And JA says he has a balanced team lol.

Emilio Martinez never played a single first team game at the Wanderers. Plus he never made the bench.
Maybe he didn't show enough in training to warrant for all his promise.

At least Round 1 you'll be playing the other squad with really serious question marks, Vi$ion City.

@ paulc

But that's the effect of the cap system - you can only have 20 Adult players, two of which are Keepers so 6, 6 and 6 for each area plus your 3 kids. Then you have the salary cap which means players like pepper are necessary because you only have so much cash to spend.

If you waved a magic wand and fixed the midfield problems as you see them, then all that would happen is a gap would appear in defence or attack. It's always there in A League squads - even in SFCs (Matt Simon anyone?)

If you look at Roars squad of 23+1 scholarship player by area it breaks down to:

Defence = 8
Midfield = 6 plus Emilio Martinez so 7
Attack = 7

In a 433 that's a bit light on but in a 4231 it's about right I'd say. It's just whether there's enough umph in there??

Surely there'd be plenty of players in Qld with that motor I speak off?

I just wonder how much scouting of local talent has Roar done or do they save that energy searching for visa players?

Not enough effort goes into local players by the HAL clubs IMO.

@ paulc

There's defiantly no one in the State league that would have the motor - and as for scouting (I forget the exact number but) Drew Sherman said at his fan forum that his scouts are watching 100+ games per week (during winter presumably) in all age groups but mainly from 10-12 to adult. The way he described it was the scouts instructions were "even if you see some kids kicking a ball in the street, stop and have a look" .. but the effects won't be seen for years to come as it only started this year.

Who I would watch out for in midfield this year in Oxborrow and Emilio Martinez, both have looked really good this preseason

Well, it's the Mail but at least they're trying:

GET YOUR BRISBANE ROAR TEAM POSTER INSIDE YOUR 2017/18 A-LEAGUE SEASON GUIDE IN TUESDAY’S THE COURIER-MAIL

Can confirm 2 COE boys (midfielders) have joined on scholarships. Few others are trialling/in the NYL/NPL team. 

Good players those 2 from COE .

Roars travelling squad:

Goalkeepers: 1.Michael THEO, 21.Jamie YOUNG

Defenders: 3.Luke DEVERE, 5.Corey BROWN, 6.Avram PAPADOPOULOS, 13.Jade NORTH, 19.Jack HINGERT, 24.Connor O’TOOLE

Midfielders: 10.Brett HOLMAN, 16.Mitchell OXBORROW, 17.Matt MCKAY (c), 18.Joe CALETTI

Attackers: 9.Massimo MACCARONE, 14.Fahid BEN KHALFALLAH, 20.Shannon BRADY, 25.Rahmat AKBARI, 26.Nick D’AGOSTINO, 33.Petros SKAPETIS

gauranteed to have some young faces i think

Interesting Akbari has travelled - coaching staff see a lot in him so maybe on the bench?

Back 5 pick themselves,

Then Matty, Caletti and Holman in midfield?

Maccers, Skapetis and FBK up front?

Bench of Young, North, Akbari, Oxborrow, Akbari maybe?

What position does Akbari play? I'd imagine if he's there then the player most similar to him out of D'ags and Brady will miss out.

@ maxxie

Only seen him a few times but yeah, forward so can play AM type roles

No Kristensen,So no way McKay and Caletti can play together,unless you want a defensive turnstile.
Someone has to come in who can be a strong DM.If not we will lose.

@ Crimson

It depends on the formation. We don't play 433 so assuming he sticks with 4231 it might work well with Caletti/McKay as the two holding midfielders

Who are the two players names? 

Waz,
We will see shortly,but no matter what formation the midfield has to stop attackers going through the middle.Caletti,McKay and Holman is more an attacking trio and poor defensively.I don't know if Caletti has worked on his defence,but it is has been his major weakness.
McKay can be a terrier,but one on one he is weak defensively.
The big scores against have been in no small way due to a poor defensive midfield.
No Kristensen this early for me is a major worry.Let's see if someone steps up to plug the hole.

@ Crimson

Let's see. I don't think the defensive lapses have been down to individuals ability but rather poor defensive structure - I've said for a long while Roar should hire a defensive coach as neitherJA or RA show any ability to change it.

Update on the AWOLs:

Unavailable: 2.Dane INGHAM (International duty – 1 week), 4.Daniel BOWLES (knee – TBC), 7.Thomas KRISTENSEN (hamstring 2-3 weeks)

Kristensen looks broken.Can we get a replacement like Wout Brama?

I saw Kristensen on Friday, looked far from broken

Last nights game showed how unprepared and unfit Roar is.

What has the coaching staff been doing pre-season apart from going to wheel chair auctions? 

@ Paulc

the one thing a team can't be at the start of the season is unfit - it's about the only thing that can be measured reliably as well. After the WSW game their coaching team were said to think Roar looked unfit, I thought the same as you last night .... let's see what Adelaide looks like on Friday. Another shit performance and poor old JA will get a mashing.

teams that have youth improve
teams that dominate possession improve

so the first suggests we will improve the second suggests we will go backwards as the season goes on

Damn right. There could be several things that may be out of the control of the coaching staff but getting a team physically ready is absolutely not one of them.

You would think the first game of the season would be motivation enough but somehow JA couldn't even get his players to look interested.

Mid table looks to be Roar's place as I keep saying and that is a massive failure after 3 years for a coach with a club like Roar.

The signs are no good for JA or his brother.

@ gazorblade

There's a couple of conflicting stats on first half possession, one had it as high as 70% to City, but by the end of the game it was down to 54/46% which was a huge turnaround in the second half. If the Aloisi's were able to coach defending they would have got away with the first half 0-0 at least.

First goal was shambolic defending , player free on edge of box and no one want to pick up ffs

@ Jonsnow

Agree. But same as last season and the season before. City didn't offer much in the first half but they had three good chances from poor marking at corners. It's just shit coaching if they can't fix it.

I know he only played 10 minutes last night but from the few touches he had this Akbari kid looks like a talent to keep an eye on.