Tratt may be quite good at CB if training there during the week knowing that is his likely position on the weekend. Especially with Wilko next to him. His goal threat on set pieces in the box for us is so much greater than Calver’s. I’d be inclined to play him there for at least the next A-league game to see how he goes after training in the role.
I feel it was more Zullo that got burned by Harrison and not Tratt. Harrison ran right by Zullo like he wasn’t even there for one of the goals.
Two - one vs Brisbane, one vs Adelaide. Both at Kogarah. Both were on the soft side, but those get awarded, and defenders have to be careful not to give attackers those invitations to take the foul in the box.
I’m not saying that Calver is terrible, but that he’s been roughly as error prone as Jop. Jop’s biggest error hurt more because of who it was against and the final result, whereas Calver had Redders save one of those pens.
Agreed, but when given a run this season, he was clearly the best partner for Wilko, had the advantage of being a Leftie, and saw us return to our clean sheets - after 10 matches in a row with Jop/Calver partnering Wilko where we conceded, our run with Ben in the side saw him play 11 games of which 5 were clean sheets (6 if you count the fact that last weekend we didn’t concede while he was on).
Anyhow, Warland is not at question here, because he sadly won’t have the opportunity to play for probably close to 12 months. We’re talking about whether Calver, Tratt or Jop should be CB next time out. I think it’s fairly close - maybe Tratt has been the most solid out of the 3, though that’s partly based on his RB appearances which were pretty good.
Given that Calver is leaving, there’s a decision over whether to play Calver and go with someone who has more experience in that position (CB) with us, or go with Tratt who has less experience as a CB, but who would get game time. That game time might encourage him to stay with us (he’s contracted for this season only). Personally, I think Tratt has done well enough to hold on to, so I’d be going with the latter option.
Van der Linden started the season well but his form dropped off in the games prior to his injury. Calver has consistently stepped up every time he has been asked to play even when he has not had a lot of game time. So it seems to me that who, of these two, starts is entirely dependent on who has performed best in training over the next nine days.
No love for Troisi? I’d love to have a go at catching a “fly ball” from my seat in Bay B at Kogarah, and with James’s shooting, there’d be plenty of opportunities.
He hasn’t had a lot of game time but I think when Tratt has played in the RB and RM role he has performed better than he did last week when he came on for the injured Warland. Plus, his versatility across those three roles would probably mean he would be a bench option rather than a starter.
I wouldn’t worry too much, as I very much doubt Kurz will be coaching in Australia next season. He looks as excited as a corpse coaching here, and I don’t think its just attempting to translate German into English.
No, regardless we should be fortunate that out of the last five seasons, we’ll have finished first twice and second once, possibly twice. Tell me any other clubs who have achieved that in the same timeframe? Fucking nobody! Its not going to last forever, especially in a salary-capped league.
Perspective is needed. I expected a lot worse this season and if we were to finish second on the table it would be a great achievement, given our injury toll.
Literally his first season as head coach and we’re sitting in 2nd spot. I think people have seriously unrealistic expectations, comparing it to the last 2 years of the best domestic football sides ever seen in this country.
2nd is terrific all things considered. However, for me, I can’t see that there’s been any improvement or development in how we play. We’ve been pretty much the same all season.