I should keep my squad specualtion here I think (gotta get back in fantasy groove :) )
Eugene
Rudan - Shin 1 - Fyfe - Jamo
Reid
Alemao - Dodd - Shin - Cassio
Cristian

bench: keeper? Hughes, Marrone, Lloyd, Monterosso

What do you think?

I reckon it will be:
Eugene
Marrone - Flakes - Fyfe - Jamo
Reid - Hughes
Alemao/Dodd - Dodd/Shin - Cassio
Christiano

Owusu, Alemao/Shin, Keeper, Rudan

If Rudan plays one of Flakes or Fyfe will go to right back

you heard it hear first

Edited by King Billy: 12/8/2009 10:02:23 AM

Rudan won't start. He's too slow for right back anyway. Marrone everytime for me until Mullen gets back. Of course, with Viddie being the loyal man he is, I wouldn't be surprised to see Alamao start at right back again. I'd prefer him in midfield. So....(for what it's worth)...

Hugene
Alamao Flakes Fyfe Jamo
Reid
Trav Hughes Shin Cassio
Cristiano

That's in attack. Hughes to drop back with Reid when we're defending. I just prefer the attacking option. :)

Aiee! Shin 1 cannot be played at RB?!? He is soooo shit in that position it isn't funny :lol: :D

He may be slow, but I expect that he can deal with SFC - especially as it is their right side which is their more attacking option. We could actually play with Rudan in Reid's spot if we needed to... I actually would like AUFC to make use of Pim's 4-2-3-1 system (or as the Socceroos call it 4-3-3 :lol:) as it is a wonderfull counter attacking positioning.

I'm still dreaming of the day we play two up front. I'm not sure if Cristiano can manage to run himself ragged every week. :d Obviously I'm not as big a Rudan fan as you are. But - so far- Fyfe has looked solid so I'm prepared to wait and see.

The duel I'm looking forward to is Jamo/Kofi. I have a feeling Mr Danning may be slightly (completely) less free to run at will this week. Just hope Jamo tackles with his feet and not his hands. Expecting firewworks.

No doubt about that at all! Jamo has a temper and I reckon that Kofi is going to get fustrated having someone who can keep up with him!

I thought that was what we had been playing for the last 12 months..... minus the attacking part

Very true, what we really miss is finishing rather than attacking. Lloyd should fix that! Cristiano is going to have to lift his game a huge amount if he wants to stay on the park, which is what we need to happen - also it means that we will always have a second good striker on the bench so if we need to inject more attack we will have that option. And my allsion to 4-2-3-1 is the ability of that formation to compress and expand as needed, AUFC hasn't been doing that very well other than that blinder against WP last season...

My team for this weekend.

Eugene
Alemao-Flakes-Fyfe-Jamieson
Reid - Hughes
Shin
Dodd Cassio
Cristiano

Bench - Bira, Rudan, Owusu, Marrone, Costa, Monteresso, Pantelis, Mullen, Barbiero

If Shin is on the bench, alemao will push up into midfield and marrone will be put into the right back position. Good to think we still have Daniel Mullen to come back into the squad.

I cant beleive so many people said that we will finish 6-10 position, some 5's but not many higher. That is an extremly strong first 11 and great depth on the bench. the two young boys also showed last week they can step up if needed. Our team will be more settled than most the others which is a major advantage. Our only concern is defence and if fyfe and flakes continue in the form howed last week they will be hard to breakdown.

I had us finishing first Torak!

But we are one eyed adelaide supporters, so it shouldn't really count.

:lol: Of course it counts! I was being serious, how can you go past AUFC?

Oh when the Ants, Oh when the Ants! Oh went the Ants piss all over you!

Anyone heading over for the game this weekend?

Unfortunately not heading over on Sunday, but I will be heading to either the Brompton (as per the General's recommendation) or the Elephant (as per the Facebook group suggestion).

My lineup for this weekend:

----------------Cristiano--------------
---Cassio--------Shin---------Dodd---
----------Hughes--------Reid----------
----Jamo--------------------Alemao---
----------Flakes--------Fyfe-----------
---------------Galekovic---------------

Bench: Owusu, Marrone, Costa, GK

Edited by RedsUnited: 12/8/2009 08:25:16 PM

God I'm worried about Gold Coast on Friday night... :(

I'm not worried about them here at home. When we play them at Skilled...

Perhaps we can continue to speculate about our line up options in this thread, as the SFC vs AUFC wrapup thread has turned into a in-house battle of Sydneysiders...

Having Shin and Dodd in the centre of midfield gives speed, which can then be switched out to the sides with Cassio and Alemao with their technical skils. If we have Owusu in the squad, he'll be a big target man up front and Cristiano will be able to pounce if there's a loose ball. Perfect in theory. Let's wait to see it in action.

It is quite weird seeing the hate being spewed from some Sydneysiders, oh well glad to accept the move option!

I hope that Cassio is fit for Friday, seeing Pantelis getting pantsed again will not be fun, he can attack but has no idea how to defend - Jamo was left totally exposed as our CDs had their hands full containing SFCs CFs and couldn't back him up. Or Reid should have dropped back to the middle of the defence and pushed Fyfe and Shin 1 out wider so the back 5 where more of a w shape:

-------- Reid --------
Jamo --------- Marrone
--- Fyfe -- Shin 1 ---
------- Eugene -------

Then we needed Pantelis, Dodd, Hughes, Alemao and Cristiano to almost mirror it at the front:

------ Cristiano -----
--- Dodd -- Hughes ---
Pantelis ------ Alemao

So the line would have been:

------ Cristiano -----
--- Dodd -- Hughes ---
Pantelis ------ Alemao
-------- Reid --------
Jamo --------- Marrone
--- Fyfe -- Shin 1 ---
------- Eugene -------

SFC came at us hard down the flanks but their best scoring chances came through the middle. By shunting Hughes up the park and planting Reid in front of the back 4 we would have been better able to snuff out their movements before the could string together those 5-6 passes that allowed them to open us up. We spent a lot of time in the second half being lead around by the nose thanks to our poor positioning. Hughes & Reid just kept giving up ground to SFC which gave them more and more space in the centre of the park. We have seen time and time again what happens when you are parked in front of your six yard box, you run out of room - players seem to come from everywhere and then your picking the ball out of the back of the net. You can't get hold of the ball and move it around to try and open play up unless your technical skills are very good, so you are relying on a long ball to a target man and your midfield to run like the blazes (after they have just been chasing shadows) to get back up the park to receive or secure the second ball. Stupid.

For the upcoming few weeks where we have to get some wins under the belt, I really can't see Pantelis featuring in any of the games at all. He looks to be the weakest link in our lineup so far...

Hughes following soon after. The problem is trying to play him in a similar role to Salley late last season. I don't think Hughes is cut out for that. He has said he's a box-to-box player, but so far, I haven't seen him move around as much as I would have liked.

Like Benjamin(442 Forum Moderator) once told me: "Forum threads are alot like football conversations at a pub. You may start on a certain topic, but it may break off on a tangent which has a big influence on the original topic. You wouldnt close a conversation at a pub because someone strays a little off topic"

Just like a pub conversation, sometimes, even the best of us tend to have too much ale and decide that a punch in a nose is a valid point.8-[

Anyways, sorry(on behalf of Sydney) for the epic hijack...:lol:

Just wondering from your POV's, was anyone really impressed with Shin. I certainly didnt see anything special. I was really hoping to see something new to the AUFC play, much like song for NJs or Byun for SFC. Hopefully we can just put this down to him adapting to Australian football.

Any news on when Lloyd Owesu(sic) should be ready? Really was unimpressed by Adelaides single striker play last year and it seems to have continued this year. Cristiano looks like he is a decent goal poacher, from what we saw last year, but I dont think he is suited to the lone strikers role. Give him some support(not Dodd...he's a W-I-N-G-E-R) and a secondary option for Reid to look for. Far too predictable at the moment.

Owusu could play a part this week, hard to tell really as you don't want to push someone who had a serious lung infection too fast.

Shin needs more game time, I refuse to be drawn on him until I have had the opportunity to actually see him play - hopefully this week that will occur.

The lone striker is a stop gap measure, though it can be very effective when the midfield is playing to game plan. Dodd ends up in the middle of the park so much because he is the captain and he is capable of playing from a slightly wider central midfield role. Pantelis (or Pants as he shall henceforth be known) is the main culprit in terms of work rate, he is a very one dimensional player and the reason why we all love Cassio so much. Pants attacks, and attacks, and runs around, and ... well... thats his total game. Cassio attacks, runs, defends, creates, crosses etc etc. We really missed him against SFC.

Look to see us play with 2 strikers once we have Owusu back on deck.

No doubt, just good to see him sooner than later.



Maybe thats the case. Maybe, like some other AU players he needs to get into his groove. Much like Cassio and Alemao.

But I saw him at SFS and from what I saw I wasnt impressed. Didnt bring anything new to their play, but hopefully it is a short term issue.



Captain or not, Dodd does SFA while in the middle. Dodd is the kind of player who needs a little bit of a run up and thn can take his player on. He does this best when out wide and then makes his way infield. When in the middle he hasnt got that buildup to help him out and is really a waste of a good attack weapon.



For everyones sake I hope your right(got a niggling feeling Viddie wants a straight swap between Cristiano and Lloyd).

No I don't think that was his plan, I think he recognised that our lack of options to play two up front due to our striker fiasco last year hurt us. I definitely get the impression from his rhetoric that being able to play 2 strikers is something he sees as a must for AUFC's arsenal this year - especially with the ACL.

Dodd really needs to float around when he is in the midfield, tracking both wings and providing support and options to our overlapping wide players. It is when he stops doing that (which seems to happen more away than at home) that he goes missing IMO. AUFC is a team that relies on its pieces working together, when it works it is nothing short of brilliant, when it doesn't then it chews itself up without any help from the opposition.

One of the areas that disappointed me in the second half against SFC is that AUFC did not try and control the ball. Eugene should have gotten hold of the ball a few times and rather than put it long should have played it short and gotten our back 4 and mid 2 to pass the ball around for a while, get 5-6 passes together and move it up a wing, bring it back to the centre circle, knock it around a couple of times, move up the other wing etc etc. Keep possession and change the tempo of the game, make SFC work for positioning and force them to start to chase the ball. Never happened sadly and the result was a goal against us.

Again, me suggesting Dodd should stoy on the flanks BUT what SFC did better than AU was Bolton/Kellers distributing long diagonal passes through to Danning and Brosque. This gets the ball in behind the defence and exploits Danning and Brosques speed to give then that room to take the backs on.

Now AU have great wingers of similar calibre(Dodd, Jamison, Alemao and Cassio...and Mullen + that other young bloke) who could do just as good a job. Long straight balls are bread and butter for tall CBs. Get them diagonal and behind their FBs and you have 5 yards on the oppositions flanks.

Keep point for Australian football in general: keepers need to work more on their distribution. Its what seperates a good shotstopper from a great goalkeeper.

Too true deportivo, it is fustrating seeing as Australia has a long history of producing great goalkeepers that the HAL to often sees them pumping a hopeful ball forward, or kicking it out on the full. It is almost like they have forgoten that they can roll the ball to a player, or pass it to them. The also seem to have forgotten that they do not need to take a goal kick and pump it down the other end of the ground.

Unfortunately, Shin was thrown into the deep end, by trying to replace Alemao (who had a spectacular game once again). Give him a few more games and then we shall see how much promise he has. I still remember his awesome on-ball skills against Perth in the rain-soaked friendly in the pre-season, so there's hope yet.


Lone striker role does not work for Cristiano, as we've all heard so many times previously. The problem is, our only other strike option is young Frank Monterosso who is still a bit rough around the edges. I'd expect Viddie to send out young Monte off the bench for the first half of the season until he settles in. Once he has some game time and an A-League match-brain, he'll compete with Cristiano and Owusu for the 2-up-front option.

I overheard the new on Ch.7 in the lounge room, and there was an interview of Paul Reid saying something about it was his role to shut down Culina in Friday night's game. Let's hope he's up to the task.

Edited by RedsUnited: 18/8/2009 08:49:29 PM

Reid could do it, but it will isolate him from the match - which I wont mind if it means that Culina doesn't get involved in every passage of GCU play!

You watch Culina throw a hissy fit if Reid doesn't give him space.

Or he will fall down when Reid is near him and complain at the ref until he gives Reid a card. Still can't believe Moore got given a yellow for Culina falling on his arse.