There’s an awful lot of bias against Sydney FC and Arnold in that assessment too.
We were never as stylistically horrible as people suggest.
There’s an awful lot of bias against Sydney FC and Arnold in that assessment too.
We were never as stylistically horrible as people suggest.
I agree but Amini and Narsingh are both on contracts until the end of the season - so what you say may still be true but the shake up could see both of them gone as well.
It’s the way the league has gone. Everyone (except the Nux) has gone to 4-3-3 and increasingly 3-4-3.
With our two in the middle we can’t compete. It’s been that way all season.
I mean, one leads to the other, right?
We dominated the league in a way that crushed all the enjoyment out of it for everyone else. And they hate us for it.
I think the hate for SFC and Arnold come from different places. SFC cause, SFC and Arnold for 2007. They just came together here.
I mean, what’s the title of the national team thread on this forum?
Adrian and the Miloses/Milosi(whatever is the correct plural) were a treat to watch
Last night wasn’t just pure numbers though, it was effort, desire, anticipation, cliches etc.
Also helped that when one of their ballers either was allowed to or had the quality to turn they also had runners into channels ahead. I reckon more youthful exuberance than tactical masterclass, but it was chalk and cheese to the few times we could get Ninko or Papi facing forward and the front two were statues.
Corica said in his post-match presser that they caught us off guard system-wise, in hindsight we would’ve been better off starting Trent to stretch them rather than bringing him on when already behind and with them happy to sit off.
ALF must also be perilously close to riding the pine.
The problem with ALF is, where is Wood and can we start Bobo?
Bobo/Wood plus Trent is a good style compliment.
The majority have also gone more direct. That’s not long ball direct, just quick vertical passes through the lines.
Look at Newcastle last night. They’d force the turnover then immediately pass forward to the next line. This was either Penha or Boumal who would either run at Yazbek and Retre or play it forward again to Goodwin or Maraugis.
Yes, but I’d say they were allowed to do this by their numerical advantage, in the midfield.
I remember us having 3 blokes around Penha in the second half and him still wriggling away from them and playing it forward. None of ours were tight enough or strong enough.
I think for us Sydney FC fans, we had come out of a period of watching horrible football under Farina, week-in, week-out, so anything that flowed and created goals was going to look amazing to us.
Zullo and Grant overlapping, Brosque’s and Holosko’s clever runs, peak Milos, even Buijs making runs through the middle. I think that was pretty damn good to watch.
Arnie’s first year was crazy too. We were terrible at the back and scored for fun.
The last two years of Lavika weren’t exactly aesthetically pleasing.
But we weren’t as bad as we were made out to be.
And we would have been better looking if the other teams had tried to play proper football against us instead of clogging up.
Yeah. I’d more call that watching good players play well - which is of course totally fine.
Newcastle this year are kinda the opposite, right? No really great players, but good to watch.
Penha and Boumal? Those two are probably better than anything we have, with due respect to our guys. Penha’s throughball over the top in the early stages sums him up. Oh yeah and his volley from about 50 yards out that had THB scrambling.
Mikeltadze is up there with Prijovic for best foreign 9 in the league atm too. They’re very good going forward, just being let down by being too open and weak at the back.
They kept us scoreless with Taylor Reagan in the center of a 3 man back line ffs!
Strong 2 x no.6s and or a 6 and an 8 are the key to a team’s backbone. Hence, Branners, Josh and Luke B giving our CBs so much cover and support during out golden years. This is the main weakness we have. If you keep clean sheets, there is always hope that someone up front can score. If we ship goals too easily, and yes the Jets’ were lovely goals to see, then with our - hopefully temporarily - toothless attack, even to get a draw, we are dependent on our AMs scoring, and that doesn’t happen often.
No-one could have predicted that both Brattan would be out of action for the whole season or for the Hof, most of it. That has left us desperately thin at DM. Amini is more of an 8 and does a great job there. Yazbek does really well as 6 or 8.
Yesterday, Retre had one of his better games relative to the rest of the team, particularly with his forward facing passing and quicker delivery. But look at the highlights and his positioning for:
By now, he should know what to do in those positions, how to destroy attacks.
Yazbek was a bit down from his previous great form but we need him and Amini in that hole breaking up play and not letting opposing strikers and AMs so much room.