Here's hoping no injuries

-PB

Antonis is a joy to watch. He's great when playing advanced, Troisi is probably most ppl's choice for on the bench now which is probably fair considering his form over the last 12 months

Do love the fickleness of football fans. A few years ago it was Sydney fans saying Antonis is a gem who is the future and Victory fans used to say hes overrated. Fast forward a few years Victory fans love the guy and Sydney fans say O'Neil is far better. 

Troisi this season has been good.
Once he recovers I think he will be back in.
KM has made changes this season but think he will still go with his pre-season (plan A) formation as much as possible this season.

      Ola   KB
TA     JT      KH
      RB (or CV)

Victroy supporters like players who give all they have got.
I think TA now falls into this category (but did not in the past).
Listen to KM post match press conference. If you read between the lines I think that is how KM answers a question. He uses the term conditioning but I think he means strength and desire to win.
After his efforts in last years SF of course MV supporters now like him. That was the stuff of a legend.

If you could pick between the two, who would you prefer to have (based on current form)? O'Neill has done well for you guys, but I think Antonis has truly stepped up another level to the point where he should be in Socceroos contention.

how do you guys think you will go in the ACL? 

its very exciting. people keep telling me its still early in the season, don't get carried away, etc. but how could you not? i think we can only improve. We just need to keep them all on the park.  

TBH I am more excited about the up coming ACL than the A-league this year.
If they can continue to improve the chemistry and things go MV way it could be very exciting.

No way does Troisi lose his spot. He has been excellent this season (not good enough last season). Antonis was good on Saturday, but he is a box to box midfielder, no an attacking midfielder. The midfield will be:             

                         Baena                           
               Honda          Antonis
                          Troisi

Fickle? I was rapt when he was signed for MV and have always rated him. For example here's 3 years ago when he was an FC player and I was talking about how fantastic he is 
https://forum.insidesport.com.au/2138921/antonisoutforolyroos

And I think most MV fans thought the same. 

For mine he's had one great game and a few few good ones. He is capable of much better imo

I think theyre slightly different players whod go great as a 6/8 combo. I think for the Socceroos we've got a lot more 8s/10s type players than 6s who are good with the ball so Id probably have O'Neill closer (and also because Im worried he moves to the championship and Ireland picks him) on that. But on form, Antonis. O'Neill hasnt been at the level he was at the last two seasons (and should have been ahead of Brillante in the prelim squad if it was purely on CM ability) this year. Got over run first half against Mariners and against your lot but Im sure hes not far off. 

Forgetting the clubs hes played for since leaving us, its good to see Antonis getting a bit more consistency to his game that he lacked when he was still young with us. He was always a special talent whos made some terrible moves. PAOK was an odd move, the Veria loan never worked and the Venlo moved looked alright but he never got off the bench. If he had his time again I wonder if hed have stuck around for another season or two and become a regular before moving abroad. Speaking of which, its probably a matter of time before he starts getting overseas interest again (crazy that hes only 25 with his best years ahead) and hope he picks the environment where he plays, whether that Victory or not. 

A bit late with this comment, but I didn't get to watch the WSW game on Sat night and have been watching in chunks over the last two days.
The comments on Antonis made me think of it, I noticed after his goal - which was a brilliant team goal - the other players didn't go and celebrate with him.
This made me think back to when Storm Roux scored his goal earlier in the season and again he was left to celebrate by himself.

Is this a concern, that the team aren't getting around each other to celebrate? Roux scored his first goal for MV and Terry's goal, as mentioned above, was an amazing goal involving many players in the team and capping off a huge result.

The Roux one made sense, as they had just equalised and were pushing for the winner against Perth, so that's fine. Not sure I'd read too much into nobody following Terry - they've celebrated every other goal pretty hard tbh.

It was late in the match and the temperature was above 30.
Amazed they were still able to play such flowing football given the situation.
Victory boys are in good condition for this time of year.
Terry is in the shape of his life. He still had energy to spare but perhaps nobody else had any extra left.

Yeah I reckon it had more to do with Antonis running off towards the north end fans and jumping the barrier. Problem with an oval is the fans are a long way away. I'm sure if Terry had stuck around the box the other players would have celebrated with him.

Not sure they would all be keen to jump the barrier either. At the end of the game last thing you want is to get injured from celebrating a goal. 

Let’s address the elephant in the room at Victory!!
Who is going to make the ACL squad??
If I have read correctly it’s 3overseas players + 1 Asian conferences player.
So obviously that’s Honda raking the + 1
So who is going to fill the 3 other spots?
I’d take Ola Toivonen, Raul Baena and and Storm Roux.
I think I’m defence Deng and Ansell can do the job and keeping Roux and Brown gives the back for family together, with Broxham to cover from the bench.
Valerie and Hope to cover the Midfield and Kenny as back up striker.
The only issue I have is who can replace Kosta??
Is there any young gun attacking mids/wingers in Victory’s squad?
I heard Elvis was being looked at to join the squad he would be a handy replacement for Kosta but we also need a back up player for the position too.
Thoughts lads???

Roux isn't a foreign player ...

Visa players to choose from are:
Kosta Barbarouses (New Zealand)
Georg Niedermeier (Germany)
Keisuke Honda (Japan) (+1)
Ola Toivonen (Sweden)
Raul Baena (Spain)

Honda takes the +1 spot, need to drop one of the others for the ACL. 

We’ll surely it will come down to either of these 2?

Kosta Barbarouses (New Zealand)
Georg Niedermeier (Germany)

I’d pick Kosta and I’m not even a fan of him to be honest!

It will be interesting I know valeri can cover for Baena but I think Baena if given a good run will probably be the star Melbourne’s midfield I think he has a lot more to show!

Iirc kosta can claim  aussie citizenship due to his recent  marriage. 

Roux has like jai have aussie citizenship.  So they don't  count. 

A player has to have Australian citizenship for more than a year to be considered Australian for the ACL. We couldn't pick La Rocca in our squad a couple of years ago because of that stupid rule.

Sweet jesus, Auckland away is back. 

Source?

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport/2018/12/a-league-wellington-phoenix-schedule-eden-park-fixture-against-melbourne-victory.html

February 15 at Eden Park

I'd say excluding Niedermeier makes more sense considering that we have two good CBs in Ansell and Deng.

I've been considering this more when looking at how well Baena's done, but Deng and Ansell alone together might work against WSW, but with Paulinho running at them for Evergrande will we regret not bringing the experience? Still a while to decide but it's surely gotta be one of the two.