I can't see how you're evaluating Petratos on defence as he's not tasked with doing that in Aloisi's set up, rather like saying Jamie Young doesn't shoot enough?

but it is a bit counter to what aloisi wanted when he dumped clut because he didnt defend enough. problem with petrat his skills dont fit a standard winger or attacking mid. if he could cross the ball and faster he would be our first choice right wing.

Is that true?
It raises a number of questions.
Why was that his role considering his midfield cohorts.
When Roar was under the pump ,what was his role?
He got hooked a few times for going Mia.
He is not a playmaker.I would call him a work in progress.
But the bottom line is all players have to defend these days.Unless you have particularly strong defensive players to cover.
One glaring problem for defence last year was the poor pressing.Coordination of the press was poor with teams waltzing through midfield too easily.

Read an article somewhere about OToole , was voted most dominant left back in T 1 high school football in Japan , was also back up to Gersbach in recent Aus u20s games .
Still only 19 but if yer good enough , you should get a chance.
Also regarding a striker , Dagastino has been banging them in for NPL side , would like to see him get a run this year.

I'm happy enough with a Brown/O'Toole LB combo, if it's a compromise then there's always one somewhere in a salary cap league.

I'd like to see some youth blooded as well, we missed that last year really although we still had some youth in the side all the same. So 2-3 more senior signings to give us options and depth and then some good young players being given a chance will suit me :)

Agreed , another good thing there is no shortage of left footed players in this years squad , Brown , Broich , Oar ,McKay ,OToole , Rowles, good to have depth

Broich is right footed.

Interesting times ahead.

Has there been any indication of when tickets for the FFA cup game v Perth will go on sale or is it going to be done the old-fashioned way, pay at the gate?

God i hope not. Ballymore wouldn't cope at all with everyone buying on the gate (in its current state). I'd say the club will have them out by the weekend surely.

Looking forward to seeing what O'Toole has to offer considering his youth record. Would like to see him break into the first 11 and then have Brown on the bench as a utility to cover the whole left side.

With Deverre's surgery, any idea how long he'll be out for?

Could Polenz cover as a CB?

Forgot Oar is with us, should be good this season.

With decent options at DM, we shouldn't have the blowouts that occurred last year.

End of next month he'll be back apparently.

Yes, he could, don't know if he's in JA's plans though.

Wanderers lead 2-0 at half time in our pre season friendly thanks to goals from Mario Shabow and Jaushua Sotirio :shock:

Turned into a 2-1 loss. Broich pulled one back. Sounds like a decent game for both sides despite the 25 substitutions. Hopefully JA learned something.

Do you know why was playing in defense?

I guess they wanted to stop the opposition from scoring :lol:

Don't mind me, carry on!

It's hard to know what conclusions to draw from the game,although 2-nil down at halftime is never good ,when most of your A-team is playing .

None. Way too early - even the FFA cup games don't give a good indication

Theo was in goals for the first half, which is when we conceded 2...... Young on in the second.

Bit of a stretch that though. Theo has had his day I agree but unless they release him he'll be our #2 keeper all season

i would be blaming the defence more than the keeper i reckon.

We have a defence? :lol: So was it Bowles and O'Toole in defence?

O'Toole is a LB. came on in the second half.

No North ,so Bowles and a youngster at CB.Clearly we are threadbare there at the moment.
Also interesting there was no Pepper or Polenz.
I imagine Aloisi was having a good look at us defensively with youngsters to see where he needs reinforcements.
Also with no Broich in the first half ,I wonder whether we struggled with Corona already gone?

Why do people keep trying to trot out that Brown is a decent player? He's not, he's rubbish. He continually makes the same mistake every single game. He's almost always out of position - allowing other teams to either get someone to drift inside of him or play the pass inside of him while he's 20 metres away ball watching and thus resulting in a goal (if not multiple).

I actually agree with both of you, it's perhaps more correct to say that Brown has a lot of talent but (as you say) keeps making the same mistakes defensively so becomes a liability. Personally I think this is a coaching problem, and neither John or Ross can fix it because they don't seem to have this skills. I would have liked to see Roar hire a discus list defensive coach for this season

I think threadbare is a bit harsh - going on JAs mantra of two players competing for every position we have three senior players there: North, Bowles and DeVere. Then Rowles. After that it's all makeshift such as Polenz and the kid who started yesterday. If DeVere regains fitness all is good, if not we might be in the sh*t at CB this season - I just hope the Aloisi's are calling DeVere's fitness correctly

Moore is already at the club. He could be a good one to take Brown and the backs aside maybe once a week to impart his vast defensive knowledge.
Steff is also still at the club and is a left back. Can he show Brown some positional skills ?

Edited by miron mercedes: 30/7/2016 09:02:05 AM

That's a reasonable point but with Moore and Steff in Operations/Admin I think we need someone full time on defence

If they sign Katebian i believe one of the other forwards must be on the move, also some happenings upstairs maybe.