WHEN City Football Group bought Melbourne Heart and turned them into Melbourne City, we were promised an aspirational, exciting club that would revolutionise the game here.

They’re not doing that at all.

In fact, looking at their squad ahead of the 2017-18 season, and having watched them in the FFA Cup against Sydney FC last week, I think they’re in big, big trouble.

Right now, I can’t see them making the top six.

That’s an indictment given the noise that was made when the new ownership thundered into Australian football.

On the park, they looked confused, and without a plan against Sydney FC last week. Warren Joyce has his hands full, and judging by post game comments on Fox Sports by Stefan Mauk, the players weren’t convinced by the game plan they were sent out to do.

Off the park, they announced on Monday the signing of Marcin Budzinski as marquee.

Sorry, who?

I understand that some clubs use the marquee spot to spend a little more to get an import with pedigree here, who might not be a name yet, but have the quality to become one.

But Melbourne City, with all the funds at their disposal … really? A 27-year-old who has never ventured out of Poland’s top flight, as a marquee?

You can and ought to do better than that.

For a club that wants to be seen as a big player in the league, frankly, the squad is underwhelming.

With all due respect to the likes of Eugene Galekovic, Iacopo La Rocca, and Marcelo Carrusca, three of the club’s signings for the new season, is that really going to excite City fans? They’re three tremendous A-League players, but their best days were at other clubs and there’s a complete lack of imagination in those signings. Of the side that took the park at Leichhardt Oval last week, which player in that XI made you sit up and say: that’s a team I want to watch? Without Bruno Fornaroli for a large portion of the start of the season, I really fear for what they’ll achieve this season, notwithstanding the fact they’ll have Timmy Cahill again this season.

With just over two weeks until kick-off, they’ve got a hell of a lot to improve on to convince me that I’ll be wrong.

I don't see the problem :)

Can't disagree with him.
The off-season appears poor (for their ambitious standards) for Melbourne City and their cup form suggests the same.

Can't wait

OK, so CCM, NCJ and WP are most likely to make bottom 4. They have fallen off pace the more salary rules are relaxed and none of them have made the finals in the last 2 seasons

If MC are the worst of the rest, then the teams making up the finals has already been established

MV and SFC will struggle as they face "relegation" due to winning last season. Nobody likes a boring league right?

So that means BR, AU, PG and WSW will be fighting for the 3 ACL spots


That's what I love about the A League. Its not just rigged. It comes with subtitles

"I think they’re in big, big trouble."

It's all relative though. In the HAL, what does big, big trouble actually mean? Not making finals, not making ACL, finishing last, reduction in members/attendances? That's about as bad as it gets. There's no risk of relegation (or any other consequence for that matter), so is it really any surprise they're not eager to open up the old wallet? They opened up the wallet and spent $9M+ on player wages last season and what return did they get on that investment? Granted the FFA cup is a good thing, but they saw only slight increases in members, attendances weren't much better than previous seasons and they got knocked out of the first round of finals. It sucks for the fans, that the owners don't really care about growing the club, but other than that it's really not that big of a deal. 

Really though, why should City spend a fortune bringing in big names etc to prop up the league. I'm sure they'd be more ambitious if they had a reason to be.

For trophies and titles? To build a strong and successful club? To please fans and members? Lol same reason any other club does pal.

Grow their brand by getting City competitive not just in the league by qualifying for Asian Champions League and doing well there. Not even spend a fortune for that. 

No need to fear that prospect Slats, rejoice in it! 😆

might be right

I'll save this post for the end of season egg on face thread.

Yes, could well be right.
But always surprises and unknowns early on, and all teams seem to have high expectations this year based on their new recruits.
All about getting early wins on the board and not having to play catch up for the second half of the season.
As we see each year though, you can have an extraordinarily poor win/loss record and still make the 5th or 6th spot of finals.
So every team would aim to be there at the very minimum.

(And that usually turns out exactly the way that other football code has shown - 2 weeks of finals of huffing and puffing, very average games on the whole between serious contenders and those making up the numbers, lots of attendance money made for the code - and at Week 3, the real finals start where the teams that finished Home and Away at 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the 4 teams left deserving of being there).

Meh. City certainly haven’t had a sexy off season, signing or performance wise, but they’ve strengthened their side from last season. They’ve addressed their issues at the back, with most of their signings defensive, whilst bringing in a 10, what they lacked in the front half. Whether Budzinski proves to be a success is another thing, but regardless of his pedigree or resume if CFG think he’s worthy of a marquee spot, he’s more likely than not going to be at least decent.
They’ve arguably got the best squad depth-wise in the league, batting all the way down to their youth.

As a summary from a senior squad perspective:
IN         Budzinski (MV), Schenkeveld (V), Galekovic, Mauk, Carrusca, La Rocca, Jamieson, Crowley
OUT     Colazo (MV), Sorensen (V), Rose, Retre, Franjic, Kuzmanovski, Gameiro, Caceres

There are however, some valid concerns that outsiders and City fans will have, in particular that they will start the season without their main man in Fornaroli, and for the first few weeks at least are likely to have limited impact from Brandan returning from an ACL injury.
There is also the query on the new coach and his style, and whether he can get the best out of what is a talented squad, something JVS and Michael Valkanis clearly couldn’t. The Sydney Cup game a week ago was obviously an abject failure, a tactical gamble that was up-ended before it started by conceding from a free kick. Joyce will need to show a bit more flexibility than that if he is to get the ship moving. At the end of the day, the gaffer was the most important signing Melbourne made over the summer, and only time will tell if it was a good one.
IMO City could end up absolutely anywhere, from first to perhaps 7^th, but I wouldn’t back against a top 4 finish personally. Similar to last season, if it clicks then look out.

@slipperypidgeon/Redkat

Point is though majority seems to have this expectation that they should be bringing in huge names somewhat unobtainable by the other nine clubs when why should they? Every other clubs is justified bringing players in as marquees for accounting reasons but city get ridiculed for it because they have more money behind them? I don't see this new marquee being any different to a large amount of marquees over the years.

And really they only get a % back off their 'brand' as things stand.

A-League pre season. Where teams that sign players that no-one has seen before are hyped up as contenders whilst a team like City who has solidified their team are written off. 


They'll make top 4. 

I see to many has beens in MC squad way past there best. Even the signings Eugen,Carussca,and Rocca past there best.I think Joyce was a bad choice to a lot better candidates out there local and international even his comments after the FFA cup game were weird.Lack of football brains and people in there department from day one to now.To many players on big $$$ don't perform.

They were trying for Bony, I just don't think any good players are interested in playing in Australia during a world cup year....

Straya, where the measurement of success is coming 6th in a 10 team league

Until we are at about round 7 we won't really know what is going to happen (unless someone is a runaway leader like SFC last year).
as for signings ?....Who knows what the Pole will be like ? I had never heard of Broich ,Berisha or Ninkovic before they showed up here....no further explanation necessary.

Melbourne Victory and SFC made the top 2  2015/2016 and got top 2 last season as well. SFC and MV both qualifying for consecutive ACL campaigns. At least one of them will qualify for a third year this year I think. SFC squad is stronger than last year...the only place I would argue they are weaker currently is right back (with Grant being injured).  SFC will qualify for a third season in a row. 

Other Melbourne hasn't exactly strengthened this year either.

looks like they've finished the marketing experiment, time to draw conclusions.

"SFC will qualify for a third (ACL) season in a row" ... it's a nice line but the season before last SFC didn't even qualify for finals let alone ACL. They finished 7th.

Am I missing something? 2 season ago...2nd. Last season 1st (qualifying for ACL for the second time). If they get top 3 this season it's their 3rd in a row. The season before last they were second and lost the grand final to Melbourne. Or am I getting the years mixed? 

My bad. Got my years mixed up.

Yes you are Missing something 
15/16 MV 6th SYDFC 7th
16/17 MV 2nd SYDFC 1st

Easy to do Soil 2-7-1 is a bit unusual

@astonvilla1: The likes of Carrusca, Euygene and La Rocca would more often than not be subs off the bench which is pretty damn good I think. Going by our performances so far this off season though there are some questions being asked but I think bt50 has summed up my sentiments on the rest of the matter quite well.

If people can see CCM, Jets and Adelaide all making finals this year then 3 sides from last years 6 will miss out.

No one it seems is prepared to discount SFC or Victiry, Roar have been written off due to age, Wanderers have been anointed contenders for no real reason other than they're a Sydney side, so the battle for a place is between Glory and City ..... and I'd take Glorys squad over City's right now by quite some margin to be honest.

So on that basis City could well miss out.

There's two great unknowns this season with City - the first is the coach, if he underestimates the HAL he'll be out of title contention by R8; the second is the quality of their youth coming through - they seem to be getting that right and that could make a lot of difference.