I thought this was our best performance in the ACL with Zuvela in the midfield. O'Neill and Brillante have been too similar, slow and obstructive in the midfield. Zuvela moved the ball on without much too much fuss or thought processing time and it helped alleviate so much of the pressure that Sydney has been heaping on top of itself in the matches so far. We really just needed someone with a bit more pace and confidence than Kalik to help us going forward.

 Yeh that's what I mean. If I was an owner of an A-league club I'd look to only sign a maximum of 4 imports with one coming from Asia to avoid the problem of cutting a gun player if you qualify for ACL.

No, they were widely panned for their efforts.

Sydney talked themselves up and have embarrassed football in this country.

No, everyone bagged them.

Yep, Brisbane got heaps of shit, they got 3 draws, Sydney only have two at the moment with two games to spare. 

This . If only arnie didn't say afc Will boss the acl. But arrogance from him cost them . That  and not naming the Dutchman In the squad was laughable 

nah, they were just found wanting. they rely so much on their imports that the 3+1 rule hurt Sydney fc

Ninko over bujis? Wtf was arnie smoking 

Not trying to slam the kid or anything, just an observation, but I’ve never seen Lokolingoi add anything when coming on for Sydney.

Like not even a glimmer of quality. He always looks lazy and uninterested to me 🤔

My point is people seem to be suggesting that 2016-18 Sydney won't go down as the best ever A-League side because we haven't reached expectations in Asia. 

Its simple they can in the HAL, you answered that in your post

Tried to go all offensive, ignorance of the North east Asians technical ability became his downfall

if i was manager, id be seeking foreign defenders and DMs instead of attackers. perfect for the acl

I don't see it. Seems to me they're calling out Sydney for talking themselves up then getting found out.

Contrast that with WSW who utterly bombed the HAL season and won the champions league. Or Adelaide who were a pretty ordinary side who ground results all the way to a final.

This is what people are reacting too and they're right. There's no denying SFC is a top HAL side.

Japanese football is in crisis mode tonight that the Woy Woy Wizzard scoring!

In all serious Sydney FC did well in the second half, the first half i thought they were very poor, but i also felt Kashima played much better away in Sydney than tonight.

My overall take, given the A-league is going 4+1 next season i would not mind seeing several j-league players play in the a-league, they have great technical ability. 

Different comps, Victory doing well than them shows Australian clubs can compete with these teams. 

SFC really lacked some talented youth players coming on late .I guess Arnold has been hoisted by his own pragmatic non developmental petard.
If anyone can explain the logic in not giving Calver game time before the ACL,I would like to know it.Too much arrogance ?
Brillante has always had his limitations.Italy,Liverpool oldies and some internationals amd now the ACL.He is one of those players that can't adapt his game under pressure.He makes critical mistakes .
In the HAL finals ,if opposition teams dont pressure him,they aren't serious.

Suwon has scored.

Time for everyone to get behind Victory now, this goose is cooked.

0-2 for Suwon at 89 minutes.

FT 0-2 for Suwon Bluewings away to Shanghai Shenhua.

Sydney will have to win both remaining games, away to Suwon and at home to Shenhua, and rely on Kashima to take points off the Bluewings in the final round, and overcome a GD of 7 if the Antlers draw rather than win against the Koreans.

A draw or worse away to Suwon in the next game ends it mathematically for Sydney.

cooked

thought zuvela looked already good enough pre-season, arnie should have had him in the first team squad straight away imo. agree about loklingoy, been eagerly awaiting him to make an impact but has shown virtually nothing every time he's come on

thats an interesting observation

i guess for arnie we can say Thank You for 2 premierships, 1 championship (+ another one likely now jets have lost their spearhead), Best wishes on your new endeavors

Arrogant and over-confident team & fans going into this and not looking great. What's funnier is they were all so disparaging about MV and their prospects of being embarassing and so far MV sit with more points. 

Excuse me for gloating and being a total prat but this is absolutely delicious, just a tad dissapointed they got an equaliser 

He's a goal poacher. Played as a central striker that scores goals all his life. We play him as a winger and he looks confused and unsure what he should be doing. Australian football's insistence to play young strikers out of position costs us at every level of the game. 
He should have started in place of Simon. This is a kid who's scored over 50 goals in 2 seasons but he gets his chance and is suddenly expected to play out wide, beat a man and get balls in the box? He's never done that and so it's no surprise that he struggles, especially considering its also at a higher level.

Arnie has tanked the ACL in order to try and beat last season's records. It's infuriating as a fan. No-one really cares if we get an extra point on the ladder this year. 

His arrogance is ridiculous. Overstating the team's ability and also refusing to rotate his squad at all over the season. He has created a very thin squad, with zero match fitness outside his preferred 12-13 players. 

Calver had literally played about a dozen games over 2 years at any level, then get's thrown into the deep end in the ACL against far more clinical strikers than those in the HAL after Ryall's mid season meltdown left us massively in the lurch. 

I think it's a good time for Arnie to be moving on. We have some good young players at the club who've been given zero opportunity by Arnie. Someone new might add some pace, unpredictability and energy to the squad. This will make us far stronger in the long run if we can mix our best youth players with top quality foreigners. 

And no you can't blame Arnie for having 4 quality non asian foreigners.The standard quality of Aussie footballers isn't good enough, so the quality has to come from abroad. And we don't have the funds to get any decent Asian players.   

We bombed the season after winning the Champions League. Most of that Champions League campaign came in the season we finished 2nd and made the GF, so we were able to compete in both at the same time.

It will be interesting to see if Arnie throws in his youth players for the remaining ACL games.SFC are goooooooone.
I hope HAL coaches have been learning from the ACL and how opponents have closed down SFC.

Cant really see what people are seeing in Zuvela, just didn't seem to do much, never really playing forward, Kalic on the other hand looked decent`and it seems a shame he hadn't got a bit more time in place of Carney throughout the year. Calver is a funny one, good defender but poor on the ball and adds nothing going forward, you really start to miss Bujis who can carry it forward and play some great attacking balls. Lokolingoy I really want to like but he just doesn't do enough even if it is a short time, you need to be hungry.

I know Simon scored but he really is frustrating to watch, it just brings the level of the game down and there is not much point to do anything but pump in long balls. Brillante seems to have hit a bit of a slump, I was hoping he would progress but he seems to be going backwards.

I just feel a lot better about Arnie leaving, I really want to see some good youngsters coming through and us playing a better level of football. I just want to watch players who are keen to go forward and organised in defence, not good defenders who are reluctant to go forward.

Honestly though the only team in the ACL who have done this were Suwon. Kashima were just faster and technically better across the park.

It was the same when BR were at their peak and played in the ACL

This passing game that tears apart A League teams is quickly dismantled by teams that are faster with more cohesion. Where as teams that play defensive anti-football fair better in the ACL with a string of upset results caused by frustration, but fair worse in the A League because it cant be consistently done over a 27 game season