Plenty happening on-field, as well as away from the pitch, in another busy week in Australian football.
Here are your A-League Round 13 talking points.
Glory overcome Khelifi farce, claim first away win in 15 months
A happy ending to another week from hell for Alen Stajcic’s men as Perth took all three points home from CommBank Stadium. Goals from Stefan Colakovski and David Williams were enough to seal victory as Wanderers huffed and puffed with no end product until deep into injury time, and even then it was from a set-piece finished off by talisman Marcelo.
It’d be difficult not to sympathise with Stajcic’s plight. Right now, with no resolution to their ownership situation in sight the APL are effectively running the club, and Stajcic used his press conference to deflect any questions regarding the playing squad’s contracts to Nick Garcia after Salim Khelifi was loaned to Melbourne Victory. It feels like the ex-Matildas boss is managing with one hand tied behind his back – I do not envy him in the slightest.
(Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)
In his post-game presser Marko Rudan admitted his Western Sydney side didn’t turn up to play, perhaps perceiving the result was predetermined after an impressive win over the premiers last time out. But that’s one of the ways contenders separate themselves from pretenders – by treating the next match as the most important, regardless of opposition.
Victory drop points late as VAR strikes again
For the second consecutive week, Melbourne Victory failed to close out the game and dropped two points thanks to a late equaliser. Victory were on the cusp of securing the win until Jason Geria made slight contact with Oskar van Hattum in the penalty area and following a VAR check Daniel Elder pointed to the spot.
It’s another hard one for Tony Popovic to swallow but the Vuck remain comfortably in second place, four points clear of their nearest challengers in Western Sydney.
With roughly 50 per cent of the regular season completed, I’m willing to declare the premiership a three-horse race in 2023-24 and I believe Victory are in with a huge shout, however they’ll need to discover the consistency they’ve lacked at times this campaign.
APL jobs cuts inevitable result of nonsensical KeepUp gamble
It’s been a difficult week in Australian football. My sympathies go to fellow journos, socials producers, videographers and graphic designers who now find themselves without work.
Stating the obvious here, but when the dust settles on these redundancies, it is time for a rethink on how APL-employed journos cover the league. Call me cynical or negative, but I don’t believe KeepUp’s local coverage was fantastic. It certainly was not visible for the casual sports fan – and that’s who the game should be targeting, as long as growing the domestic game is still the target. I suppose if we accept that we’ve plateaued and it’s realistically never going to be bigger than it is right now, then it’s a different story.
Written sports media may be dying a protracted death but there is still a place for it. The coverage though must have depth – journos who know the game and how to report on it. Personally, I’m a big fan of the style of long-form reporting subscribers to The Athletic would be familiar with as opposed to short news bites.
For the life of me, I don’t know why, with tens of millions of dollars being bandied about, the best in the business were not recruited – the likes of Joey Lynch, George Clarke, Vince Rugari et al. Clarke and I were often the only reporters in press boxes across Sydney, with very few KeepUp scribes to be seen outside of Big Blues and Sydney Derbies.
Not even bothering to send your journalists to matches – that’s $40 million well spent.
Quick hits
-Extending Joe Lolley for two more years is tidy business by Sydney FC.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
-Some disappointing stadium news – Chris Minns confirming an increase in concerts at Allianz Stadium which will potentially force the Sky Blues to move fixtures. This, on the back of Western United announcing more ‘home’ games in Tasmania, and the disastrous state of the Suncorp Stadium surface.
-Pretty impressive job done by Mark Jackson in Gosford to turn around the Mariners’ fortunes. It was a horrific start to the championship defence, but Central Coast now sit inside the top four on the back of four wins from five outings.
-Ulises Davila played his 100th A-League game in the Bulls’ 3-1 triumph over Brisbane.
-Speaking of the Roar, Ben Cahn’s so far been unable to plug the leaky defence. Three goals conceded to Macarthur after letting in two in each of the previous two fixtures.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Now the squad is cheaper and smaller because Khelifi, Bozanic and MCEneff are gone, , Bozanic wasn't performing, why was he brought in on loan. Lachman, Beevers, Amini, Taggart, Kamau are not cheap players. Italiano has done the job with a small cheap squad , his most expensive player is out injured. This wasn't an expensive squad but it wasn't cheap either, and it had a lot of players, its that an advantage to have so many players, are you better off sticking to the same players and having them play more or swapping around like musical chairs like Stajic has done. I dont have a clue how MV can add Khelifi but they arent in receivership. Corica didnt sign Keeley Adamson but Macarthur have got him and Bernado now.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
For the 20 years of the A-League's existence Australia has experienced a mining boom (more or less). So we've probably mined all the good fortune that there was to mine out of that boom. That mining boom helped fund a large chunk of the $300 million in losses incurred over that period. Thank you mining boom. What's left? Dodgy overseas backers.
NickA
Roar Rookie
He can undoubtedly play but needs to get a consistent run and start dominating games - which I don't think he can. He's unpredictable in the best and worst sense of the word - he'll tear shreds one match then disappear for a month.
Cavaquinho
Roar Rookie
I didn’t hold much hope for Taggart to have a positive impact at PG due to being injury-prone. However, with an extended run of matches the team dynamic around him as improved a lot. I never pegged Taggart as being much of an athlete but it is apparent that when he retains fitness and confidence in his body that he has enough leg speed to trouble most defenders. His more adventurous one-touch efforts and improved heading make him a menace close to goals, where he has always excelled. Colakovski has his merits but PG need a partner for Taggart who provides better delivery deep in the final third than he is getting from him, Ivanovic, Bennie, Kamau and co. They could do worse than partnering Taggart with Colli as a deep-lying forward to produce the final pass. Colli seems to struggle with pacing himself to produce 90 minutes of good football in the midfield where he has a lot of defensive duties. He has increasingly spent his time chasing opponents and not enough on the ball, where he could be providing better quality delivery to Taggart.
David Shilovsky
Expert
Mining and Newcastle didn’t work out too well last time. It’s been so long since the Jets had an owner who invested properly in the club. I think it’s years since they’ve had an owner, period.
Cavaquinho
Roar Rookie
Not a Burgess fan here. He always seemed to be one of those players who play with an air of an inflated opinion of their importance. Moreover, his talents were largely built on athleticism getting him to lots of possessions but he played with the touch of an elephant. So I watched the weekend game with my usual skepticism about his merits. However, that was a seriously good performance. His touch was better than anything I believe I have seen from him before, he kept on popping up in good positions without running himself into the ground and he scored goals. His teammates didn’t exactly embrace him but his body language did seem a bit more team-oriented. I still think there are better prospects around for the national team but all credit to him for his latest manifestation. It felt significant for Sydney’s hopes of mounting a premiership challenge.
Brendan
Roar Pro
Perth & Newcastle each need to find a billionaire backer. I can think of two personalities for Glory… However, both Rinehart & Twiggy have been burnt by the mixing of politics with sport. It’s risky owning a football team these days.
Brendan
Roar Pro
J-Mac’s reliable. That’s it. Expect good service, wait in the box, & tap. Nothing fancy, but he gets results.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Agree entirely. His squad is half decent so hopefully they let him plug the gaps in the winter and we go again next year.
Skoose
Roar Rookie
You have to be joking, the most ridiculous comment ever about PG. Of that 30 most are local NPL players punching above their weight on short term contracts. PG do have a problem recruiting injured players, Brad Jones (18 months on the sidelines and no appearances locally that I saw), Sturridge, Martis etc.... Compared to MV & MC our squad is cheap, how do MV have so many expensive wingers? MV, Syd and MC are allowed to break the salary cap for sure.
NickA
Roar Rookie
Surprised Taggart hasn't been more closely looked at - maybe Arnie thinks time for some fresh players i.e. Yengi & Iredale - and Fornaroli's form was to good to ignore. I think Taggart is brilliant. What you've said re Jmac is classic Jmac Grem - he's not busy enough. He's either scoring or doing very little to influence the game - you could argue he makes some dummy runs & creates spaces etc but I don't think that really makes as big an impact as people think. That's why Duke has been picked over him over the years, and now Bruno. If you're not going to score much (which Duke doesn't), you may as well try to have an impact around the field - linking up play (Bruno/Duke), winning fouls (Bruno), target man/front line pressure (Duke). Socceroos don't have the luxury of walking the ball into the net like City have done, historically. Jmac plays well in a well performing team. It's not a slight on his ability, it's just his game style - which is very effective in the right team. He's the best finisher we've had in a long time. Re City, Fabian - there's not a lot of options up top. Nabbout's best position is wide, and I think Caputo is too young to be given the mantle - although I would love to see more of him. But again, I am but a mere Roar Rookie
Limo
Roar Rookie
Agree waz in tough times a true leader needs to stand up and make tough decisions. A bit of fan consultation will do nick the world if good. We are waiting nick Garcia.
Marcel
Roar Rookie
Top of my wishlist is new owners for Perth and Jets...maybe then they will do some proper recruiting instead of recycling players who have already failed elsewhere.
Marcel
Roar Rookie
I like Burgess, there's an odd Chris Waddle vibe about him.. and he has the sort of 1 on 1 unpredictability that the Socceroos are missing at the moment.
Marcel
Roar Rookie
Ben Cahn comes across as being a thoroughly decent chap ..I hope he gets an extended run from the board.
Grem
Roar Rookie
I watched the game yesterday and thought he was almost non existent. In patches he was good, but he’s not busy enough. I understand why Arnold didn’t take him to Qatar. It was Taggart who I was impressed with on the weekend, except his shooting was a bit off.
fabian gulino
Roar Rookie
Very true comment, because Melbourne city although premier champions ???? for the season, but have failed when to winning the final in the last few years. Melbourne victory and Sydney fc are well head of city in success.
fabian gulino
Roar Rookie
Jamie Maclaran the player that he is has Been a marvellous player over the years, but I can see cracks starting to merge the way he has been playing. He looks slow ???? and not dangerous that he once was. It's time for Melbourne city come to terms with J Mac the way he is playing and to start him off the bench for the rest of the season. I'm no Expert writer it's just my opinion J mac. I would like to hear from other rookie writers and Expert editors to reply of what I just wrote. I will agree to disagree that's sport.
Waz
Roar Rookie
His temperament revealed itself in the numerous online personas he’s had - he will have matured no doubt and has rightly earned his place in the record books. I sometimes think if he had the same achievements at Sydney or Victory he would be thought of differently, and I think he would have scored the same number of goals in any side he played for, which is not fair. Personally I hope he stays in the A League next year and pushes his record further.
NickA
Roar Rookie
a bit of a shame Waz – MacLaren has been excellent and deserves more. I am not a big fan of him – he is a complete tap in merchant and is almost completely reliant on having a good squad around him – BUT to be able to finish almost everything that comes his way is still an impressive quality. He’ll be the first to admit he doesn’t care about scoring pretty goals. Also not sure his temperament is the issue – he seems a consummate pro. But being the poacher he is, he’d need to go to a ‘big fish’ team.