Amazing how shit that got. After all, we were 1st at the end of round 5.
Amazing how shit that got. After all, we were 1st at the end of round 5.
A few other points…
The majority of minutes played in both 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons were by guys who have never been picked by a Graham Arnold coached Sydney FC team, so there should be some credit about the significant recruitment Corica has had to do while maintaining the standard.
The minute-weighted average age of those players that Corica inherited is over 33½, so there should be some credit about Corica’s ability to manage and get the most out of his ageing players.
The Ninković thing. As I pointed out yesteray, Perth still have Castro and have been pretty shit for the last two seasons. Brisbane were pretty shit with Broich (who left Brisbane a few months younger than Ninko is now) for ages. We were shit with Del Piero, MV were shit with Honda and Toivonen, WU are now very shit with Diamanti. I’ll totally argue that Ninković’s A-League career was better than any of these guys, but no one player is going to carry a team on his own.
@pietro has talked about player turnover, but don’t forget the rest of the staff. Just as he lost Mierzejewski, Bobô and Buijs to transfers immediately, he also lost half the football department which followed Arnie to the Socceroos. Just as he lost Brosque - captain, club icon, quality starter willing to play for minimum wage so we could squeeze more out of the cap - within 12 months, he also lost McFlynn and all of his work around player welfare and recruitment. On top of the player turn-over he’s also had to replace the entire football department, and still maintain the standard.
ALF-Kosta is hardly a like-for-like equivalent to Bobô-Brosque, while Brattan-Cáceres is about as different a central midfield pairing from Brillante-O’Neill as you can get. King is no Zullo going forward, we’ve had several very different players in the RM role, who weren’t anything like Adrian. 16-17 was characterised by a suffocating defensive press from the front, recent seasons we’ve been mostly looking to drop deep. Aside from formation (presumably Guardiola’s Barca was just an uninspired derivative of Cruyff’s because 4-3-3?) , I mean…
Pedestrian!!!
Combined with the output (PPG as the broadest metric), doesn’t this mostly just point to a well executed managed decline? We haven’t improved, and we’re not at the same level either.
I agree that the CM partnership, which he has (pretty belatedly?) settled on, and is having our best results in over a season with, is a significant change, and a tough one he was forced to replace. He has ended up with a more ball-playing, less defensively capable pairing which changes the nature of how the team play quite a lot.
One thing that he also handled well was when some key signings didn’t turn out as good as expected through no fault of his own, and he found a way around that. Siem didn’t quite work out, and Jop obviously didn’t. He’s tended to find enough in the squad to get by. And he’s always managed to do this at least until the front line failed to fire this season, when being able to go back for Bobo and Alfie has saved our bacon.
I’d look at it as a managed re-build. We’ve given opportunities to some of the younger guys, without completely dropping off.
There were some outstanding seasons a few years ago, but they’re going to be the exception, not the norm.
Being around the 2 points per game is pretty good.
I see enough moment-to-moment changes during a game to have faith in Corica.
It’s the 4-2-2-2 usually, but during a game the formation changes. In the Adelaide game, depending on what was happening, we both set up as a 4-3-3 and the 3-5-2 (the 3-5-2 in particular has happened a lot this season). It’s been hard to do this all year with injuries and players leaving without replacements (or their replacement getting injured…), but the last game it all clicked and we murdered them.
The lack of substitutions is frustrating sometimes but that was also a problem I had with Arnie often.
Even if it’s ‘just’ a managed decline (which I dispute), show me another A-League club whose era of dominance survived a manager change. Brisbane, CCM and WSW all collapsed. You could maybe point to Victory under Muscat, but Corica has quite clearly outperformed Muscat already.
And you’re talking about a decline from literally the best ever performance in Australian football history. The only way to improve would be to win virtually every game.
And we didn’t, so we should fold the Club…
While I also mostly take issue with “just”, also in question IMO is “decline” given we’ve won more championships in fewer years under Corica and had a higher peak in pre-COVID 2019-20 than any equivalent-length period under Arnold.
Things Corica has done well since taking over:
Things that people don’t like:
Seems pretty petty when you look at it that way. For anyone thinking that we need a new coach, just think of how much risk is associated with recruiting a new coach and how much disruption there is each time (new system, needing to recruit different types of players etc.).
I mean he hasn’t won a trophy on a year…
Sorry, but while early last season was good, that is during absolute nadir of this league, reflected in lack of interest from fans, broadcasters, national body and the clubs themselves. We were dominating what was a playground. We were the only competent club in an amateur hour of a league - and that’s on everyone else, not us. Absolute fair play to our club for respecting the competition, fans and players.
But put that side up man for man against the last two Arnie seasons and there’s very few you’d take from 2020. Brattan over Brillante. A couple where the face is the same held their level - Grant and Milos basically, Wilko just about. Branners was mostly injured then left. And personally I prefer Alfie’s hard work and energy to Bobo’s penalty box poacher. But I think it’s pretty hard to argue that that 2019 side is anything but a decline from 2016-18. 2/3 of a season in a shit league isn’t a peak.
And I realise I’m arguing alone here. Let me reiterate I don’t want Corica to leave, and I appreciate that being able to have this continued achievement is just something which has never happened in this league. My argument is that we’re just watching something definitely lesser, and that if/when our opposition gets its house in order (which we need as a league), then we can’t stay at this level. I also do find the football played to lack in directness and a sense of fun/danger, and maybe this gives me too much time to pontificate about the bad things.
We are a bit of a spoilt entitled lot. We should get into a time machine and watch SFC during ROT (ADP aside), last two seasons under Vitje, and almost all seasons pre-Vitje. Even for the first two titles we won, IMO, we played less attractive football than we do now. But as the Italians say, all tastes are tastes.
And that wasn’t true in 2016-17? Take out the ANZ novelty game (which probably would’ve sold out a couple of years earlier) and attendances were well down, ratings were down, a Bakries-backed Aloisi-coached Brisbane came third.
2016 certainly was past the heights, but it was still well above where the league was at last season. No one was talking about how shit it was back in '16, last season that’s basically all people talked about, and it was a wait to see what the new structure would bring.
I don’t think Brisbane collapsed after Postecoglu left. After all they won a third title under Mulvey.
Fact of the matter is that the 2019-20 salary floor was 9% higher than the 2016-17 salary cap, and the loyalty/homegrown/scholarship cap exemptions had expanded significantly too. Payrolls around the league had probably grown 15-20% higher in that time.
This meant that more of the best domestic players were coming back from overseas and fewer were leaving to Asian pay-days. We were getting more consistent quality foreigners - Toivonen, Diamanti, Honda, Schweigler, Le Fondre, de Jong, Suaseta, Dávila et al. entering the league in 1/2 years. which is unprecedented.
The problem with lifting the standards slightly across the board is that making both teams you’re watching slightly stronger cancels itself out and isn’t really perceivable to the layperson watching. I wouldn’t put much stock in sokkah twitters feelpinions.
That was the following year though wasn’t it? Rado Vidosic took over from Ange and they finished mid-table. Or am I misremembering?
But yeah, you’re right. They didn’t go full WSW.
There was a gap of one season in between 2 and 3.
This only has any benefit if it occurs compared to other places these players could earn money. We were competing with the influx in China money which would have out-stripped our growth. We lost a Warren medallist to India. We’ve slipped in the ACL, though it’s from a mostly poor high.
Foreigners… we definitely taught the league how to not do it with foreigners (ADP) and then how to do it (Ninko,Bobo, Holosko). I think they definitely worked out better (I mean for the league as a whole) not because they were better players but smarter choices, maybe at a better career stage or with better attitude. However there have been a lot of good ones in the mid 2010s period, our ones, Castro, peak Fornaroli, the Adelaide spaniards, Vitor Saba…
Actually looking at the list of foreigners season by season in the league, it would be an interesting exercise to see what the best crop has been.
I’m going to take the controversial opinion that Australian playing stocks in this decade aren’t at a peak. ANd I am prepared to countenance that I really am a grumpy old bastard with my “nothing is ever as good as it was” schtick.