'One of the league’s most spectacular fails': Glory's Sturridge-sized problem

No he wouldn;t too old and Honda was paid an absolute fortune, worst value marquee of all time. Sturridge at 1 million a season is a lot better value even sitting on the pine all season.

The crowds for some of the big European clubs versus Socceroos were small by todays standards, Cosmos was different that was heavily promoted. NSL clubs hardly produced any Socceroos that performed, Viduka one of the few that started at a NSL club, and he did nothing useful for the Socceroos. Kalac no useful contribution as well. Broich,Berisha and Ninkovic both no good at an advanced age, Del Piero was older and performing not living on past glories . Your talking about Socceroos greats, what about Emerton he was at Sydney FC with Del Piero and was worse the useless when Del Piero was there and they were paying him about a million a season.

Sturridge being injured is the least of Perths worries, the team is unbalanced. Their problem is their squad, they have 4 9's and a coach who has Fornaroli as the top of the line favourite who always gets 90 minutes. So that renders Keogh, Sturridge, Bramwell as playing out of position. Fornaroli though is the only one of those 4 that has been any good so far has scored some decent goals, but against Sydney Fornaroli had 4 great looks at goal totally stuffed up 2 of them, one hit the post, the other a good save. Saying you could get 4 proven players is a bit ridiculous, there are barely more than 4 decent foreign players across the whole league at the moment,they already have that many foreigners, they are probably paying that money already as well . Sardenero has done nothing useful , a complete waste of money, Lachman looks good , good on the ball, but haphazard in his positioning and really unreliable, so look good and give away goals . Ota is played as a fullback given his age they should move him to center back , he was their best defender when in a back three, fullback he struggles defensively , though does decent things in attack. Ota should go central. Their season really has been stuffed up by Alex Wilkinson who injured Brandon Oneill, strange someone who never tackles does such a blatant late challenge on Oneill . Perth are a basketcase and they brought in wooden spoon specialist Nick Fitzgerald. The coach is foolish plays their Gilroy who offers a good shot and scored dome great goals at fullback he should be behind the striker, and their potential match winning player is Nginaberi , so he is the brother of Elvis Kamsoba? Dont understand that. They need to leave out Sardines, Keogh,and play only one of Fornaroli/Sturridge at a time on the field.

I went to the Sydney derby and no one asked me for vax status or QR code check in etc. Maybe it's different in the west?

That should have contracted a fee on a matches played basis

AA - in my experience Perth ticket prices are a fair bit higher than this although assuming that the $20 offer is nationwide that might help this season.

Sturridge deserves his coin. He has had to put up with so much nonsense from the McGovan and the clownish WA government re Covid restrictions. The truth is that the a league needs to attract peeps but most young folk here who play the game support teams from cities they have never been to and have no or very little connection to. In addition many of these peeps ‘throw shade’ at the a league. Same issue with the NBL and basketball in this country.

what, having to prove you are vaccinated is going to hurt crowd figures? I'd have thought that was required at all stadiums now, not least Perth.

I don't understand why anger would be directed towards Perth Glory - they don't make the laws, but they have to abide by them. How are the sales of Adelaide and Newcastle progressing?

They could have spent the $1m on 4 players to lift the squad. I wonder though if they just got the wrong signing. Maybe Shinji Kagawa could have been the way to go. Not the pulling power of Sturridge but like Honda and Ono before him, a dedicated footballer who is able to positively influence the younger players in the side.

Good comment Remote. Thanks. I would say that your argument about the NSL and monocultural community clubs producing successful players for top drawer European clubs has to be balanced with the globalisation of football in the past two decades. Our young players abroad now have some pretty stiff opposition from African, South American and others who just weren’t there two decades ago. As a relative newcomer to football, I can’t help but think that our major problem is a deep divide in the football community, not cultural or heritage but geographical factors.

AA you didn’t have to be a cynic to be concerned about the likely success of DS in the A League. History of similar signings and knowledge of conditions was enough for many of us to dismiss the hype and buzz surrounding the signing as just that. However, it does raise the whole subject of how to grow the game and increase crowds and generate more interest in local competitions. ‘Eurosnobs’ are regularly dismissed as irrelevant to the growth of the game as are “event goers” in Sydney but they do highlight the fact that there is plenty of interest in the sport overall and even if A League clubs are never going to reap the rewards of the current generations of fans of overseas clubs who will turn up to see a one off meaningless friendly, or a player who is on a short term contract that is well past his best, those same fans have children and possibly grandchildren that are likely to be involved in the game at some level. It is the potential growth from this group that the APL should turn their attention to. For starters, it is difficult to engage with grassroots football when they play opposite seasons and like it or not, for many families, once the regular season is over at the end of August or maybe a bit later to take in champion of champions tournaments for a small minority, that is it: parents want a break away from the game and to do something different in the summer months and that is a big reason why there is not more engagement. Even the mascots and half time games on the field can be difficult to organise as local associations lose touch with their members over the warm (well wet) months of summer. Do I advocate a change to winter? Well preferably but it is a minefield of associated issues so it depend upon what you want to achieve. A realignment by a few months would be a start though. If clubs engaged with local associations to a much larger extent, I honestly believe that with the right incentives, promotions and prizes and by using rivalries between associations or clubs within associations it is possible to increase crowd numbers by a few thousand at least and as we know, a percentage of those will go on to become nailed on fans. Meanwhile, I hope PG get a good welcome home crowd although Perth seems to have more than its fair share of football fans who don’t engage with the local product. I have even met migrants who prefer to live there due to the time difference so that they can continue to enjoy EPL or whatever euro league they follow. Hard to argue against it - 4-00 am kick offs on the east coast are hard work!

I agree with much of what you say. IMO it would be great to see more squads purchase a ‘star’ player and add 3-4 quality imports or returning Aussies and combine this with our home grown talent. This would help to build crowds – no question. It’s unfortunate that we have to do this though, as our A League is worthy of support as it is. It is not mediocre. I am not trying to make this a football v other codes rant, but I am using them as comparisons. Football draws from a MUCH LARGER pool of players than NRL (which only draws from 2 states) and a LARGER pool than AFL and we’re all drawing from the same pool – Australia. Neither NRL or AFL are mediocre competitions, nor is the A League. If the AFL and NRL have ‘star’ players then the A League has them too, but they’re not recognised or discussed by our media. Our A League is still mostly producing our Socceroos squad, which is ranked in the 30s, or in the top 20% of the world. Many Premier League players who come here, including Scott Wooten presently at Wellington, rate our better teams as Championship standard. Mostly these Premier League players (not their stars) don’t shine that brightly, indicating they’re not much better if they are. Yes, I’d love to see the A League grow and improve. Yes, I’d like to see it produce some more Harry Kewells, Tim Cahills, Aaron Mooys, Matt Ryans, etc. Yes, I’d like to see a second division that allows more youngsters to play, puts pressure on the top division and hopefully unites football more, but it is a good competition and it needs the support of football followers.

Hindsight and hope are both wonderful. Like many A League supporters I hoped Tony Sage's gamble would be successful for Perth Glory. When 17000 turned out on night 1 and with the club nursing him along, it looked very promising. The stop start nature of this season, due to Covid, has contributed to his position and noone knew how bad Covid would become at the start of this season. This is such a shame for Perth Glory, Tony Sage and Daniel Sturridge. Hopefully, he can get back on the field soon and Perth can recoup some of their outlay. Taking hindsight out of this - thank you to Tony Sage for trying to inject some extra interest in his club and the A League.

“For the money spent on Sturridge, they could’ve got four proven players that would dramatically improve one of the division’s weakest squads – but that’s the problem with hindsight.” “Daniel Sturridge is just another example of why A-League Men clubs need to get the right type of marquee player – even Day 1 Perth Glory fans knew this move would end in tears.” Within these two statements lies the crux of the problem trying to create a successful domestic football league in Australia. Historically their is no long term history of generational support for a professional domestic league here by the vast majority of the football fraternity Let us clarify that statement by saying that a small section of the football base from mainly monocultural community clubs created a competition that produced many Socceroos amd many successful players for top drawer European leagues, the NSL. Alienating that base from the A-League was a football crime IMO. Anyway back to Sturridge and his ilk. So what/whom did the vast majority of the football fraternity follow, no question overseas football and its established star clubs/ players. That really should also include the percentage who followed the NSL, because when Charle George, Kevin Keegan etc played here those matches had big crowd numbers. This is emphasised by the huge numbers that turn out to watch Liverpool, ManU, Real Madrid etc or back in the day the New York Cosmos visit, a team full of star European players and the locked out crowds at the Sydney Showground. The key then has been for a new league in order to attract new fans and keep them there, lies in attracting a non injury plagued Star overseas player but also the four overseas players in juxtaposition. This has been the failure of the A-League so far. When I watched Del Piero at Sydney FC for instance I watched Del Piero, there was no other 4 Ninkovic’s to catch the eye. So the Star player Del Piero pulled in the Euro watchers, but the overall team lacked quality. He left and despite Ninkovic etc, success on the park, their crowds dropped away. At the Roar for example they had the opposite issue in their successful period from Seasons 2011-14. Broich and Berisha were class but there was no Del Piero to pull in majority of the Brisbane football public. Yet when he appeared against them with Sydney FC , they pulled in over 20000 at Suncorp. Also the Brisbane football public public turned out for their 3 Grand Finals, all attended by 50,000 crowds. An occasion also brings the overseas football following fraternity out. So the lesson IMO Is consistent star injury free players to lure them in and consistent quality players to keep them there. This MO should have been followed for a couple of generations. Look a both these teams today, Sydney with no Star, but Ninkovic still around and pulling in 5000(even with Covid that is unacceptable in a city of over 5 million) or so and Brisbane with neither a star player or we could argue A+ quality A-League players, also with 5000 crowds, now playing in a Stadium in the sticks. I put it all down to the A-League having been from day one a League creating a climate of mediocrity. No need to be successful, there’s no ambitious second division club breathing fire up your backside to worry about and above in Asia, the ACL, well who cares it would seem. Only so many clubs in any league can be “Big Clubs”, they have to have the platform and infrastructure to be so, in order to attract cashed up owners who actually care about running a football club. The bubble of mediocrity surrounding the A-League is why it is looking NSL like currently and needs to be addressed ASAP by the newly formed APL.