Having somebody on staff that knows more than the boss is untenable. Victory’s problem is that the players all know more than the boss, and the boss is not getting any help from the assistants, the squad is not fit by a mile …. but I bet muscat has a lot of fun with them at training ????

Absolutely …. the players are not fit and it is obvious that they are only going through the motions. Postecoglou had success because he changed the culture. Victory upgradeed the culture to assistant coach status. The players are not fit. experience is what is needed here and Victory coaching staff have none.

Hard to comment … especially finding it hard to find a team list with accurate injuries listed.

Adelaide did it hard against a pressing glory and will probably do it again against Victory, although Victory from all reports are going to take on teams with their attack rather than defense. For my money the goalkeepers will rule again in this game. If Victory couldn’t put one past Reddy, my money is on Adelaide.

Wellington have a heap of injuries from last weekend but who knows if they are fit for this weekend. Once again the public get the mushroom treatment, but the Jets are fighting for their survival when the new coach comes in and assesses their performance. Strong at the back and know where the goal is, Jets again.

Sydney at home to Roar …. hell !!!! What a game to be ruined by the fox commentary teams, although Slater and his new chum did an excellent job in Perth last weekend. I’m not convinced that the Roar, for all their attacking and defensive brilliance, are not just as bad as any another team when defending set pieces. Good service from Emmerton instead of the usual garbage from Cole and Jamison might make the difference. This is one game I am leaving out of my “multi’s”, any result will be a surprise.

If Ibinneei – Isea (must learn how to spell that name and give him the respect he deserves) replaces either “couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn in one out of twenty attempts” simon or “who was offside … what’s offside” kwasnick, then mariners will convert a couple of their chances that they create so many of, enough to beat Gold Coast anyway.

Heart will outlast Glory .. it will be interesting to see how the old heads handle trying to press after the roadtrip over.

There … put my thoughts down for ridicule …. now the smart thing to do is to change my tips to Glory, Gold Coast, Victory and Wellington.

I hear what is being said and I see what is being produced on the pitch. At 6’7″, if he was a basketballer he would probably play power forward., but if he was hammered by the 6’0″ defenders who constantly out jumped and out positioned themselves like the Oman defenders did, Josh would not last in the team for very long.

I would be embarrassed to be out positioned like Josh was last night. I can’t remember him getting his head to one effective ball all night, even when injured he was the second man up and not even close to timing the ball connection, was he off making things happen ???. He scored a goal by picking up the slops off a goalkeeper dropped ball, hardly making things happen.

There is an ex Australian coach, Brian Gjordian, coaching in Japan or China at the moment. A couple of lessons in how to use your feet and your arse to pin your opponent where you want him would make a much better target for the crosses into the box, wouldn’t need to go looking to make things happen. There is also a technique to push down on your opponent with your elbow rather than push him away that would be a useful skill in close quarters.

Cross training I think it could be called?.

Yeah …. He’s a frowner, I’m a smiler. Love what he has done with the roar though, at the roar he is a round peg in a round hole.

A gracious winner to boot, but I still don’t like him. He learnt all the hard lessons at our expense, well not all of them, at least he learnt. He has done a couple of things good I suppose, he is youth oriented, oh! and he has the team playing open football …. and fast ……. he can’t be too bad if the team like him. I suppose he is better than farina, and his team have won some great games. Actually he has the team playing to what looks to be a good …. no make that great … philosophy ……… he has much better results than other bigger spending clubs, I’m glad nobody took any notice of my earlier mutterings when he was appointed. What a pleasure to see somebody have enough confidence in themselves to take it all the way. A big contributor to this years fantastic league. All power to the roar and Mr Postecoglou.

Part of the uniqueness of your own posts is being able to flavour them the way you want to, not the way others want them. If you do not recognise the humour, or understand the post then you should just move on, put it in the too hard file. It is not too late to go and study the Confuscious Thesuarus of Vinay Verna wisdom ………..

From what I have read, con was off side with most of Newcastle. He was fighting with a newspaper, owed the tax man, just that alone would indicate that he was a bad payer of bills (which is a common trait with successful business people). The tough atitude he took with griffith and knights, he had no chance of community sponsors coming on board. He was his own worst enemy.

Tinkler has the chance of a shirt sponsor now that will lift the debt burden and the other codes finishing should see the cash flow improve from home games.

All aboard …….

Zzzzzzzzzz !!!

Yesterdays stereotyping ……… not keeping up Davidv …….. Ver Beek and arnold were the only one’s poo pooing the ALeague. Herbert and everybody else couldn’t work out what was happening. Ver Beek and arnold just wanted to stay in europe on their junket scouting the players trick.

I like that Osiek is not shackled by arnold’s narrow minded vindictive selection criteria, and the fact that he is selecting potential players to bring on. I understand that he can’t put them in a team, but we can look forward to their emergence with more confidence, knowing that an experienced person is now overseeing their developement. Europe is not, and never should have been, the stage for our young guns to ply their trade for international honours.

There are now two avenues for a football career, Europe and Osiek. I would think an Osiek prepared international and then europe would be a richer and less risky way to go to the top.

Hearing what Osiek and Berger are saying and doing is far more newsworthy then the musings of finke and company. I have so much more confidence in the player management under these two and knowing that arnold is out of the picture.

I don’t hear anybody that has Fox complaining about the excellent coverage of every game. I don’t care about the politics of this crap ,it is on TV and I get to see every game live.

To get onto Free to air tv the ffa would have to break down the allegiances and current financial viability of the tv channel and that is not on.

The only way to get free tv is for Football to outgrow all the other codes and make the tv channels chase our dollars. It won’t happen soon as long as we have idiots like palmer and con in control of purse strings and limiting the leagues growth.

The cost of fox is only two tickets to a Gold Coast united game ????, watch every game Live on tv or go to two GCU home games, that is a no brainer.

Pommie land and Yankee land have all sports live and you still can’t get tickets for teams home games because they are sold out threee years in advance in a lot of cases.

The only problem with fox is having to listen to commentators that would rather be somewhere else on some occassions, get bored and cackle between themselves at their in jokes or prattle away while they read excerpts they have found on the internet blah,blah blah..

EVERY GAME LIVE , don’t knock it …get it.

Got to go now I have eight games of the EPL to watch from last weekend …all live.

New name for Gold Coast Uniteds stadium ……. THE VACUUM. Change the name of the youth League team to “Space Cadets”.

A new coach …… but still the same old whinging naysayers.
From my readings of a lot of forums, the general consensus of opinion is that there is no new generation following thru.

But there is, there are a couple of players, AEK’s burns for one, that are on the cusp of being good enough to step up.

So FFA, with the foresight of the hansburger, have brought in a bloke that understands the tech side of the game, somebody who worked with Germany’s youth for six odd years, and a mission statement to upgrade our coaching staff.

Developement was what our code was lacking, and now hopefully that gap will be closed.

I look at the Postecoglu Roar, who would have thought that an ALeague team could be so transformed, certainly not the naysayers, who would have thought that all of a sudden the League could be so transformed to see so many teams playing elegant football, with speed and touch. Sure there is a long way to go but the first step has been taken, the Muscats and Tiatto like muscle in lieu of diminishing skill types of our league are doomed to extinction, bring on the next generation of Leckies and Paynes.

Postecoglu taught a group his dream in one off season, Osiek has three off seasons to get his dream across to the new generation, and with the assistance of a new generation of coaches already stepping up and the process has started. I for one can’t wait to see who comes out of the woodwork and steps up. Even the incumbent Socceroos are going to have to upgrade their skills to keep their place.

I can’t believe that Osiek is being called for not giving the new generation a go when the very likes of the commentators that made that call, harper and co., are the ones that said there wasn’t a new generation a couples of months back.

I am sure that the future of the Socceroos is in great hands, I can’t say the same for the current generation of commentators and journalists.

The only stain is on skidmark slater’s reputation.

When you look at the different clubs, the way they went about building their franchise, there are a lot of different attributes to each. Each used their strengths and acumen to best advantage to succeed. I put it to you that GCU have succeeded as well as any other franchise, it’s just that their business acuman was supplied by a man that was a specialist in digging holes.

It seems that slater has tried to create some news rather than report the news. There comes a time when everybody has to call time, Company Directors get four years etc, It is time for slater to move on from Fox Sports FC, he has been ruining the show for months. He is not funny and his personal opinions are just that, not relevant.

Amen to that, if the ranga can say that I can, I am sick of the FC commentary team talking over each other and laughing at private jokes, that is not entertainment, the job and the show is not about them. The stupid contests and crap are not entertaining, the show is supposed to be about intelligent football, if they want to F… about with the stupids games, they should transfer to Comedy channel.

You’re just KIDDING right ????

Words of wisdom …. I read your posts and feel like “grasshopper” when the master was explaining how in a wind the tall grass bends, whereas the tall tree snaps. . It reminds me of the old phantom comics and the jungle sayings ” Phantom rough with roughnecks” …… you should be a candidate for the Roar hall of fame.

I have more confidence in Postecoglou now than then. If he sees fit to play him I am ok with that. He may suit the new style and tactics, blah blah blah. Just want roar to win. Any team beating last season’s champs will rate as game of the week.

I would say that you have done a bit of a backflip with this comment. You did come across as pessimistic and perhaps you didn’t consider all the facts.
He has sat of the fifa tech committe, sorry, led the committe for last years, and you are a blogger. I frankly don;t care what you think, your reception to his appointment is not fair and ill considered. It’s a wonder anybody bothers reading your stuff, it is really “half empty”.

It worries me that you might stop your writings. You are the only person that I have found that goes anywhere near satisfying my need for football knowledge, and where I can confirm what I saw, or can replay the game and look at it through your eyes.
Most commentators of the game think that their job is to call the obvious and it bores the tripe out of me, or wax lyrical about the beautiful game which is equally as boring.
The game is a tactical technical contest of combinations of skills and when described as such is fantastic.
I look at cricket and ask myself why do people go to this rather than sit home and watch paint dry, because they understand the tech side of what is going on, they are all captains watching and analysing the changes etc. And the same for Baseball, NFL, golf etc..
Educate the fans and the game will grow as people want it to, please keep up the good work.

What a lottery this season is going to be. Unfortunately, I feel that a few teams are going to do it tough if they pick up any serious injuries to their favoured starting lineup. Depth is OK, but I feel that it is a disadvantage against a full strength opponent. So the teams with thin squads I am going to count out. There goes Fury (saddly) , and Heart.

“Age shall not weary them” …. alas they are not talking about footballers. There is a lot of speed about this season and the old kick and chase which suites a pair of tired legs because they have time to get in position, a passing game will expose those not up there athletically, goodbye Victory.

A lot of travel has always been worth a couple of goals against you. Although it will work in favour of Wellington, Fury and Glory when they are at home, against such even opposition they will have trouble amassing enough points to get a good finals position or enough to top the table. Au revoir Nux, and Glory.

Then it is time to look at the coaches that are left and where they have positioned themselves, Arnold ?? …. I just can’t get into step with him at all. I so want him to fail, but I want the people in his nightmare to succeed, well they are my home team of sorts. He has had the squad training so hard to hit the ground running, and he probably will, but burnout is a major problem and I don’t see him as a great motivator. When the summer heat hits I think the players will be feeling it, Mairiners are not for me.

Blieburg has actually gone under the radar, strengthened the defense, got Smeltz back and has some great juniors stepping up, but they have such huge expectations on their shoulders and then there’s Palmer and all the off field turmoil. Not this year for me, they will struggle against well organised teams this year as they won’t be focused.

Culina, maybe the teams inconsistency is a by product of coaching, I’m not sure that all the team are on the same page all the time, a bit of roarstyle oldboys syndrome, although he is capable of excellent results, at times, particularly when the chips are down the team puts its nose to the grindstone, but once again, I think the owner puts a lot of stress in the picture and I can see them winning when you don’t expect it and losing somehow when they shouldn’t. Nobody ever speaks of Culina’s style, last year he seemed to get his best results when the team understood what they were trying to do on the day. Jets are grounded.

Postecoglou, looks like he has done his homework and his team will perform. He has a nice mix of youth and capable team leaders. He is up against some good teams and coaches which weren’t there last season. He seems to have picked the players he wanted and if the new guy is the #10 that he wanted the roar will surge into the final series.

Adelaide have only just started and will need the year to learn their new status, kick and chase withdrawal symptoms for the first half of the season will be enough.

That leaves, of course, Sydney FC, well who else would you tip after seeing them starting to play the game a la Laviska ……… against the likes of Everton and Co. Program has gone to the next level ….. all aboard !!!!

I understand the dilemma and have solved it a different way. Unfortunately, I live in an area that would have me aligned to GA, and I just can’t make myself do that, and every time I see a significant signing, particularly youth guys getting a look in it makes my juices run.

I have solved the dilemma by supporting all the teams as a league. I started a page in “Excel” and listed all the things that I wanted my team to have, and as a team hires, announces, displays the characteristic I tick the box on their page.

Let me tell you a lot of teams are ticking the boxes and my excitment at the start of the season to see how each of my teams go is off the scale. Even ga’s team is looking good.

I am not a fan of the salary cap, after watching AEK (onfox) at the weekend I can not see the Aleague getting there without the money to buy the needed skills, not the aleagues fault, but salary capping to make the league a lottery is not my favoured league, I sort of like the EPL where you have the tall poppy syndrome alive and well and driving the hunger for scalps, that to me is what a league should be about, the fans live and breath their team, you could not expect the same support for a lottery league.

My littleleague rating system also gives me an incite into good value at the tab, without the dubious tipping advise that is financed by the betting companies like on fox.

I envy the people that can go to games live, but also look forward every day to see what new posts there are on my Fav sites that allow me to tick more boxes, my season started the day I opened excel.