What happened to all those incisive long balls from the first half? Every fucking time we tried to pass through the lines or play out from the back they won the ball.

Just naive and stupid.

Agree. Would of thought bringing on the  speedy Ruka was the reason to bomb forward on the break. nope, slow down and held the ball. 

The worst penalty call I've ever seen. We didn't do much wrong. We created many chances and it bodes well for the return leg.

How did he shut up shop?  He took off a defender in Risdon, put a striker at RB and brought on a winger in Ruka.  I don't think Postecoglou actually had any clue what his intent was.  

We need to find another person who makes runs in behind. Once kruse went off no one made any runs in behind so there defence moved even higher up the pitch and we struggled for ideas. Mooys and Milligan started to get slow and sloppy and our backs just turned to Shit. They didn't have to worry for that bal over the top.. I just wish Ange with 30 min to go. Would just go to a 433. Just to sure up the back. And we win the game. Frustrating

he subbed Luongo as a 'defensive possession keeping tactic'. Now this is the first time I have seen him try to protect a lead. But he made the wrong fukn sub to start with Rogic should have came on instead of Ruka, then maybe Goodwin on the left. He has no bloody brain this manager. no idea what he is doing.

corrupt pen and our goal

Luongo is rubbish at defending anyway , what did he expect. Syria kept pumping balls into the box at will

well footballs predictable infighting will succesfully distract from that corrupt pen. Without the corrupt pen its an impressive 1-0 away win in awful conditions

And what did Kruse's runs actually do? Yeah he scored on th end of a Leckie shot from 6 yards.  What about the other 94 minutes? Chances he screwed because of his crap touch, light weight body, and turnovers?

Ok so this is fair,  and the knives are definitely out and looking for any opportunity. I also thought our first half tactics and performance were good. 

But even so that second half was truly rubbish 

Rogic should never have come on, Irvine or even Amini would have brought more defensive stability. Luongo for Kruse was a good substitution, Rukavytsya for Risdon was terrible and Rogic for Juric was not great although it did push Rukavytsya up to striker a position he actually plays rather than some sort of attacking midfield.

Overall the game plan was bad because we had two wingers, Kruse and Leckie playing as attacking midfielders instead of playing as wingers. Any formation that forces this just should not be considered. 

Great first half performance, the off the ball runs from Leckie and Kruse was the highlight once the effectiveness stopped our threat in the attack was limited, Mooy is a go-to player every time and he had no options to pass once Kruse went off.

It seems we need to mature with the game scenario, a 2 legged tie, 1-0 away there is no need to force the game, drop back and play on the counter instead.

Im not a fan of excuses but it was never a pen, but we had ourselves to blame, Syria pinned us back a de-ja-vous from the Thailand and Iraq away games, we just don't play to the scoreboard away from home.

Ange and the coaching staff need to act smart fast or else we will continue to be frustrated with the development of this team.

Syria were always going to threaten us on the counter, so the second half should never be a surprise but please let's stop making excuses for ourselves about the ref or the diving.

Juric should have put his chance away simple, Ange should have brought in a more conservative sub on for Kruse etc.

Let's ask questions about our performance please. 

I can't remember a team giving us that much time and space on the ball in Midfield . They practically played a 703 formation

The moment they stepped up in the middle we fell apart 

Our players don't seem to know when to come or go and to often Behich was free and we would turn back into traffic.

If i was Juric i'd be going nuts with the amount of times we got wide and he made a central run only for us to turn back and pass,pass,pass
until it was turned over.

Well i'm going to bed with the usual deflated feeling i get from the national team these days.

Syria were gifted a penalty ,but also should have had one for Milligans handball and missed a freaky goal off Ryans head.So chances were pretty even.
Ange needs to give himself an uppercut though for taking one of our few top level goal scorers and making him defend.Pure nut job thinking.
Putting on Luongo and keeping Mooy and Milligan in midfield was another dumb decision.WTF is wrong with replacing like for like?One of our best performances have been without Mooy!
Ange wanting to keep the ball under a press and three at the back ..again complete nonsense,unless you attack.
There were numerous opportunities for us to go on the attack in the second half ,yet we looked back and sideways under pressure instead.Hence defending for our lives most of the time.
Ange is the expert and i am a dumb fan,but why can't he see the obvious?
All it takes is a few dodgy decisions now in Australia and the Syria fairy tale is alive.
This was just another Ange performance.Nothing new.But somehow its all down to bad luck,again.

Milligan had his arm tight to his body and the ball was pinning around. No way a pen. Thats a slo-mo comment

The guy on afchub said average pay for players in Syrian league is $250 US per month.....  

nice. Assuming that the players aren't involved in the corruption credit to them. Iraq when they were war torn beat our golden gen at their peak.

We've got the squad for both legs. Syria are quite thin and should start to feel it in Sydney. Regardless Syria need to score in Sydney but being 1 goal up would have been much nicer. We will need at least 2 goals to feel a bit comfortable but then an Iran equation returns.

we should play assuming the ref will give away a free goal

Missing the World Cup will haemorrhage money out of the game, pushing back expansion further as one thing and having a number of other constraints on the game. It'll pull back a fair bit of the mainstream appeal we've been gaining and really hurt the image of the A-League.

It's clear Ange has lost the dressing room though

Maty played well.

He definitely saved the tricky ones. His distribution was alright and they charged him a lot.

My player ratings

Ryan 8
Degenek 7
Sainsbury 7
Jurman 7
Risdon 6.5
Mooy 8
Milligan 7.5
Behich 6.5
Leckie 7
Kruse 7
Juric 6.5
Ruka 5.5
Luongo 5.5
Rogic 4

Thinking about it more it just spews Iraq away once again. Why the hell didn't Ange bring on Irvine or Amini or go to a back 4 or even a strict 5? Why can't we give ourselves a bit of an insurance policy and cruise to the end?

meh even if that's true you can get by in most non top tier countries on that, and to be sure the majority of the players that are in the oil leagues are probably making the average Australian look like a pauper.

Because that would be to admit he wasn't right all the time.

Now the pain of seeing other teams miles ahead of us in UEFA and CONMEBOL. Poland lead within two minutes in Armenia. They're nearly qualified.

That will be carnage given they will want to give payback after the Euros in Poland. 

I wouldnt be surprised if we end up with fatalities.