Wouldn't worry too much, Slater just wants to promote his clinic through some clickbait article, prob which he wrote over a buttered peice of toast as he rushed off to work.

Waiting for the clubs to run the league 

Absolutely this (in bold). Most teams seem to have recruited quite well in terms of foreigners but on paper (and even past form) does not always necessarily translate to on field performance in the HAL. In both directions, good and bad, including coaches.

The analysis of Slater seems quite emotive and about excitement factor, with the only on-field reference to being beaten by Sydney, who to be fair are still the benchmark and will most likely make quite a few teams looks poor through the season.

waiting to do what?  they have bought in decent imports.  they are not going to throw more money at a big name for the sake of it. they currently have the biggest name per dollar you can get in aus football.  there is no player on the planet that will get as much attention for the money as cahill gets. no one.

the only thing city have done wrong here is sell us short on a coach. every other part of the club - including mens recruits - is firing.  if wazza works out then they have done everything right.

Think they might be miffed over spending so much last season, which was obviously orchestrated to help the FFA attract a better deal from Fox, only to see FFA totally stuff the deal followed by kicking them in the teeth with offering little in return to the clubs.

Clearly waiting on the outcome of FIFA and the FFA new board or normalization committee  

@ Bundoora brah

Any squad is capable of finishing 7th if things don't work out - Sydney and Roar did it recently and Victory almost did it two years ago. Heck, the reigning champions even did it last season. It could happen to City, although I'd say of all the sides that finished in the top 6 last year only SFC look certainties - everyone else has something to prove imo

@ Footballkingz

It's a tough one. It's easy to say someone will make the 6 but then who misses out. Often we used to have a couple of points between 6 and 7 and then only a few points between 6 and 3 but the gap between who gets in to finals and who doesn't has been widening in recent years.

Of last seasons bottom 4, always hard to predict but, Nix look poor, CCM look better but don't look to have a goalscorer or any depth so I think those two will miss out by quite a few points. Jets will be competitive but I'm not sure whether Ernie has the mojo back in place, and AU seem to be real contenders for the upper places not just finals.

I take your point on Victory, the squad doesnt look strong enough for an ACL season and at best it will be either/or there but if they keep their first team injury free they'll be tough to beat.

also if craig foster made the same comments they could be credible.

foster > slater

you are kidding yourself if you think that city squad can't come in the top 6 of a 10 team league where no one needs to defend themselves from relegation.

i dont disagree that city look poor.  but slaters reasons are just dumb.  like him.  cahill is more than good enough to replace fornaroli.  if he plays the whole season up front he will challenge for golden boot and unlike fornaroli it wont be over half penalties

cahill outscored fornaroli from open play last season.

@Waz,

If Wanderers are contenders and in the 6, then you have Sydney, Victory, Wanderers, CCM, Jets and Adelaide. No room for Glory or City.

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see Victory miss out. They have a good starting 11, but their backup could be a bit shaky. So with ACL and international fixtures they may struggle at the end of the season and therefore need points early.

For what its worth, my six in no particular order, SFC, BR, AU, PG, CCM, WSW.

If people can see CCM, Jets and Adelaide all making finals this year then 3 sides from last years 6 will miss out.

No one it seems is prepared to discount SFC or Victiry, Roar have been written off due to age, Wanderers have been anointed contenders for no real reason other than they're a Sydney side, so the battle for a place is between Glory and City ..... and I'd take Glorys squad over City's right now by quite some margin to be honest.

So on that basis City could well miss out.

There's two great unknowns this season with City - the first is the coach, if he underestimates the HAL he'll be out of title contention by R8; the second is the quality of their youth coming through - they seem to be getting that right and that could make a lot of difference.

@astonvilla1: The likes of Carrusca, Euygene and La Rocca would more often than not be subs off the bench which is pretty damn good I think. Going by our performances so far this off season though there are some questions being asked but I think bt50 has summed up my sentiments on the rest of the matter quite well.

Easy to do Soil 2-7-1 is a bit unusual

Yes you are Missing something 
15/16 MV 6th SYDFC 7th
16/17 MV 2nd SYDFC 1st

My bad. Got my years mixed up.

Am I missing something? 2 season ago...2nd. Last season 1st (qualifying for ACL for the second time). If they get top 3 this season it's their 3rd in a row. The season before last they were second and lost the grand final to Melbourne. Or am I getting the years mixed? 

"SFC will qualify for a third (ACL) season in a row" ... it's a nice line but the season before last SFC didn't even qualify for finals let alone ACL. They finished 7th.

looks like they've finished the marketing experiment, time to draw conclusions.

Other Melbourne hasn't exactly strengthened this year either.

Melbourne Victory and SFC made the top 2  2015/2016 and got top 2 last season as well. SFC and MV both qualifying for consecutive ACL campaigns. At least one of them will qualify for a third year this year I think. SFC squad is stronger than last year...the only place I would argue they are weaker currently is right back (with Grant being injured).  SFC will qualify for a third season in a row. 

Until we are at about round 7 we won't really know what is going to happen (unless someone is a runaway leader like SFC last year).
as for signings ?....Who knows what the Pole will be like ? I had never heard of Broich ,Berisha or Ninkovic before they showed up here....no further explanation necessary.

Straya, where the measurement of success is coming 6th in a 10 team league

They were trying for Bony, I just don't think any good players are interested in playing in Australia during a world cup year....

I see to many has beens in MC squad way past there best. Even the signings Eugen,Carussca,and Rocca past there best.I think Joyce was a bad choice to a lot better candidates out there local and international even his comments after the FFA cup game were weird.Lack of football brains and people in there department from day one to now.To many players on big $$$ don't perform.

A-League pre season. Where teams that sign players that no-one has seen before are hyped up as contenders whilst a team like City who has solidified their team are written off. 


They'll make top 4. 

@slipperypidgeon/Redkat

Point is though majority seems to have this expectation that they should be bringing in huge names somewhat unobtainable by the other nine clubs when why should they? Every other clubs is justified bringing players in as marquees for accounting reasons but city get ridiculed for it because they have more money behind them? I don't see this new marquee being any different to a large amount of marquees over the years.

And really they only get a % back off their 'brand' as things stand.

Meh. City certainly haven’t had a sexy off season, signing or performance wise, but they’ve strengthened their side from last season. They’ve addressed their issues at the back, with most of their signings defensive, whilst bringing in a 10, what they lacked in the front half. Whether Budzinski proves to be a success is another thing, but regardless of his pedigree or resume if CFG think he’s worthy of a marquee spot, he’s more likely than not going to be at least decent.
They’ve arguably got the best squad depth-wise in the league, batting all the way down to their youth.

As a summary from a senior squad perspective:
IN         Budzinski (MV), Schenkeveld (V), Galekovic, Mauk, Carrusca, La Rocca, Jamieson, Crowley
OUT     Colazo (MV), Sorensen (V), Rose, Retre, Franjic, Kuzmanovski, Gameiro, Caceres

There are however, some valid concerns that outsiders and City fans will have, in particular that they will start the season without their main man in Fornaroli, and for the first few weeks at least are likely to have limited impact from Brandan returning from an ACL injury.
There is also the query on the new coach and his style, and whether he can get the best out of what is a talented squad, something JVS and Michael Valkanis clearly couldn’t. The Sydney Cup game a week ago was obviously an abject failure, a tactical gamble that was up-ended before it started by conceding from a free kick. Joyce will need to show a bit more flexibility than that if he is to get the ship moving. At the end of the day, the gaffer was the most important signing Melbourne made over the summer, and only time will tell if it was a good one.
IMO City could end up absolutely anywhere, from first to perhaps 7^th, but I wouldn’t back against a top 4 finish personally. Similar to last season, if it clicks then look out.

Yes, could well be right.
But always surprises and unknowns early on, and all teams seem to have high expectations this year based on their new recruits.
All about getting early wins on the board and not having to play catch up for the second half of the season.
As we see each year though, you can have an extraordinarily poor win/loss record and still make the 5th or 6th spot of finals.
So every team would aim to be there at the very minimum.

(And that usually turns out exactly the way that other football code has shown - 2 weeks of finals of huffing and puffing, very average games on the whole between serious contenders and those making up the numbers, lots of attendance money made for the code - and at Week 3, the real finals start where the teams that finished Home and Away at 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the 4 teams left deserving of being there).

I'll save this post for the end of season egg on face thread.

might be right