying on at the bench, abusing the officials both on and off the field and fueling the situation it may have turned out differently. Whilst I thought Mackay was reasonably ok last night Kristenson was ordinary and was too busy mouthing off and why leave it until the 88th minute to bring on Wezell-Halls when you are then trying to chase a result. Yes Aloisi sounds great when he talks but that is about all he doing at the moment and it is the same old story.

Fadida - How right you are. Anyone who can try and salvage some good points out of that second half doesn't deserve to be called a football coach. Roar, albeit down to 10 men, were given a lesson on how possession can be maintained by quick. accurate passing and more importantly, good movement by all the Victory players around the field. The "stats " figures they occasionly show during the broadcast were at times totally unbelievable as representative of a football match being played by 2 teams. This could ,and probably should, have been a 4 or 5 goal win to Victory and Honda put this in perspective after the match when he once again lamented on Victory's lack of goals scored,when possession figures were so high. The blunt truth is that Roar were given a football lesson and on the night a shrewd observer may have formed the conclusion that this team were beaten before they went on the field, for with a penalty and an own goal totaling Roar's scoring efforts, the problem that has been evident for at least 3 years still registered as a major weakness,the lack of goals. jb.

Aloisi comes across as intelligent and articulate when acting as a pundit. As a coach he is petulant and childish, the “playing against 12” comment and example of that. Bautheac deserved a red for the challenge, but was given only a yellow. Had he not lost his head afterwards he would have still been on the pitch, ie it was a potentially match changing decision that went the way of the Roar. Bowles should have seen red v the Jets the week before. The penalty? Handball isn’t black or white, but you could see why it was given. MV weren’t happy about the Roar penalty either. It’s always someone else’s fault isn’t it Johnny? It’s not your decision to play MacKay and Kristenson together in midfield, 2 traffic cones, or playing MacKay advanced of Lopez. Roar are unbalanced and very ill disciplined, and that all comes back to the coach, not a ref.