We have a few different narratives lead into the last round of the season. How are we feeling going into the matches? 

Confounded 
2nd, 3rd and 4th place not settled
Adelaide, Mariners and Wanderers can all get 2nd place depending on Friday's results.
And what will Rado Vidosic do with squad selection on Friday

6th place not settled with Phoenix or Perth possible. 
Newcastle and Western United highly unlikely to win but could. 

Jeopardy with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 on Friday night

Does an afc spot matter more to people or a finals placing?

I really value playing in asia so if my club was there it would be the afc spot

I actually think the APL has done a good job with the fixture for this round 

Bit of a lucky accident though. When scheduling was done they wouldn't have known how the season would play out.

True just trying to be positive:) 

If macarthur win the Perth match will be really exciting as they could make finals 

No Sunday ALM game would suggest the ALW GF in Sydney was on the cards a long, long time ago. 

Temperature dropping to 13° in both Melbourne and Adelaide tonight, so we should see some energetic games with good pace. Reckon I'll be watching the AU game though. Crowd will be bigger and both teams have something to play for. 

Gee i wish it wasnt simultaneous kickoff

unpopular opinion i know, but id love to watch both games!

And Gauci is not the second Socceroos GK on this form.

To be fair he plays behind a state league level backline.

Thomas should be the Socceroos No 2

WSW finished 4th, and Sydney will finish 5th. Doesnt that mean a derby final next? The nuffy on Paramount said WSW will play Wellington. 

Technically Nix can still make 5th. Unlikely, but definitely possible. Hypothetically, if SFC lose 0-3 and Nix win 0-3, Nix would take 5th position. Or any variations that sees Nix GD overtake SFC. However, you're right 4th plays 5th. If I were a betting man, I'd say the first Elim final will be a Sydney Derby. 

It’s not the back 4 who can’t defend, it’s the entire team. Zadkovich was right last week when he said that he and Milligan agreed the young kids couldn’t defend.

CCM played through us so easily in the first half because our pressing was no non existent hence why Carl hooked Jovanovic, Yull and D’Arrigo at half time.

In the second half it was better but there was one instance where the ball was at Vukovic’s feet and he was waiting for the ball to roll back into the box and Nestory just stood and watched until one of Halloran and Alagich ripped into him and them he applied pressure but by then it was too late for it to make any effect.

You realise that Zadkovich's Perth Glory's back 5 consisted of 3 30 year old year olds?  Zadkovich is making excuses because he doesnt have the ability to organise he's defence properly so he blames it on youth because that's the default setting for coaches when things go wrong.
It's typical behaviour from a-league coaches to do that actually.

Adelaide's defensive issues is more to do with how they are coached, Adelaide are great in attack especially in transition but there behaviour in defending transitional moments is lazy and poor and often they lose concentration because of their heavy transitional way.
Otherwise you didnt see CCM struggle to defend when they had a young Triantis and a young central midfield paring around them because they are well coached team.

Coaching > Individuals and we know this league anyone can concede goals no matter how experienced your players are because this league is a transition heavy league.

Or maybe that defending requires all 11 players in the team to contribute so when then this isn’t happening the back 3/4/5 will always be under pressure and concede goals. This was very evident in the first half last night.

You also contradicted yourself in the second paragraph. You said we aren’t coached well defensively (which is true) but also you said that our defending of transitional moments is also lazy and poor (also true).

However, when players are being lazy, that’s not the coaches fault. That’s the fault of the individuals not doing their Job and in the first half, there were a few who didn’t, especially when they were supposed to be pressing. Hint, they were the one’s that got hooked at half time.

Behaviour isn't just about individual its also coaching, how you coach is how you play.

Major problem is Veart as a coach he doesnt train he's players to control the transition well,he only knows the transition and will die by the transition.
When you teach behaviour like tactics you also you also teach them how to manage the details better and the whole team for Adelaide dont respect rest defence whatsoever.

In terms of the game CCM were the better team, they not only create good goal scoring chances but they control the game far better than Adelaide did.
Also when it comes to chance creation Adelaide struggle to create when teams give them the ball, I think teams are now wary now to give them chances on the break.

Also Hint, the subs that came on barely helped changed the game including the wonderboy in Irankunda who should have got sent off, as talented as he is he's got an attitude problem and wont last in Europe if he doesn't fix it and become more disciplined on defenders who try to rile him on challengers.

Umm Blackwood came on and put the ball in the back of the net within 30 seconds. It was ruled out for offside but I was in lime with him and it didn’t look offside at the game and the line on the replays apparently wasn’t even drawn in the right spot. Not only that, CCM didn’t play through us anywhere near as easily as they did in the first half because we defended from the front better.

The main thing that cost is on Friday was our horrific pressing in the first half which out us two goals down. That doesn’t normally happen. If we defended properly from the front to begin with, we wouldn’t have lost anywhere near that badly.

The reason it was different in the second half because CCM have the lead and chose to sit back and play on the counter there was no need to play like they did in the first half.

Basically put if you guys don’t fix your rest defence you will continue to leave gaps for opposition teams to take advantage of and this has been like for this for Adelaide in the last few games that I’ve seen.

I thought Irankunda played okay apart from his finishing but yes discipline is an issue. I feel his general play around the field is improving and he is contributing more in general play..
Blackwood started the 2nd half very well including the only just ruled out goal but faded probably because he is not fit coming back from a long injury.
Alagich was poor, he has been for the last few games since he was very good when he came on to replace Isaias when he was injured early.

Literally none of the goals were his fault 

I thought he slipped for the first one and was quite low but probably would not have made a difference. Apart from that I don't think he did anything wrong. 

As far as the defences goes I thought Warland was good, Barr and the rest not so good but there was also too little pressure through the midfield and pressing was poor most of the time.  
I think Lopez needs to retire at the end of the season, he is still playing well but there are signs age is catching up with him.  

How does irakunda not get sent off? that is so dodgy. 

FFS some of the send offs this year and he gets no second yellow? He couldve been off twice/

On a flip note an excellent game to watch, caught the last 30. Some awesome football

Absurd the protection Irankunda got tonight. First yellow was borderline red, off the ball sprint to the opposing player and elbows him. Clearly towards the end the incident was a second yellow. Could be a real liability for Adelaide. 

first shouldve been a red. Some of the reds MV copped were less than that

Feisty last 15 minutes but Mariners handed The Divers their arses.Irankunda very petulant when things don't go his way.

Tulio is very under rated but very skilful and a terrific signing..Beni Nkololo is also  a very clever player.

Cracking games tonight.

WSW came 4 so will play 5.... most likely SFC.... 

Piss Ants will play Nux maybe ... but Perth could just sneak in...

Mariners lost 6 players last year and most wrote them off pre season.... gotta give Monty some praise 

City vs Mariners grand final played in Sydney, may not be too bad.
Interestingly, City likely to play a Sydney team in the prelim.

What a great night seeing the lads lift the trophy  

If Marco Tilio doesnt get the best young player u23 of the season then I would be shocked (yes im fan of Bos too), but he has the best G+A stats from all the under 23 players and 6th best in the whole league.

He was unplayable yesterday. 

CCM were very good, their football style is very fluid and create good goal scoring chances if they play at their best they could be a dark horse to reach the grand final, Adelaide's defence is a big problem and im not talking about their individuals either by the way why isn't Alex Popovic not starting?

Its quite a selection of u23 talent this year. Would love to see one of the young 9s dominate in the next couple of seasons

Maybe Noah Botic or Jovanovic? The problem is the trust for No.9s and even No.10s to play from the managers is a bigger problem.

Because he hasn’t been performing and Carl ran out of patience with him

No offence to Barr but he's a much better defender and ball player than him.

Better ball player? yes

Better defender? Not even close 

Overall better defender who has a higher ceiling and alot younger than the former NPL defender.

He is currently not the better player even if he does have the higher ceiling.

How did goodwin and segecic go? 

Segecic actually played a decent game but we know it's clear as daylight he's not a left winger, the sooner he moves in a central position the better for he's development.

Segecic had a very good rating on my website which is nice to see. 

Such shit Macarthur Bullsh1tters.
Last place and should be relegated 

should and must be relegated. what a shame that i have to look at them sorry lot next season

give up your afc cup spot you frauds. 

oh and if i were a football i would wanna avoid playing for this club like a plague. i hate those damn cowbells and also no fans

Western United hVe an even smaller average crowd attendance 
The Bullsh1tters crowds were propped up by Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers away supporters going to their rat hole where they charge $40 for away fans when they pay $1 in rent per year to Campbelltown City Council.
Last year's Australia Cup winners now have playoff to be in next year's Australia Cup

yeah. this is why we need promotion and relegation, because i dont want to look at them next season. they dont belong here, but instead should be in NPL2

a good NSL club wouldnt disgrace themselves like this

They took over the licence of Northbridge FC in Sydney's North Shore to have a youth team and moved the various teams towards Campbelltown. 
And when took them over Northbridge FC was NPL2 and had been previously subsidised by the Mariners

Great to see Jelacic scoring 

Young Botic scoring also

Who is pressing poorly of au’s forwards?

Jovanovic and Yull were pretty poor. Offered zero pressure whatsoever and were hooked at half-time.

Second-half was definitely better

So I see the Mariners AND Macarthur are in the AFC Cup. Got to get my head around what happened. There was a resetting or balancing of coefficients, wasn't there? not to mention our poor Asian performances didn't help.

This AFC Cup should be something to try and win to lift the A League's Asian status. Got to remember WSW has actually won the thing before and some teams have gone far so we certainly have, can and should aim to do well in Asia. 

Especially since the prize for winning is qualifying for the club world cup

the club world cup from 2025 will feature 32 teams and will be a much more prestigious competition. Probably within a decade it becomes the most prestigious club competition in the world

The Mariner’s will do the A league proud no problem.
Great to see the AFC rewarding the real winners ie: league winners into the ACL, runners up and Australia Cup winners into the AFC Cup.
None of this phoney ‘Grand Final Winners = Champions’ nonsense.

The only thing we'll need to find is a striker, if Cummings goes. Most of the team is signed on for more than 12 months.