Round 17 - Sydney FC vs Melbourne City - 3/2/19

Nice little piece on Ninkovic’s game yesterday and his post match thoughts:

A bit harsh on Austin, clearly he is lacking confidence but it is good to see him get in so many dangerous positions and if he can time his runs better there will be even more. If that goal goes in everything is different.

Wasn’t the greatest game but I thought Grant looks so much more experienced and mature after his time with the national team, Redders is looking so much better with a bit of confidence behind him. Ivanovic is a revelation, he will go places and we need to help him get there, hopefully we can cash in and give some money back to Bonnyrig. Calver solid and so nice touches going forward. De Silva I still think can come good, has a really good attacking instinct.

Wtf for? Winning too much and treating him too well?

Doesn’t Austin suffer from some sort of mental health issues as well that he’s made public? I seem to recall him having a panic attack and walking off live TV last year. Could explain his confidence on the pitch as I noticed him with his down after the crowd started getting on his back.

He’s not the best player in our squad, far from it, but I think it’s harsh to hammer him after being with our squad for all of 2 days and one training session. I don’t think he’ll be seeing many minutes anyway once Brosque, SDJ and Reza are back.

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https://www.playersvoice.com.au/mitch-austin-wishing-anywhere-else/#gdDTSPcBht7PRZF5.97

I am really surprised that the media dont talk about Ninko as they do about Broich… I think he is a better player who has made an equally as amazing impact on the a-league.

In fact, I would say he is even a better player than Honda and the media couldnt get enough of him earlier in the year before he was croaked.

https://www.playersvoice.com.au/mitch-austin-wishing-anywhere-else/#Yg9QWeh8GQ6WqavY.97

Austin is trash- he can run fast that’s about it. Not even just judging him on yesterday’s performance… He was ordinary at Mariners, crap in Tardistan and couldn’t even make the team at Newcastle.

He’s a rugby league player, no football smarts at all… no use having pace if you don’t know where to run.

That’s heavy reading there… he’s been through a fair bit, geez…

I reckon Austin did as well as you could expect, given 2 days training, played out of position yesterday, and is probably on 0 confidence. Cut him some slack, I’ve seen much worse Sydney debuts from much more experienced players

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Yeah, so I think people need to temper their venom a bit, and take that into consideration, plus the fact that he’s just a fringe player who cannot be expected to have the same qualities as our usual forward options, and he’s only worked with our players for less than a week.

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I’m all for having an opinion on football and performances but I also think we need to take this guy’s mental health and situation into account and give the guy the support he needs. He’s clearly not going to be a first team player for the majority of the time he’s here.

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jesus christ the venom on here for a player who’s spend literally 3 days with the club is just disgusting. Give the kid a fucking chance to prove himself would you??

How many people were saying the same about Trent and he was one of our best players in pre-season.

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I can’t speak for everyone that has judged him, but I don’t have anything against him personally. Commenting purely on his footballing ability. Based on what I’ve seen previously I just don’t think he is up to standard, should be in NPL.

Fair play to him for coming through some dark times personally, though.

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I hope he gives his haters a great big shit burger to eat…

great for him… great for us… win win

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Totally happy to eat my words if he does.

Also as Frenchy said, I want to reiterate that I have nothing against him personally and my comments are based on his appearance in that game and from having watched him at other clubs. If he can just stay onside and time his runs I think he will contribute well.

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There’s a guy here in Lismore who grew up playing league but has recently switched to playing football. Absolutely lightning quick and impossible to keep up with even with the ball at his feet. At the start of last season it was all he had, pace and decent ball control although he generally would knock it passed the defender, burn him then regain possession. The other option was for him to run onto through balls but despite his pace advantage he was routinely offside. So many times he would be 1 v 1 with the GK and spurn the opportunity or fluff his lines while crossing sending the ball out for a goal kick.
It all changed around halfway through the season. The offsides dropped considerably, his runs and the passes were timed better as he understood tactics and his team mates adapted to his capabilities and limitations. Goals slowly came, his confidence grew and he finished the season coming off the bench for their PL side.
I also played with a guy who went to the Commonwealth Games for the 100m. He had never kicked a ball in his life and while he didn’t improve as much as the guy above, his improvement did mirror the guy above.
Now I know that the room for improvement for these 2 was much greater than that for Mitch Austin but the room for improvement is definitely there. As he regains his confidence, he’d only played 78 minutes since coming back from a serious knee injury prior to yesterday, and understands our tactics I would expect him to show similar improvement to that of Trent Buhagiar.
As for being ordinary at the Mariners, he started all but 5 (1 through suspension, 3 not in squad, 1 on bench) of their games and scored 5 goals from LW for a side that finished 12 points adrift. His move to Melbourne as a swap for Connor Pain was seen as a great bit of business for Melbourne at the time. Hardly ordinary
In Melbourne he made 19 appearances (10 starts, 9 subs, 2 unused sub) out of a possible 29 in the year they finished 2nd and lost the GF to us. He started 3 of the 5 games prior to doing his knee the next season. Hardly crap.
Yes he couldn’t crack the Newcastle squad on his comeback from injury but the reason for this is unknown.

As a signing who would be on close to minimum wage and only on the bench because of injuries to Siem, Brosque & Reza’s unavailability, to be thrown on after 30 minutes and get through almost as much game time as he had in the previous 15 months, I think the criticism of him is far too harsh.

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I don’t really think the comparisons with Buhagiar are valid.

Trent Buhagiar is 20 years old and at the beginning of his professional career. His two seasons at CCM represented the entirety of his professional career. He came to Sydney and scored 4 goals in 4 competitive appearances before getting injured.

Mitch Austin is 27. His best ever return is 10 goals from 69 appearances for a non-league club. He then moved to another non-league club and wasn’t able to break into the first team, then loaned to a series of clubs where he also wasn’t able to break into the team. He also hasn’t made an impact in two seasons of A-League.

I love that the response to his mental health trouble is sympathy but let’s not be condescending. He had a poor match yesterday.

And as an aside, in a squad of 20-odd young men there is virtually zero chance he’s the only one struggling with mental health problems. I hope we all remember this empathy next time someone has a brain fade and costs us a match.

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MA was rusty…and probably surprised at getting on so early,let alone at all.
His strike missed by a tiny margin of going in…with ACL,injuries,suspensions I’m sure we will see him figure in a few games.I dont expect him to start.

I’d rather see him missing goals than not having a shot like Charles.Some will go in.

Yesterday wasnt a spectacle by FC,but Tards played poorly and won against the team coming last.

FC(3rd) beat Citeh(4th) by 2 clear goals and with the depth in the squad are a reasonable chance of the plate.

I hope the Gucci look fits!

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I’ve put the match report on the front page, where you can read the full report, and I’ve included the extra stuff below:

You can view the match highlights here:

https://www.a-league.com.au/video/full-time-highlights-sydney-fc-v-melbourne-city-0

3 things we learned

  • Rhyan Grant is the best he has ever been. What more can we say about the man who has given us ten years of loyalty? He spent the whole game motoring up and down the right, and the dynamism he provided made a massive difference. He kept Berengeur quiet all game, limiting City’s creativity. In addition to the engine we all know, he put on a real display of his hugely improved technique in this game. He flicked the ball over a press then ran onto it a couple of times and his dribbling in general has improved out of sight. He is an absolute joy to watch these days.
  • Ben Warland will probably keep his starting spot. Towards the end of last season it became clear that we were looking to use Ben Warland as our clear third choice centre-back and then, with Jordy Buijs leaving, the possibility of using him as Alex Wilkinson ’s partner came up. Given his last few performances, it is easy to see why. He is a calm head who just does what needs to be done and he has enough speed to cover well if things go wrong. Being left footed also helps with distribution. He hasn’t made many errors since coming back in (only one big one against Victory) and if he can keep that up, it will be hard to drop him.
  • Luke Ivanovic provides a lot to this attack. Sometimes players will look good coming off the bench against tired defences, but will then struggle when starting. Luke Ivanovic , however, was contributing from the very outset. He was willing to run at defenders, unlike one or two of our other attacking options, and his finish was clean for someone who was under pressure from the defence. His speed was useful when we hit on the counter and he had a good positional sense as well. Hopefully his injury is only minor and he gets straight back into it.

Post-match Statistics

  • Adam Le Fondre scored his 15th goal of the season (12 League, 3 Cup). This puts him equal 12th on the club’s all-time scoring charts, equal with Adrian Mierzejewski and 1 behind Marc Janko .
  • Mitch Austin was the 24th player Sydney FC have used this season. Luke Ivanovic became the 11th unique goalscorer.
  • Sydney FC now have 3 cleansheets in the last 4 games, having previously gone 10 games without keeping one.
  • Jubilee Stadium has been a good hunting ground for Sydney FC. The club’s overall win percentage at Kogarah is now 75% (6 wins, 2 losses, 0 draws).

Note: Appearances and goals only include league games, finals, FFA Cup, OFC and AFC Champions League and Club World Cup.

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