I expect MC will put out a B team for the first half and the A team for the second half.That creates a challenge for us.Do we do the same?I doubt our B team can keep a clean sheet against their A team with an all out attack mentality.
Back to the overall club performance,the most disappointing aspect of Roar is that after so so long we are still nomads.No home.
I still believe all clubs should have a home to be in the top tier.If lower tier clubs can do it on tiny budgets,why not A-League clubs?

Just a thought on VAR and these offside calls from a few posts back. I don't like how the offside rule has gone so black and white with VAR, it's actually kind of made it less clear. I know it may not be popular but I think when those lines are drawn if they measure less than half a meter between, then the benefit goes to the attacker and the goal should stand. It would keep some of the excitement in the game.

The reason being, with the calibration they do pre-game it's actually very easy to measure the distance between the lines with automated computer imaging. It's much harder for the operator to work out which part of the body is further forward with all the angles to consider. I reckon half the time the line is drawn from the wrong spot, it really requires the refs to have good spatial awareness. It wouldn't fix everything but some kind of in built margin of error would remove a little frustration. Either that or change the offside rule to measure from the position of the feet on the ground which is much more accurate when measuring. I know that would mean players leaning forward make it harder for the linesman, but they don't call offside until it hits the back of the net these days anyway.

50 cms is too much that could be an entire body with daylight between the two. I would be happy (and i think most fans would be happy) to have a "thick line" as they do in at least one euro league. where the line for each player is 20cm thick centred around where the computer determines the "correct" spot on each player ( furthest forward for attacker and furthest back for defender) then if the lines are touching at all it goes to a "refs call" so whatever decision the AR made stands. 

great game last night and i am surprised that no one has made a point of the change in formation making us look much more of an attacking threat.

parsons was fantastic all night and best on ground for me (honourable mentions to oshae who was much more effective, DWH who worked tirelessly up front and JCP and Neville at the back). Parsons is a real talent and glad we have locked him down. light on his feet, but knows how to use his body to make space and has a wicked left foot. It will be interesting to see if defenders work out that his right foot is only for standing, though he looks good enough at the moment to be able to make space on his left no matter what.

going to 4 at the back meant we gave up a whole heap of possession and really if we did not score early it could have been a long night as we were under the pump at times. extra man in the middle really made us more of an attacking threat. Daley was excellent at moving into the space between the lines in possession and generally being a nuisance in defence to break up play and win the ball back or keep play in an area where we could apply pressure. the extra man also meant Oshae had heaps more time to be effective on the ball so he could dictate play. Huge game from the back 4, they kept a threatening city attacking line very quiet. Mclaren had one chance all night which is impressive from an experimental back 4. 

I really hope that if gillesphie goes then we can keep JCP as he looks like he could play at a very high level (though i can begrudge him leaving if he isn't getting game time). lots of really good young players in our squad which i hope continues. personally i think we should stay with the back 4, i have been saying it since the start of the season, we are more open but our defence has shown that they are top quality and can deal with it. 

A super bonus win last night.
Parsons ,should star in the sequel of My Left Foot..Lol..I hope he can use his right foot a bit ,otherwise defenders will work him out.Still his left foot is great.
A young back line ,held off City well.A big plus.JCP looks solid and Trewin is Mr plug in and play.Striker next week?
The front line cut open MC frequently.A few more inside passes and we would have scored more.Maybe if Danzaki played that would have happened.
I needed a double take when i saw Akbari,Daly and JOS playing.But it worked pretty well.
Ok the next game against WSW is critical😀

second place is still ours to loose. win all the games and we sit comfortably second. its possible that we play WSW on the weekend the game after they have been mathematically eliminated, then perth the game after they are mathematically eliminated, then SFC  to take second off them. could be a pretty good run in. 

No one is mentioning Akbari's game last night. I thought it was by far his best game. Bossed the DM position and allowed JOS to hold the ball and move it around very effectively.
He and Daley are very mobile which helped keep the shape of the defence and made for easy transition when we got the ball.

True.With a lot of youngsters,the whole team was quite mobile.

I didn’t see the match but this is a good report and well articulated. I said some weeks ago Parson is the best prospect to watch. I knew we weren’t going to lose this game but 3-0 is impressive.

At the moment he is an absolute pleasure to watch, he created all 3 goals. great off the ball run to get in behind for the first goal (stupid defending once he got in the box though as he was always going to cut back onto his left) great supporting run and finish for the second, and the third was him winning possession in the box, pass and move off the ball to kill the defence. 

having no right foot is the only complaint that anyone could throw at him at the moment and that should improve as he gets older. 

When I saw him in pre season again Real Estate Grifters United, I really rated him.  Great to see him doing well.

Kewell had no right foot either.  When you've got a peg that good...

I also thought Akbari was quite good last night. He's really starting to mature. The thing that impresses me is that we seem to be developing some depth in quite a few positions which bodes well going forward. I still think we could do with a little more fluency in the front third but that will come with experience. The change in formation definitely showed the benefit of freeing Jay O'Shea up.

I feel a bit for DWH, he also created a lot last night and probably deserves something from the last few games but it just hasn't fallen for him. He's also lost 2 goals due to VAR which is unfortunate. They were probably the correct decisions though.

You are right. It should be the feet. After all thats what you stand on and balance from. Then it's clear cut. 

Otherwise you might as well say in line is off side because that's what seems to be happening.

The young players are really coming into their own.  If we can tie them down, I see a really good local nucleus that the club can continue to build on.  Well done so far.

Danny Kim gone.

Our struggle will be to hold onto our best emerging talents. More money from other clubs will always be our bane.

Glad we signed Parsons - hope the others stay with us long enough to develop our identity and create a feeling that the club is worth playing for as a career option rather than a stepping stone to another club.

Different if they get interest from better leagues - but losing them to our competitors always sucks.

Good luck to him, awkward timing for us but if none of O'Shea, Akbari and Daley injure themselves there will be no impact.

Agree - more just the start of the outflow I think rather than immediate danger for our squad.

Hope he does well and gets a chance to shine.

I just noticed Roar Youth are second on the Qld NPL ladder.Just one loss in 10 games,with more goals than any other team.Impressive.

Especially given our senior team must be nicking players who would otherwise be in that team.

Danny is an interesting case.  I rated him a better player than Akbari last year, but as this season has progressed, Akbari has really come into his own.  I'm not sure if that's due to Akbari being a better player or just getting valuable and consistent game time.   Anyway best of luck to Danny and I wish him all the best.  Once we can start getting transfer fees for our players, maybe the losses won't hurt as much.

Roar seems to be very poor in setting up contracts to take advantage of transfer fees. Tighten that and not only will you end up with a little more revenue to add to the coffers, but you’ll find it won’t support a scenario for other clubs to take players that easy and therefore players end up staying longer.

If he was in our plans for next year I would agree, but I can’t see how he would be. We have 2 better young midfielders ahead of him (Akbari and Daley) and some good young midfielders looking to get experience just behind him (Adams and McMorrow) who can fill that spot and that is without any recruitment as well. 

If one’s not in the plans or is substandard not a problem. But you never know what they’re going to end up like when you sign them up. I wasn’t actually focussing on him but more general.

Well that was another disappointing game.

Parsons played against 3 or 4 opponents all night - surely there is a point where you realise that there must be space and players elsewhere rather than holding the ball in that tight area - but no-one was making that play. We missed DWH's offering and threat.

Champness had another of those games where he just does not put his speed and skill to any great use. He was involved without actually doing all that much.

Danzaki had another huge game - excluding missing the open goal and managing to get it back across where the ball came from instead of bumping it in.

Loose passes, concentrating on holding defensive positions rather than marking up like we do when we are playing well, and a wasted first half where our defensive team outnumbered our attackers at least two to one leaving the middle undermanned and allowing Wanderers to dictate how they wanted the game played. I think Moon had the wrong tactics for that game.

Some games you think that the opposition is lucky not to have conceded and you can take that away as half a victory, but tonight was not one of those nights.

Wanderers played well and we played poorly on balance.

Better lift for Glory lads!

Parsons is not a striker and the second he was pulled back and allowed to roam with a proper striker upfront the Roar looked like they had some kind of hope. Unfortunately Moon took 66 minutes to fix his absolutely fucked starting line up and by the time they improved it was panic stations basically.

I thought we would lose that game.It was too easy to think we had made the eight already.
Now we have are in for a nervous last two games against two good teams.We need to win one.😬😬😬


WSW’s are basically done and dusted .But have a miracle chance of making it ,starting with WU beating MB’s.
AU must lose to WSW and rely on BR losing two games and PG winning two games and MB’s beating WU and WP beating MB’s to miss out.
It’s between,BR,MB,WP,WP&PG.and WSW who gets in and who misses out.
Wins to BR and MB's during the week  will kill off all below them.
Losses to BR and MB’s and anything is possible.
A draw to BR and they are almost safe unless AU win,MB’s win once  and WP can win and  make up a two goal deficit.Still possible.

This game reinforced my view that Roar are better defensively with Trewin instead of Aldred. And Gillesphey was terrible tonight. He has always looked vulnerable when players run at him, tonight he added a degree of what looked like “couldn’t give a fuck”. Especially poor effort when Ibini scored.

When the team changes every week its hard to know what will happen on the field.
Today there were quite a few changes from the last game.Maybe that contributed to a really poor first half and us not really playing until the last twenty minutes.
What happens next,i dont know.But we now need to put out our best team against PG.Because trying to beat SFC is something we havent done for a long time and they are hitting form.In other words Its unlikely we will beat them.

I thought it telling that Wanderers basically fielded the side that played best for them last game, and we played another made up side instead of the team that played well for us.

Moon still has his favourites and tactics - and that is not a bad thing in itself - but sometimes it backfires.