I honestly think giving Sotirio 30 minutes after 2 years of no game time and 1 day at the club over JK and after having sent wood on loan to get more minutes shows a level of deficiency in decision making that makes me question Talay’s capability. Just a baffling call
Add in the track record of making subs too late all year, showing no respect to the central defence position by playing Grant, falling out with players, constant berating of 4th officials and refs.
Everyone saying our squad is “good” is only looking at the front half. DM and back we are not that good.
In goals we have an aging Redders whos getting closer to being a #2, and HDM who really should be a #2 at best.
At RB we love Grant but hes getting on and not going to control a flank like his peak. His move to CB might actually prolong his career (or going to a flatter back 4). At CB Mathews is a star but out of form (we really should have sold to Pompey wonder if that is part of it), Popovic hasnt reached the heights his Adelaide stint and Gurd’s never pushed on. Mathews and JGR reach were the academy products but theres no one to step in. At LB, King sadly seems to have stalled. Courtney-Perkins has done well.
At DM we’ve got Sena, who started so well but dropped off massively and Hollman still learning the craft.
Do wonder if we signed a proper CB over Costa how the squad would have turned out- but even still we’ve been pretty hit and miss with signings. A new manager isnt going to change a whole heap- especially if Burgess doesnt want to move adn we’ve already spent some cap space on Sotirio.
Then we’ve got far too many wingers and #10s. Lolley is good, Costa is good but injury prone. And having too many players is stunting the minutes that should be going to Segecic, Quintal and Kucharski.
And up top Klimala is doing well (but hes a good poacher and not going to do a lot in buildup but thats completely fine with all the winger/10s weve got. But now with no Wood we’ve got no depth there either.
On top of everything else people have said about Talay, he just seems completely lost. The knee-jerk hooking players at half time, poor subs, dropping players one week then back the next. He really seems like a manager who is not in control.
And Unsurprisingly, the team reflects that, wildly inconsistent, players performing below their best, chaotic swings in effort during matches.
If ever a manager deserved to be sacked it’s Talay right now.
On Brisbane, I know we were bad, but they played really well I thought. Controlled the midfield, moved the ball quickly and carves us open. How are they last?
I thought this as well. Before last night their negative goal difference was -15 in 10 losses, so basically they have lost all their games by one or two goals, which is hardly a dogshit team or a totally incompetent coach.
We were also unlucky to get Hore’s return - he is a good little player. Anyhow, had we gotten that point last night it would have been a huge injustice to them, who were at least as good as anyone who has come to SFS this season (with tired SFC team caveat).
I think Sena, Hollman, & Caceres should be one of the best midfields in the comp. Sena has top tier (a-league level) ability with the ball, we’ve seen it. Hollman is perhaps coming back up to speed still after injury, but also has the energy and physicality you need in there. His use of the ball yesterday was poor and must improve. Hoping that’s just lack of game time because it’s definitely below where he was last season. Caceres is Caceres. Best as the front man in that three.
Absolutely agree that the back-line is a mess. Not bringing in an experienced head to partner Matthews was a fucking massive mistake. Other than that Grant is on the decline and we don’t have a ready replacement for him. On the left JCP has gone from surprisingly steadfast to hot and cold. King still doesn’t look up to it. A decent game or two doesn’t cut it.
The balance feels off everywhere. Getting the balance & tactical plan right, and extracting performances from the players is the managers roll.
I also thought that crowd last night was really poor given th team has been winning at home and generally dishing up lots of on pitch drama. Threat of rain perhaps?
Definitely the weather, Friday was shocking and Saturday during the day wasn’t much better. Rain started hammering down in my area by the time I got home after the game. Would have kept heaps of people away, I had someone 50/50 on coming with me who didn’t end up going because of it too, can’t be the only one. On a nice sunny day we get 12-13k easy.
Hollman is handy and energetic, but wouldnt start at most clubs I suspect. Made in the Brillante mold but with none of the grit. He’s done best when Caceres and/or Sena have done their best on the ball so that his distribution isnt under scrutiny as much. Can anyone think of a long switch of play or incisive through ball he has made?
With Sena being off the pace and also sloppy with the ball relative to how he started the season, I find that Hollmans limitations become a little more apparent as well
Hollman is more a box-to-box midfielder than anything else right now. It doesn’t mean he can’t convert to a ball winner or some other DM role in the future, but his athleticism is clearly his best asset right now.
I dunno. We are a better team to watch than SFC teams since the heyday. Top scorers in the league this season. A ridiculous number of technical players at the very top level of this league - Lolley, Costa, Caceres, Ouahim, Sena, Quintal (even Burgess who we can just freeze out) are really skilfull and great to watch. Sure we have problems at the back but as a package it’s hardly boring.
We’ve scored 21 goals and conceded 13 in 7 home games in the league this season. So on average a SFC game at the SFC is like a 3-2 win. In Arnie’s heyday we were far far better in defense, but no better in attack. We’re good to watch. But leaky AF. I find it hard to imagine that a leaky defense is keeping people away in droves.
Just back to this, again we all knew and accepted the squad imbalance was a trade-off when Costa became available, incredibly hard to knock him back in favour of that foreign CB.
The problem for Talay is there are worse squads and still worse backlines currently outperforming ours by a margin because they are set up to minimise that weakness. Instead we are routinely set up rolling out a red carpet to let opposition expose ours, opening goal the other night a prime example. We aren’t even requiring teams play a perfectly weighted precision through ball, it’s Sunday league shit where any old hoof downfield is still doing us in. It’s not on the individuals because it’s happened so many times with any combination of defenders, pace and experience we can field, it’s 100% on the setup.
In terms of foreign spots alone we have the best player in the comp in Lolley who is currently running on empty, still absolute quality when fit Costa (but whose injury problems commenced due to the same lack of rotation during heavy fixtures at the start of the season), a super tidy AM in Ouahim that I reckon any other team in the comp would be built around (meanwhile we’re shafting him around the park every week) and a bloke who’s undoubted quality in the middle of the park has been seen in glimpses but who is now frequently letting himself down with a questionable attitude.
In a perfect world we could currently be getting more from 4/5 foreign spots (3/5 at least once Joe resumes normal service). Klimala would be the one I reckon we can’t hang any underperformance on Talay, mainly because I’m becoming increasingly convinced he’s just not that good. Would love to see his GPS data from the other night because watching the lack of movement I’m pretty sure I did more metres walking from the Crown Hotel to ground.
Not everyone just “accepted” it. A lot of us called out the club for choosing marketability over squad balance, which is not how you run a successful football club. An unbalanced squad is death in football and there should be consequences for the people in the club who made the wrong decision.
This isn’t a personal attack on Costa, I love what he’s brought on field when he’s been fit. But he wasn’t what we needed for that last spot, if we hadn’t already signed Quahim, then absolutely yes, great signing, but Anas was already here.
