Oh Sydney FC..ho hum.. Graham, hope your ideas are implemented by the Socceroos better than what Sydney FC did tonight. The reality of international footy is a huge step up from Salary Capped Gallop League.. ho hum....

As i suspected. 

> Announces he coaches yoof NPL like it's a big deal

T-thanks man.. glad to know :\

Once/if we fall below Thailand we will get 1 direct place and 2 qualifying places. 

They will start 2nd round and have to play 2 matches. Both away I think. 

The premiers will get direct to the group. GF winner will have to qualify. 

The Thai team got a draw away to Evergrande, our grand master champions got beaten 2-0 at home. We do have 2 teams to their 1 so if we dont score more points overall it would be a calamity. 

Probs Kosmina. Can probably work over to his place. 

Arnie ball failed tonight because ,the opposition was faster accross the park,technically superior across the park and could defend.
Arnies wing backs were slower than their opponents so were unable to make swift attacks down the wings.
The DM's were too slow and technically inferior when placed under pressure.
Sure Sydney were at their worst,but there was no way through the center of the park and they couldn't force stupid turnovers,because the opposition were just too good on the ball.

The preseason talk was bullshit. Suwon were one of the most impressive teams athletically I've seen play. There hasn't been an A-league team ever that would come close to the abilities Suwon showed tonight. They all could regularly leap for headers at heights that are rare to see here and their acceleration made Sydney's play look poor when they could immediately recover after being shown the wrong way. 
On the Sydney side, it seemed nothing fell our way tonight from the starting from Calver's horror first few minutes. Even the lumps in the pitch and gusting wind seemed to favour Suwon. It didn't help that the whole team forgot how to weight and direct their passes, even when there was little pressure being applied.

crimson and chillys posts cover the game pretty much how I see it.
I wanted to say from the moment GA spoke the chicken before the egg mind game it always comes back to bite !
A very good reality check imo.
One of the worst games they've played at such a wrong time but thats football the better team got the points.
You could say whats worse its showing how ordinary the rest of the AL teams are at the same time.

The angle is usually that if we scrapped the cap SFC would get more or are worth more. Its not the case. WP and CCM players get paid too much because of the salary floor. We think they should be the same beause that is the FFA model. But its just a waste of money. 

that was pretty terrible glad i missed it

one thing I should say is that its a myth that playing these teams in pre season is easier than later

I haven't checked the stats on this but I'd wager that our performances in games 4-6 are as good or better than 1-3

Another thing is to my surprise there is no correlation between how a team does in the a league compared to asia

A team that is ultranegative can do well. But also sometimes technical players, including youth, who aren't up to the a leagues physical level can do better in asia than in the a league and vice versa. I think it shows our league's overemphasis on physicality and our soft refereeing

Anyone with a brain could see Arnie is an average coach that found his level at the A-League.

A-League level used to be English League 1 standard but now is League 2 standard on a good day.

To think the FFA are grooming Arnie as our national coach is going to be a very sad state of affairs.

Can't blame Arnie or SFC, Suwon played at least as good as a Japanese college team. And who could possibly have known that putting Simon on would not change the course of the game?

Wait. So having 70% of our best players not play in the ACL didn't work?

Were all of the 6,500 fans less bored?

Suwon outplayed SFC and were positive.

Their squeezing  over the full game was well-organsised and energetic.

SFC have rarely been under that sort of squeezing pressure off the ball in any HAL games this year. It also showed how innocuous the three imports, Ninkovic, Bobo and Mierjewski, were against a higher calibre team, playing higher standard football.

The other worry from that game is that many players mooted as potential Socceroos looked innocuous too.

Wikshire and Zullo were outpaced by their direct opponents.

  Brillante and Wilkshire struggled.

Brosque and Wilko were possibly the best Aussie SFC players out of a bad bunch.


In addition, there was too much distance between the lines in BPO, particularly the defensive midfield line and the attacking line. In defensive shape was Arnie playing a flat midfield 4-4-2, or a 4-2-3-1?

The former was not condensed enough, and  formed quickly enough  in the Defensive Transitions, the phase of play just before BPO.

If the supposed shape was the latter formation in BPO, the number 10 wasn't close enough to the defensive midfield line of Brillante and O'Neill.

Suwon played a 3-4-3. SFC were outnumbered in midfield. Arnold either didn't  respond quickly enough, or, his cattle didn't follow instructions.

In general SFC were forced to play under less time and space than they were comfortable with. It was very apparent that the likes of Ninkovic, Mierjewski and to a lesser extent , Bobo, rely on their teammates to do a lot of donkey work in the HAL in BPO. They get away with it. They also look like stars in the HAL, which is an indictment of where we are now comrared to faster improving Asian leagues.

Last night the Polish and Serbian SFC players had to do a lot of donkey work in BPO and they came up short. Arnie made a mistake not selecting Buijis - a CB who does plenty of graft.

When SFC  won the ball back, apart from Brosque, none of the players opened passing lanes quickly enough to support the SFC player in possession. The SFC person in possession had few passing options available from team-mates. Consequently, they often mishit passes.

In the end I had to check out of curiosity.
At least my memory of United's campaigns the theory ran true
Victory here the big stand out on your side of the argument for sure

TOTALS:

 United:
1-3: 27 points
4-6: 23 points

 Brisbane
1-3: 7 points
4-6: 7 points

 CCM
1-3: 12 points
4-6: 9 points

 MV
1-3: 13
4-6: 21

 JETS
1-3: 4
4-6: 6

 SFC
1-3: 12
4-6: 12

 WSW
1-3: 13
4-6: 13

Every player int he team played their worst game of the season. Hard to gauge how competitive we'll be in the group until next week and we see if this was a one off. 
The team is quite fatigued. Arnie plays the same 11 for almost 90 minutes in basically every single game this season, FFA Cup, HAL and now ACL. No rotation, perhaps using the bench for a combined total of 20-30 mins a game. Considering the age of our squad it's madness and leads to players becoming quite jaded. Also no competition for their spots can lead to complacency.

We really missed Buijs tonight. Calver was extremely bad, but with no cover from the equally atrocious Brillante and O'Neil he was left badly exposed and looked like a player who'd only played 10 games in 2 years. Which due to the crap rules in NPL is true. How are players like him supposed to stay match fit when there's no reserves league? 

There's no point having all of our foreign attackers on the field if we can't get the ball past halfway. 

Not to take anything away from Ulsan though, they were very good, especially for a team in preseason. 

Arnie has no depth in the squad as he never rotates so if they do get fatigued/burnt out they will be fucked.

Posters saying this shows level of A-league are premature though. Playing a better quality team is not a reason for your goal-a-game Brazilian to suddenly not be able to control a ball or your ex-serbian international to shank shots that he's been netting with the outside of his foot in other games. Ditto the Pole.  Brillante and particulary O'Neill are shit though and were exposed.

We've seen dross teams from the A-league put up far better performances than this in the CL before so its hardly a reflection on the league, just the players on the night and the coaching tactics.

Shocker of a performance from us. Was obvious from the opening exchanges when their striker got an easy 1-on-1 that he butchered that it really wasnt our night. That said they did their homework. Always acted very quick to shut down Milos and Adrian, didnt over commit in attack but looked to ping us on the counter. A very typical away performance and they were very deserved winners. Hardly worth writing us or Arnie off just yet but we will have to be a lot better. 

The lack of depth is a problem with all a-league clubs competing in the ACL, sydney starting 11 have an older team except for young Calver and the bench isn't young either.

Of course they can perform better, but the top clubs from the big Asian leagues make light work of the group stages, while every ACL game the Aussie teams play in are an absolute grind. While its stating the obvious, we are still a long way behind Japan and Korea.

As much as i don't mind watching sfc being found out at a good level, the year wsw won they lost their first home game 3-1 to ulsan Hyundai.

Simon did run from one side of the field to the other simply to kick the shit out of one of the Suwon players and up until that point of the game, no one else had done that.

Thing is most of our starting lineup has played consistently at K-League level or higher. 

Feels like the Mariners, and now Suwon are the only teams that have done their homework on us for 18 months.

lol...well normally it is the intent eh haha.
I reckon he ran like as last night because none of his team mates got stuck in enough in the first place and as usual remind Arnie a donkey can still gallop.

Its all good debate imo.
When a team dominates that next loss round the corner is huge one and a great calling card.
We shall see what happens next week.

Can't wait :hehe:

Perhaps these players were being shut down quicker and facing the type of pressure that no teams in the A league can provide? Some like victory can do it for about 20 minutes before they die but suwon swarmed on sydneys ball players for the duration. Its even perceived pressure knowing the other team is better.

shots and chances. Looks like the chances are actually reasonably even but some impressively awful finishing from sfc

I missed the game mind you

this puts into question the "gastro" excuses Arnie used after the last Mariners game.....the Mariners had done their homework and played to it and were by far teh better team for most of the match. Suwon played teh same way....pressing and quicker to the ball.   Arnie didn't have a plan B to combat the pressing....he'll need one once other teams see how to beat them.

AFC Champions League winner Sasa Ognenovski has questioned the “very strange” omission of Jordi Buijs from Sydney FC’S ACL campaign, claiming it has already come back to bite coach Graham Arnold.

Buijs blunder will cost Sydney, claims Ognenovski | : The World Game hours ago

Just watched the game then. First thing to note is that the Koreans are playing to get a result away from home, defensive, tight, cautious possession but with enough quality in attack to get a result when the chance comes. It is pretty rare to get games like this in the a-league because most teams play to entertain and results don't really matter with a generous finals format and no relegation. It can come over as a pretty dull game to watch unless you appreciate the step up in quality and stakes. I think it would also be far more entertaining if the Aussies had more quality to force the matter.

It will be very interesting to see how Sydney respond but they definitely need to raise their game. For me it is very enjoyable and I appreciate the benefits of the challenge to Australian Football.