Not much update from the Roar twitter, must be a pretty boring game... :-s

1-0 Solo.

Goal 39th min Solorzano 1-0

Edited by MrBrisbane: 5/8/2014 08:28:37 PM

Beat me to it ;)

Solo with another 2-nill.

Solarzano's second at 69'

Another :D Petratos.

Very good scoreline given the lineup. Waiting for highlights now.

Daniel Bowles was pretty horrendous, ingham, brown, lamba, jackson and donks were the standouts for me, the two triallists(?) who came on in the second half didnt add too much.
JCS looked hungrier but the players around him weren't on the same wavelength, dimi ran the show wonderfully and Lustica was solid but sjaky at times in the holding mid position.

stef added something when he came on and i have to say i was impressed with young in goals, while he didn't do much he commanded the area well, was very vocal and looks to have superb distribution from both feet.

lol... I thought bowles was ok for his first game with us, nice crossing but didn't get up forward enough. lamba looked lost, and solorzano just pisses me off because he misses so many opportunities. petratos was again great.

He's wayyyyyy too slow, it was like watching a semi trailer trying to do a 3 point turn watching him turn around to chase.

noticeable difference tonight was the centrebacks and holding mids playing a lot more lofted switches, which 90% of the time were on the money and opened the play up.

Who are you talking about being slow, Bowls or Solo?

Don't like the sound of lofted passes. OK when playing weaker opposition as they give you time, in the HAL however.........

I was talking about Bowles, Solo was a lot hungrier this week but wasn't getting the support he needed (Rule copped a mouthful) but he still doesn't look like the force he was a few years ago. A lot is going to fall on Kurtisi's shoulders this season.
Redlands were pressing high, so the lofted passes were working, Mulvey might be looking to play on the counter in some of the ACL games, who knows, maybe it just suited the game last night.

Starting line up was: ROAR XI | Young (gk), Theodore, Donachie (c), Jackson, Lustica, Petratos, Lambadaridis, Brown, Ingham, Bowles, Solorzano.

Bench was theo, Stef, Way and Rule.

yeah I noticed that as well, I think it was pretty good - it opens up space after short passing has drawn in players, for wingers to bomb forward, didn't know Donachie was so good at those type of passes.

Donachie had the armband too, hopefully means he's in for a bigger role this season as he has loads of potential.

Quite a turn of pace for a big lad too, keen to see more from him this year for sure.

How was Lambadaridis looking? Really hope he can come back strong after that shocking injury last year.

He had his moments both good and bad, a few misplaced passes and missed tackles, but on the flip side he played some great balls forward into space with one touch and made a few crunching tackles too.

I'd say he is one of the best passing defenders in the league. I really rate him and expect him to move to Europe very soon and push for Socceroos selection once he's established over there.

We used that tactic a lot last season and it really does work if you have pace out wide to exploit. It simply adds another option to the passing game. It's logical. As you pass around and draw the opposition midfielders deeper as they press it creates space. Mad to not use that when the opportunities arise at the expense of only ever playing 5 yard passes.

This is NOT a long ball game as Val Migliacco and other pundits tried to tell us Gombau had "sold-out" to. It's a natural extension of a possession based philosophy.

The Brasileiro Serie A teams play so called lofty balls from the back often. The balls are spot on and the runners move swiftly into open space and the control and shielding of the ball is done brilliantly. If done correctly even under pressure it is quite effective to use from time to time.

Exactly and what i put in bold is the whole point.
If you mix it up and keep teams guessing and they start to question whether to press or hold, more and more spaces open up over the course of the game.

Yeah i wasn't implying it was the only tactic used the other night, it was used as a change up and the effectiveness was well worth mentioning. Once you get Brattan back out there with pace on the right and left from players like Ingham, Petratos and the like it'll be a very useful card up the sleeve.

Interesting start to the season we have:

Adelaide at home - Adelaide could be really ready to fire under Gombau this season - should be a good spectacle - never easy
Perth away on a Sunday arvo - danger game - Perth with a very good sqaud on paper and we often struggle there
Sydney at home on Friday night - a 5 day turnaround after Perth but we have a good record recently against SFC at home
WSW away - would take a draw.

I'd be quite happy with 6 pts after 4 rounds

We could get 12 but I doubt we will. I'd say 6-8 is more realistic.

ehhh we don't struggle at perth we've never lost at their stadium.... and sydney we flog every time they come to suncorp. We should be worrying about the ffa cup, a bit early to see how teams are going to play when the season starts, including us.

wrong

Correct. I mean your wrong is correct.

My recollection is that we lost the first game at Perth following the playing Perth in the final the season prior. There could be other occasions but that's the one I remember.

Our hat hangs on so much with that unknown Albanian if we want to match our last season's results. I'm confident we have good cover to replace Franjic but Berisha? I'm nervous as all hell where we'll end up.

HAHAHAH YOU FELL FOR MY TRAP! We've never lost a nib. :D