Rose made the classic mistake of doing an antagonistic celebration. Cupping the ear to the opposition fans seems, like the Borello crying face, like something you do when you score a definitive or winning goal, rather than the opening goal within the first twenty minutes of the match.
I mentioned it right away that he was probably going to end up looking stupid at fulltime, and so it came to pass.
Farina’s record through to the re-signing was actually pretty decent, considering he took over a team that had lost four in a row, and six of their first eight games of the season. His contract was extended after 18 points from 12 games, 1.50 ppg, which is 0.48 points off matching Talay’s rate this season (1.54ppg) in far better circumstances.
Also, what was the alternative at that point? Letting him go, and having to appoint a third permanent coach in 12 months since letting Lavička go?
Corica’s first three seasons involved two championships, a premiership, three grand finals and three top-two finishes. That’s plenty of credit to cover a bad season.
There is neither a “stability” imperative to keep Talay, nor has he achieved anything here (nor anywhere else frankly) to justify continuing trust.
The club has rightly walked away from Lavička and Farina after seasons where they did sneak into the finals, and also experienced with Corica just last season what happens if you spend too long backing a coach who is not delivering and going backwards.
Not making any changes yesterday was confusing - Stevie wonder could see we needed cover in midfield yet, with two options on the bench, he made no changes until the 90th minute… then Holman goes down injured with minutes left in injury time, Newcastle’s plan is to pump it into the box so who does he replace him with? The 6’6” centre back? Nope the 5’6” number 10…. Madness
Like I mentioned in another thread. We’ve developed a worrying trend of treating fav favourites recently.
But if anything Uffy is stubborn like an ox.
Lovely to see the kooch celebrate with him.
Has me concerned about Caceres’ contract situation honestly…
I assume others feel the same way, but we could have won 5-0 and excitement levels would be about the same.
Normally going down 2-0 and coming back to win 3-2 would be amazing levels of scenes, but the overall vibe feels flatter than the surf up at Ettalong this morning.
I watched the highlights hung over this morning over a plate of bacon and eggs, and the quality of our goals seemed a lot higher than Newcastles. Echo sentiments about letting LA Rose score against you should result in immediate sacking. Great finishes by Costa Segga and Kooch. Great to see Rhyno really dig deep and put in a captains performance.
But yeah, as much as the 3 points is welcome, I think we’re all not so secretly wanting us to miss the finals in the hope Uffy goes. His bizzare tactics, and overall stubborness, mixed with decisions that benefit nobody just mean that any positivity just feels wrong.
Del Piero aside he also had a significantly worse squad than we do now.
It’s destroying everything that made us who we were in the Arnold era. We talk about how good Arnold.was on the pitch with the team, but id say 50% of our success came from that immense culture shift. There was stories of players turning down bigger contracts to stay here, purely based on wanting to play for the club and be involved in the culture.
What annoys me the most is yes, Redders made mistakes. HDM has made more mistakes yet Talay has never benched him. I can understand if HDM added distribution or defensive cover that led to wins. But he hasnt. He’s cost us more games than Redders ever did. At the very least i would expect a period on the bench but at this stage, it almost feels like Talay is refusing to play him for personal reasons, rather than professional
Yeah, same as when earlier in the season we could have used Burgess to freshen up the side when we had injuries and a packed schedule… instead, he brought in Sotirio, which was just perplexing - having not played for ages, no surprise that he got injured himself. Looks like something personal there
I know it’s a professional setup and players have to do what the coach tells them, but I can imagine there would be some unrest in the dressing room over the treatment of Redders and Burgess, and wouldn’t surprise if there had also been smaller bust ups with Ouahim, Sena and Klimala at times during the season
Did we have a third keeper? If redders had said he wanted to leave at seasons end, I kinda get why we persisted with HDM
I know we assume it was talay saying he didn’t want redders but could there be a chance that redders has said he’s had enough and wants to transition to the next stage of his life?
I dare say thats something youd announce farely quickly, rather than waiting till the week of the last home game. Thered be no reaspn to hide it
He said in his post match, that he didn’t want any fanfare at all
Uffy outters, aka most of the fan base.
Probably not over the treatment of Burgess.
Can’t believe there’s no speculation of Uffy being sacked nor anyone lined up yet…
Would you anyone take Stanton to lead us?
Wut? No?
There’s heaps of speculation about Talay being sacked, all of it baseless, because there’s nothing to base it on.
So now we critise when he doesnt save it well enough?
I thought overall we played really pretty well.
The new shape is a weird one and while its obviously well past due to do something about our tactical setup, to try and get the most out of some key players and cover up some of our deficiencies - I guess its better late than never?
The back line basically looks like:
--------Devenish-Meares---------
Popavic-----King-----Courtney-Perkins
I don’t mind it. I think King is not really the right profile in the centre there, and then you have to play Popavic on the right, because you don’t want a left footed King out there, so its a bit hodge-podge, but I see what’s happening.
Its the midfield that still baffles. What’s up with the wingbacks? I get that we want Lolley to get more space. Good. I think that worked in the second half when he pushed up a bit more. In the first half he was too deep and inviting too much pressure and was too far from the attack. You obviously can’t have Lolley inverting. I guess we’ve seen that Grant doesn’t really do it either (frustratingly) so we’re left with little choice but to have these wing backs that just cover the extreme wide spaces.
But then you’re left with a big hole in the middle that has to be covered by Caceres and either one or two of the back 3. Our back line getting pulled out of shape has been a problem all season, so this gives me the heebee-jeebees.
You could have a boxier midfield with, say, Kamijo and Hollman at the base, then Sena and Caceres or Ouahim at the top? You’d love to have Grant at in that box, but we don’t have a replacement RB. so fark.
So I get that there are challenges, but TBH it seems like a very complex solution to some problems that are kind of Talay’s making?
Wouldn’t you be better off just going to a flat four at the back. 2 #10s, 2 #6s and 2 #9s? Like:
---------------HDM
Grant–Popavic–King (I guess)–JCP
-------Hollman—Sena-------------
–Costa------------------Caceres
---------Klimala–Segecic------------
Classic Arnie-ball areas? Easy to communicate late in the season, heaps of firepower on the bench. Pretty much no-one in the league knows how to break down two banks of four, regardless of the personnel. Defensive coach knows the system…?
Except Costa doesn’t track back.