ALM Round 4 - Mariners v Roar 5pm Sunday 12th

[shipwreck]

But we had lots of applicants, some well known and we went with this random dude no one knew who wasn't in any way shape or form proven at senior level?

 

[FFC Mariner]

I think that’s why we are in this position. We settled for decent instead of pushing for a quality replacement ??‍♂️

Decent? 4 lossses from a serial loser assisted by a serial loser - not what I'd call decent. 2 dud hires out of 2 from Dick.

 

[Stuartmcateer]

Decent? 4 lossses from a serial loser assisted by a serial loser - not what I'd call decent. 2 dud hires out of 2 from Dick.

I’m trying to be fair on the guy who moved to the other side of the world at the last minute and inherited a gutted club.

But my patience is not eternal.

 

[FFC Mariner]

I’m trying to be fair on the guy who moved to the other side of the world at the last minute and inherited a gutted club.

But my patience is not eternal.

Fair enough but if you went to the UK to do exactly the same job that you do now, are there some bits you know you would get right?
He has a fully functioning football dept you know - ask him

 

[Meerkat]

I’m trying to be fair on the guy who moved to the other side of the world at the last minute and inherited a gutted club.

But my patience is not eternal.

Exactly the same here.

 

[Stuartmcateer]

Fair enough but if you went to the UK to do exactly the same job that you do now, are there some bits you know you would get right?

There would be some adjustments to new people and a different internal environment. If he has moved without his family that’s also a potential impact (I have no idea if he has or not).

Like I said - he came in late without the chance to have a preseason to work with the players. I’m willing to give him a little wiggle room. But the big red car is starting to toot toot chugga chugga.

He has a fully functioning football dept you know - ask him

Does he though? I will keep my thoughts on that for private conversations over a beer.

 

[Ironbark]

Monty lost the Australia cup game with this squad. I still think his plan was to develop underperforming players so brought them in undercooked (see Silvera et al.).
Then he left so those players remain the unfinished product. I strongly suspect DWH, Wilson and the rest would be developing quickly under the unique talents of Monty/Serg.
Instead we have a half team of proven players and a half team of underperformers and a new coach who knows none of them, trying to implement a new model and with only a sliver of a preseason.

It's just the reality we face. 9/10 coaches we could have brought in would be facing the same issues, and so would whoever we would replace MJ with if we sacked him.

I'd be considerably more concerned if we were getting smacked every game or were playing like complete trash. But we've been well in these games and not far off. Add exhaustion to this game too.
So far this season we've seen many other teams lose by margins of 4 or 5 - we've been primarily a pair of shooting boots or a miraculous goalkeeping away from wins.

4 losses sucks, no doubt about it. But just blaming the coach fails to take in the context of our situation

 

[crock]

Monty lost the Australia cup game with this squad. I still think his plan was to develop underperforming players so brought them in undercooked (see Silvera et al.).
Then he left so those players remain the unfinished product. I strongly suspect DWH, Wilson and the rest would be developing quickly under the unique talents of Monty/Serg.
Instead we have a half team of proven players and a half team of underperformers and a new coach who knows none of them, trying to implement a new model and with only a sliver of a preseason.

It's just the reality we face. 9/10 coaches we could have brought in would be facing the same issues, and so would whoever we would replace MJ with if we sacked him.

I'd be considerably more concerned if we were getting smacked every game or were playing like complete trash. But we've been well in these games and not far off. Add exhaustion to this game too.
So far this season we've seen many other teams lose by margins of 4 or 5 - we've been primarily a pair of shooting boots or a miraculous goalkeeping away from wins.

4 losses sucks, no doubt about it. But just blaming the coach fails to take in the context of our situation

100 percent agree with this

 

[Corsair]

At least the attendance was half decent at over 7,000

 

[turbo]

I agree with Mick, you can't blame external factors 4 times in a row.

It’s not just external factors it’s also internal ones like selling off everyone we could get a buck for and completely missing on the recruiting side, but he can’t say that can he?

He walked into a poor situation and that buys some time but at the same time there has to be a limit.

 

[Wombat]

Decent? 4 lossses from a serial loser assisted by a serial loser - not what I'd call decent. 2 dud hires out of 2 from Dick.

Hardly a serial loser. His record in a struggling MKD team was 6 W, 9 D and 10 Losses.

He won the Championship with Leeds U18's and had Leeds U23's playing well and beating teams from the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea.

In April 2018, His Leeds Under 18's side finished the 2017–18 season Northern league in first place, thus winning the Professional Development Northern League title.

On 14 September 2020, he was promoted to Under 23's Head Coach, replacing Carlos Corberan who had left the role in the summer to take up a position as head coach at Huddersfield Town F.C.

In May 2021, his Under 23’s team won the Premier League 2 Division 2, earning promotion to Division 1, in both his first season managing this age group and the teams first season of playing in that division. The team remained unbeaten at home throughout the entire season.

Doesn't sound like a serial loser.

I remember clowns on this site slagging off Arnie and Monty as useless in the early days.

 

[Allreet?]

At least the attendance was half decent at over 7,000

We dragged along a few mates from Sydney who've not been to an AL game for years.

All of them commented they were surprised at how far the AL standard has improved and all were barracking loudly for CCM in the second half. They'll be back (occasionally).

 

[booney]

Smith was honking. Never showed for the ball. Never ran into space.

Initially he did not run into spaces or make his marker have to move but after twenty minutes he did move into space.He was very well placed for the pass which never came from Theo who went on to try for the penalty that never was.He is worth persisting with and he and Farrell could build up a good combination.

 

[JackMariner]

Was probably out but everyone switching off like that is embarrassing.

A football is a sphere. It can be in and not touching the line.

Oh yes I know, it is what it is.

 

[Ozhammer]

Whilst I can sometimes be a harsh observer, I personally cannot be too hard on the team or the coach this week. Despite a punishing week of travel and trying conditions, I felt the boys put in a big shift yesterday and we were hardly outplayed by Roar, who clearly have a more experienced squad than we currently do.

Sure it sucks to keep losing games off the back of such an amazing season but let’s all try not eat each other alive on here and at least try to be constructive in our criticisms.

I haven’t watched a replay yet but my initial thoughts were that we weren’t outclassed during the game but we are still somewhat shaky in defence and that needs to have some attention during the break, particularly our broken defence positioning. In the midfield, I was hoping MJ would task Max or Niz to tag Berengeur, given he was able to seemingly find space between our lines almost at will.

Our attack is still clunky sadly but we were saying similar things last season and it came good in the end (albeit with higher calibre individuals involved). Will we get there again this season? Difficult to say but it’s far from a lost cause and if MJ can add what is missing in Jan (or sooner if the right free agent becomes available), then maybe a finals run is possible.

All in all, my only reaction was to try to be positive with the players I spoke to post game, considering the week they endured, including 24 hour travel back to Sydney and limited food and drink (that is something the club definitely needs to deal with better imo).

My biggest concern after Monty’s departure and MJ’s subsequent appointment was the lack of time for him to get up to speed with both the team and the challenges of Australian football, which are seemingly being realised thus far.

I am also hearing that all is not rosy behind the scenes (not within the team itself) and still having no keeping coach appears to be a further sign that money isn’t always being spent where it needs to.

My hope remains that the MJ and the boys can find a way to collectively push through the current situation and find a way to start putting points in the board and it would be such a shame if the club wasn’t doing all it could (and should) be doing to provide the team with everything it needs to capitalise on the success of last season, like if failed to do after 2013.

 

[turbo]

Oh yes I know, it is what it is.

That looks like it’s still in by a small margin. I’d be pissed if that switch off happened in a shit tier all age never mind a professional team.

 

[adz]

So I was going to go back and clean up some more of the shit posting that happened yesterday but there is so much of it.

@scottmac go back and have a read of your posts mate and see if you still feel like you're being targeted. No doubt you will based on the messages you sent me. By the way this is the exact thing that really really shits me, someone just throwing out little insults, chuck a few hand grenades around, then when someone bites back they throw a tantrum because they are being picked on!

Have a read of these posts vs yours and maybe you will see the difference?

Monty lost the Australia cup game with this squad. I still think his plan was to develop underperforming players so brought them in undercooked (see Silvera et al.).
Then he left so those players remain the unfinished product. I strongly suspect DWH, Wilson and the rest would be developing quickly under the unique talents of Monty/Serg.
Instead we have a half team of proven players and a half team of underperformers and a new coach who knows none of them, trying to implement a new model and with only a sliver of a preseason.

It's just the reality we face. 9/10 coaches we could have brought in would be facing the same issues, and so would whoever we would replace MJ with if we sacked him.

I'd be considerably more concerned if we were getting smacked every game or were playing like complete trash. But we've been well in these games and not far off. Add exhaustion to this game too.
So far this season we've seen many other teams lose by margins of 4 or 5 - we've been primarily a pair of shooting boots or a miraculous goalkeeping away from wins.

4 losses sucks, no doubt about it. But just blaming the coach fails to take in the context of our situation

Whilst I can sometimes be a harsh observer, I personally cannot be too hard on the team or the coach this week. Despite a punishing week of travel and trying conditions, I felt the boys put in a big shift yesterday and we were hardly outplayed by Roar, who clearly have a more experienced squad than we currently do.

Sure it sucks to keep losing games off the back of such an amazing season but let’s all try not eat each other alive on here and at least try to be constructive in our criticisms.

I haven’t watched a replay yet but my initial thoughts were that we weren’t outclassed during the game but we are still somewhat shaky in defence and that needs to have some attention during the break, particularly our broken defence positioning. In the midfield, I was hoping MJ would task Max or Niz to tag Berengeur, given he was able to seemingly find space between our lines almost at will.

Our attack is still clunky sadly but we were saying similar things last season and it came good in the end (albeit with higher calibre individuals involved). Will we get there again this season? Difficult to say but it’s far from a lost cause and if MJ can add what is missing in Jan (or sooner if the right free agent becomes available), then maybe a finals run is possible.

All in all, my only reaction was to try to be positive with the players I spoke to post game, considering the week they endured, including 24 hour travel back to Sydney and limited food and drink (that is something the club definitely needs to deal with better imo).

My biggest concern after Monty’s departure and MJ’s subsequent appointment was the lack of time for him to get up to speed with both the team and the challenges of Australian football, which are seemingly being realised thus far.

I am also hearing that all is not rosy behind the scenes (not within the team itself) and still having no keeping coach appears to be a further sign that money isn’t always being spent where it needs to.

My hope remains that the MJ and the boys can find a way to collectively push through the current situation and find a way to start putting points in the board and it would be such a shame if the club wasn’t doing all it could (and should) be doing to provide the team with everything it needs to capitalise on the success of last season, like if failed to do after 2013.

Also points for @Wombat until he had to throw in a bit about the clowns on this site ??
Come on mate there are clowns everywhere, I think comparatively we are quite tame compared to the ferals on other social outlets.

Two last points then we move on - firstly I would normally just delete this stuff like out of sight out of mind, everyone involved goes yep fair enough that wasn't necessary, but I am getting bombarded with private messages now spouting all sorts of "you're picking on meeeee" bullshit that I don't have time to deal with. Second, @scottmac you're way too easy to wind up, maybe the internet isn't for you.

 

[Hello Sailor]

My biggest concern after Monty’s departure and MJ’s subsequent appointment was the lack of time for him to get up to speed with both the team and the challenges of Australian football, which are seemingly being realised thus far.

Its important to remember that Monty either nurtured these guys for years from the Academy or scouted them, so he knew them and their capabilities more intimately than any incoming coach could hope for.

While I am also impatiently waiting for a turnaround in fortunes after the high of last year, I suppose its more likely that we fall from that peak than maintain or better that performance-especially as it seems that our sold players have not been replaced with those of a similar quality.

 

[FFC Mariner]

The last 30 minutes were a team that had completely collapsed. No shape, no coherent plan.
Roar were winning away and down a man. They were always going to sit deep and narrow.
Poor game management on and off the pitch.

 

[Ironbark]

The last 30 minutes were a team that had completely collapsed. No shape, no coherent plan.
Roar were winning away and down a man. They were always going to sit deep and narrow.
Poor game management on and off the pitch.

I cite this reasoning as evidence:
-> Saturday Perth -> Wed. Bali (hard game, hot, 89% humidity) -> 30 hour return trip (apparently lacking adequate food and water -> Sat. a full effort 60mins (also warm) -> began to tire for some reason

I was shocked when Wilson replaced Kuol...but then I considered maybe Kuol was cooked. Would have been worse to injure him.