we dribbled in to the finals in 6th place mate. Ali coached them for just 8 games at a win/loss of 50%

Your post is embarrassing.

You are very right Dave although there is very good reason why a number of us believe some of the Glory fans on here are either joined at the hips with Ali or something a little more colourful.

Christ, you even have fanboys of Cam Edwards in here and the lad can barely get himself on the bench all season.

*shrug*

It takes all types - and I'm all for people having different views, so long as they're open to the idea that other views exist.

FWIW, I don't mind Cam as a squaddie but I'd tell him he needed to put a couple of kilos on at the gym and learn to be stronger on the ball, otherwise he'd be out the door. His passing is a hell of a lot more accurate than some of our other midfielders... he just needs knocked around way too easily.

His passing is better than a number of our midfielder which in fairness doesnt carry much weight.

Personally (and sincerely) I hope the lad does eventually become a good senior footballer, it's just I believe he's a fair way from it at this moment and more to the point, I certainly don't believe our senior side (any senior side) should be used as a development tool to further an underdone player.

That's what a number of us were seeing during Ali's tenure.

Edited by Straight Bat: 3/2/2014 03:57:00 PM

Yeah, I think that both Edwards boys had games under Edwards where most fans thought "jeez, I'm not sure if recent performances warrant a start".

Which, in fairness, is not much difference to past coaches and their own favourites - made worse in this case by them being the coach's sons. But on the other hand, we've been delighted to see other 'underdone' guys step up and maintain their spots - I think Matty Davies has proven that he can compete well at an A-League level, and Riley has shown glimpses too (though IMHO he's not quite as settled as Davies yet, then again not sure about putting Clisby LB either...)

Mind you, fans can be a fickle bunch. Those jumping on Maclaren and saying he should be ditched entirely, wishing they had Taggart back at the club - how do they think Taggart got to where he is? By being played at Newcastle despite not being quite ready. Now he is and everyone says "why did we let him go?". That's very frustrating. Not saying Maclaren shouldn't have been dropped - like Ryan and Cam he was one I thought Edwards overplayed a little - but you've got to give people consistent enough minutes to make the dough rise, so to speak.

You just need to look at teams like Brisbane, Mariners, etc. They don't flood the team with all youth, but they've been churning out talented players season after season AND winning titles. Historically in the A-League we've struggled to do both, which is a disgrace. At least now we have a base to work with - in full knowledge that not every kid will turn out to be an Amini, or even a Taggart.

So, is Madaschi signing this week with Cernak going onto bigger and better things????

:-k [-o<

Hopefully! Would cap off a great few weeks for the HAL in terms of signings!

very true!!!!

I think Glory should be looking for a new DM and if he can be found and is better than Burns then Burns can be let go.

:oops: :shock: ](*,)

Griffiths??????

#-o

He has only signed untill end of the season.

Thanks for clarifying your position Begbie.

I think Griffiths is being reported as being signed until the end of the 14/15 season (see below), but it does seem likely that if he gets a good offer to go overseas, he'll try to go before then. If he doesn't go, then I'd agree that he should be a shoe in for DM. But Griffiths has been pretty careful about that.

You mean the end of NEXT season, right?

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/glory-snap-rostyn-griffiths


EDIT: Beaten to it.

Edited by f1dave: 3/2/2014 08:41:20 PM

I stand corrected, reading to much about him still being ambitious and wanting to play overseas be it Asia or Europe to notice.


Still a far better player than Cameron and a player who would never be signed if Ali was still in charge.

You know that, how?

As far as we know, Rostyn and Adrian came back to Perth, needed to train, Glory is obvious place to do so, and therefore got first crack at their services.

So in this hypothetical, why would Ali Edwards not want to sign someone with a decent resume, who would compete with Burns and mcGarry? Remember this is in a midfield where the coach was looking at ways to improve it and NOT play two aging , slow DMs.

Also C.Edwards can't be as crap as you say. I don't care if you don't like him, the stats don't lie and he is technically better than McGarry or Burns so at the least, is an A-League squaddie and because of his age, has the potential to establish himself here, a summing he works on how weaknesses.

So Rostyn being ambitious, is that a bad thing? I noticed it was another knife you threw at Ryan Edwards. For wanting to crack Reading's first team. Now we have a player who wants to potentially leave in 18 months...problem?

That was a 4W-2D-2L record after taking over a team that had a 5W-3D-11L record.

If you maintain a 50%-25%-25% W/D/L ratio you'll make home finals every year. I don't know who you think is supposed to be embarrassed by that record.

If you're going to defend the results Edwards got last season, it's worth reminding that 2 of the wins came from injury-time winners.

And Ali Edwards obviously decided that he didn't need midfielders like Miller and Cordoba. He was happy to set up a squad playing to a system where the wingers are the primary generators of play (we all commented before the season started that the squad was winger-heavy and CM-light).

That system clearly has not worked, because the performances all season have been woeful (under both managers). Edwards had 2 problems... firstly he was unable to be in charge of his own squad, and secondly he was reliant on a system that was simply not adequate for the standard of A-League football (as I said previously, if your wingers are Bale and Ronaldo it can be a good system... however even if we had Oar and Kruse attacking on the wing in the A-League we wouldn't be winning any games without ball-playing central midfielders.

Brisbane make the 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 work because they always have excellent central midfielders (like McKay, Paartalu or Brattan) to get on the ball and build their attacks, Melbourne make it work because their DMs build the play out of defence and the false nine opens space for the wingers.

We don't make it work.

Burns simply sends the ball back to the CBs and Maclaren and Smeltz both play off the shoulder of the defence... McGarry isn't mobile enough to do it on his own... there's too much missing from the puzzle.

I think it was the case of they wanted more money than Sage was willing to spend.

Remember the annual cut backs and youth exodus that Glory have every season???

Happened again after the end of last season and will again this season.

Hopefully the players leaving will be (in order) Burns, McGarry, Dodd and Smeltz.

I believe Glory has enough talent on their books to fill those gaps. Just need that rare and elusive play making midfielder that Glory seem to fail to get right every season (except maybe when Miller and Cordoba were there last season and then let go for want of more money) ](*,)

Will the club persist with Da Silva? From a purely selfish point of view he has the potential to be the Socceroos saviour - of course if he plays well for the Glory that's an added bonus ;)

The problem with the post-mortem on the off-season signings is we don't know what role Sage played in all of this. We know that older players and large wages was an issue since the report came down and that Sage had a bee in his bonnet about costs and the wage bill. So where to apportion the blame between Edwards, Sage and any other actors in the club for the loss of players like Miller and Cordoba is difficult to ascertain.

I do recall Miller walking for more money at the Pussies. Cordoba wanted to stay, but again I think was offered an insulting contract.

They'd better. He has been identified at a very early age as a good player. It's just his age (he's only 16!) and waif-like physique that's holding him back. Edwards did say he was going to be used off the bench as an impact player and managed carefully so that he's not smashed to pieces. He has also picked up the niggling injury here and there but has been playing in the NYL and been on the bench a couple of time but not used.

If we're going short term and want a title, we could do worse than letting Burns, McGarry, Dodd and Smeltz go and fielding a line-up of the sort:


Bench: Duncan(gk), (Clisby/Davies), (Cedwards/O'Neill), Da Silva, (Harold/Maclaren)

¹ Gossip on here is that he would be open to returning
² I believe there is a +1 option on his loan
³ Replacing Smeltz as marquee, unsure of his contract status. It was coming to an end at Nagoya this coming season I believe, but no word on re-signing. Has developed foot skills in Japan, reliable finisher and would also work effectively with our direct style of play.

Hiya Bovs. Agree with most of your analysis. However, if one were to
defend Edwards' approach, one could make the following observations:

- Edwards probably thought he had more backing for a 'development year' where results weren't going to matter so much, when in fact Sage and players lost their cool very early.

- Edwards was stuck with Burns which makes it difficult to transform into a mobile passing midfield.

- Edwards didn't want to pay top dollar for a creative (but slow and ageing) Miller on a long term deal (good call)

- Edwards didn't want to pay top dollar to give Cordoba a deal, as although a good player, he's not dynamic enough to compensate for the effect of Burns (not unreasonable call)

- Edwards probably felt McGarry a better option as a hard working midfielder, and would have been under pressure to pick him given his time with the club, despite McGarry not being a creative passer (not unreasonable call)

- Edwards probably felt he could bring O'Neill and CEdwards into midfield and give them time in a blocking midfield to get used to the pace of A League football. He probably didn't expect the extent of blowback from Burns regarding this.

- Edwards played REdwards who is also a hard running #10 to support the blocking midfield and to push forward on the intended fast attacks.

- Edwards had a very good backline, with excellent full backs and Burns as the stopper. He probably gambled that they could hold up pretty well which might make counter attacking wing play more viable.

- Once Sage loosened the purse strings for a 'new toy', Edwards got in Gallas to shore up the defence some more (having lost his frontline full backs). He needed a good defence given his attacking plan would not necessarily yield high scores.

- Edwards got in Sidnei to support that wing based attack, with pretty good results

- Edwards didn't get much out of Nagai, contrary to previous seasons

- Edwards didn't have Smeltz, but punted on Maclaren (implementing the 'required' youth policy) who had an excellent pre season, but despite seeing a fair bit of the ball, couldn't do a lot with it and ended up very low on confidence.

- Edwards experimented with formations and changed things up. Eg the Wello game where he played De Silva against a team that doesn't press to hard and so was able to play more fluidly through midfield. Contrast to the Roar and Victory games where he tried to play pure press and counter attack with long ball/passing.

Edwards did 'go large' with youth and left himself a bit exposed, but then again, the admin were supposedly supportive of a youth policy year which most of us construed as a year in which finals aspirations played second fiddle to trying out younger players who could be part of a successful team in a few years time. That backing quickly disappeared, perhaps in part because of bad man management and/or senior players who didn't want that approach and were concerned for their futures (that is all unclear).

Wouldn't say Edwards made all the right moves (clearly not), but one can see how circumstances (including the youth imperative) pushed him in the direction he went.

brilliant :lol: :lol:

It must have killed you to see the boy on the bench, sorry occassionally see the boy on the bench.

Christ knows how you're feeling now that he isnt even getting picked as a substitute.............

paint it how you wish mate, we dribbled into the finals on goal difference playing a brand of football marginally (perhaps questionably?) better than Ferg. If I'm not mistaken we struggled to score more than two goals and only ever won by the one.

dribbled in and then lost the first game of the finals.

Inspirational stuff :oops:

The 3 foreign "CM"s (though at least two of them could play in the hole) were all offered cheaper contracts and McGarry was the only one who accepted, Miller chased the money from Brisbane and Cordoba got let go before Miller left, which indicated who they were targetting. Glory also wanted Nagai back too around that time as well.

Anyone could see that the system Edwards used last season and this season was completely different but again, his midfield engine room was completely different too.

I don't think the pass-it-out-wide tactic was really effective but then looking at what Kenny is doing (which seems to be let them do their own thing) and it looked way better.

Perhaps the natural talent of Marinkovic/Sernas will help improve that but they've still got to get the ball from somewhere.

Mate, you can have whatever delusions you wish. Whatever makes you happy.

Shall we put you on Sucide watch now or after he's delisted at seasons end ?

...and people wonder why we don't have a forum anymore :lol: