Can the Western Sydney Wanderers help salvage this trainwreck of an A-League season?

One goal off in your prediction, and the wrong team! :silly: :stoked:

Not as bizarre as trying to start AFL in Western Sydney, what on earth were they thinking? As for the crowd of 2000 - I didn't know there were that many Adelaide fans living in Sydney?

Punter the 2,000 or so fans that turned up for the GWS match need to be commended. It was very hot in Sydney that day. I think the heat would have kept at least 1,000 away from their normal crowd that they get at Homebush.

This is my precisely point. No-one - absolutely no-one - is claiming that the Giants are popular, or successful, or even a team that anyone really cares about. Yet their ratings and crowds are comparable to the mighty WSW. josh mentions the Giants every time he posts a comment - as if to suggest that the Giants are the benchmark against which WSW is measured. It's a bizarre perspective to have.

Roar football manager, if he's to act as chief recruiter, would be well served doing a lot of travel and establishing personal contacts across a State several times larger than what he's used to, in player numbers, clubs and their geographic spread, rather than relying on his contacts in SA. I was reasonably comfortable when he and Matt Smith were both appointed but Matt had a better coaching offer he couldn't resist. Without a CEO (who left some time back now under unexplained circumstances), there seems to be a massive gap management wise in QLD knowledge, contacts and the like. I don't see Steffanuto around lately, suspect he's also gone. I don't have a particular insight, may be I'm wrong.

i am much closer with ross than i am john (although my relationship with john in particular has grown significantly with the amount of time ive spent with western united in the past 12 months) what i can say (without revealing too much) is that ross has been contacted by roar management in relation to the job - but so have other coaches, and yes there are multiple south australians that have been contacted and are on the shortlist ross used to work very closely with united defensive unit (and i know people are going to say that united shipped goals thats season) but he was very influential on the group especially the teenage players - which completely goes against his time with john at brisbane. i do fear if ross is appointed, he will raid adelaide and take his son (mathias) away from the united reserves team - he already looks like a fine player who i would expect to train with uniteds first team next season. as for john i think he is slowly changing as he grows older in relation to younger talent, yes his WU team is the eldest in the comp this season - but the club have implemented some changes when it comes to identification. funnily enough i am back in melbourne this weekend, where i will be spending some time with western united to go over a few things that we had discussed earlier in the season the goal of any a league team should to identify, develope and play local kids, not recruit from rival clubs or interstate

last time J and R Aloisi had control they told Kye Rowles he wasn’t good enough for Roar and sent him, and a few other good players, on their way, just as they told McLaren he didn’t deserve the money he wanted. Now there’s talk that Ross is a contender to return. Could be the death knoll if we go much further down this path. I should add that I don’t mind local junior players getting a go at other clubs or their academies, Mariners, Jets, others (Langerak, Corica) have recruited here for some years now, so long Roar also recruit locally. If you want to see player movement and domination, look at the Matildas.

i've been keeping an eye on majok from afar (he is after all, one of my finds lol) the problem is he's playing in a roar NPL side, that quite frankly is not very good - compared to previous season (you have to remember that majok was at adelaide city - who are in with a shout of being the best NPL side in australia over the past 2-3 seasons) hes proven he can score at small npl clubs (cumberland) as well as the best (adelaide city) - if the side plays to his strengths, he will trouble the opposition. as for clubs stealing/poaching rivaly young players, thats a bigger issue - as only 3 clubs in the league dont do that, adelaide, brisbane & wellington (mariners used to not do that, but have started recruiting from rivals now as well, as thier local talent pool is running on fumes) i've spoken about my displeasure with melbourne city over the years and how they have taken lots of players i had a key role in developement with (bernado, mauk, gomulka, dukuly, gauci, raphael etc) as well as key admin people (petrillo) its going to happen again because south australia is the best producer of young players in this country, when you factor in population and costs associated in terms of playing for australia, you may want to change it from the mariners to adelaide - 8 south australians chosen in the current squad now (with ryan strain rightfully getting called up) in the coming years you're going to start seeing all age groups of australian national mens football sides, featuring a large amount of south australian players (much like they dominated 1990's australian side) i am not doing any justice in what im saying, as to how many supremely talented players are in the state currently

Majok was my reference, he’s playing in the NPL side, I’ve watched a few matches, doesn’t look not too effective although he missed a pen the other night and scored on the rebound. He’s apparently on a development player contract, which is weird. The point that I make is that we have been releasing local juniors for some time now, many playing with other clubs, some going on to play for national teams. Why do we need to bring in young South Australians? when Sydney, Victory, City, Glory are picking up our youngsters and Mariners, Jets, Glory probably others are recruiting local kids for their academies. No problem with developed players like Mileusnic. There’s already a joke doing the rounds with Roar fans, if you want to play for Australia go to Mariners, if you want to play for Roar go to SA.

Is the ALM really a train wreck of a season when crowds are up on last season? I think not; it's recovering to getting back to its former glory days --- patience is required; that's all.

Also, I should add that only 16,000 watched the game on FTA in Sydney. That's a very poor TV rating. On the same day, 42,000 watched Bluey in Sydney alone.

i wouldn't say the SA players have been failures majok hasnt been used correctly in a striking role (very hard to judge him on less than 10 minutes a game) milusenic is an out and out winger (much like armiento) he should not be pinch hitting at striker, its not his position noah smith hasnt been given much of an opportunity, gomulka is doing the best he can and JCP is also playing out of position too many players have been played out of position (like several other brissy players eg trewin, akbari) in systems that dont get the best out of there talents, by a clueless coach at this level (for the record i've always said moon is a fine coach at NPL level, but the a league is a massive step up) i dont think green is much better than moon in that regard either - last match trewin, hore, akbari, scepovic and lofthouse werent playing in thier natural positions

AR I don't think we can place any reliance on any data provided by the AFL. I saw an interesting discussion on twitter. Many people felt that there was nobody at that Giants game you mention, and provided images to prove the point. They laughed off the fact that the AFL said there was 7,000 at the ground. Then the AFL issued an amendment to the attendance figure, ok, fair enough, looks like they are going to halve the original number to get it a bit closer to zero. But no! They doubled down, the attendance figure went UP by 1,000!!

One team plays in the biggest AFL competition in the world, one of the top 5 attended competitions in the world, also biggest competition in Australia. The other team plays in competition that even its most ardent fans are struggling to follow this year & even at best, the words biggest or best would never be associated with this competition. Can you tell.

Again with the Giants obsession..? Anyway, I'll play along: WSW v MAC - 7,051 GWS v ADEL - 8,169 One of these teams is the pride of Western Sydney. The other is a joke that nobody cares about. Can you tell which?

and then making a gallant return

I know that the reality is often dismissed for the fantasy in life, and football is front and centre in that narrative. Let me again make it clear, fans don't care about the journey, I could be included in that every so often. Unless the football/soccer code is representing itself in the right framework, I don't want to go watch it in its mediocrity. The FA/APL are hopefully now finally going in the right direction with expansion, the NST, transfer fees etc, but that is not here this season or last so, these seasons have been written off by me and for others it seems. Truth hurts but it may drag them into leading the code in the right direction. Lets see next season with only NST, no expansion yet though.

I wasn't being serious Mike

Mid having corporate boxes is one thing. Literally taking over an entire half of a stadium that was built with tax payer funds is not on.

You need to dumb down your comments lol