I am hoping that our full preseason will give us a slight edge in the first couple of rounds as the southern states play catch up. (however the whole flying in on game day and straight out after the game and 48 hour quarantine when we get back home probably kills any advantage we have). i think city will be premiers again as well, they just have too much money to play with and patty seems to have gotten recruitment right. 

I think Aldred is probably out injured so Anton will get a baptism of fire and i suspect that Ivanovic may be in for a fight with dehmie and parsons for the starting spot. I am slightly leaning towards Ivanovic but would not be surprised to see any of them start. A draw is a good result i think

I’ll take a draw for sure .Its going to be hard to score ,especially if our number one striker is out.
if Aldred is out as well ,then i cant see our defence standing up to the MC onslaught….New defence and new keeper.There will be mistakes.
I dont think we have beaten MC away for a while.So A big ask first up.
Betting agencies dont give us a hope.I guess losing our best attacker,best defender and the leagues best keeper has dampened enthusiasm.9/2 for a Brisbane win.

Snowflake in hell 

I'm just open to seeing what we can do.

I do not have a solid feeling about us from our pre-season where I have usually picked up something through pre-season about our form.

We have not shown too many weaknesses, but have also not shown concrete resilience in the backline.
We have been converting plenty of chances but still don't know if that can continue against top level competition.

Keen to start and going into tomorrow night with no expectations either way - just go you Roar!

So overall not a bad result, could have snatched a point at the death there but we set up to defensively in the first half and got punished for a 5 min lapse in concentration. My take on the new players is 

Freke - solid in goals, but needs more work as a sweeper and in his distribution 
Milnaric - once he got over his stage fright he looked solid, ok as a backup
Olsen - looked really good when he came on, solid defensively and contributed going forward
Steinmann - solid all game, looked better once we reverted to wingbacks instead of fullbacks 
Mileusnic - pretty ineffectual, but I’m not sure how much that was due to the system we started with
Dehmie - put himself about, but the gap between the NPL and A-League M was apparent
Ivanovic - looked really good, if he plays like that all season he will be gone overseas by the end of it.

Everyone else put in the performance you would expect, although Trewin looks like he has taken his game up a level.

Agree with all of this. Ivanovic was so good when he came on. 

I apologise to all other Roar fans. I take full responsibility for the seven minutes before half time. At the 38th minute I thought we had weathered the storm and were looking alright. As we know, it went down hill from there.
However, very pleased with the performance and the new signings. Looks like recruitment has improved the team which is a big plus. More hopefull of a successful season after Friday.

The first half performance remains an issue.When teams have pressed us we have struggled.Until we work out how to deal with that press we will be vulnerable.
A bit of a throwback to Fowler days.
The second half performance suggests we can be competitive again.But we are still short of being a real top two contender.
Time will tell if we are good enough to be top four again or whether we lack the quality .

I thought in the first half O'Shea's & Matti's passing was off slightly - wasn't hitting the mark. I thought Akbari was outstanding playing in that #10 position. Milnaric & Trewin played really well I thought and Bridell-South was better than Hingert when he came on. I think Parsons needs more than 10 minutes each game. Ivanovic is a great signing for us.

I am greatly encouraged by the positive side of our play.

We took the ball right through the middle several times, and showed the fast, close passing that all good teams have in their repertoire. We need to show it more often - but the signs were well and truly there that we can play creative, dangerous football - and put the ball in the net.

City were good enough to get a lucky goal. We were unlucky to get an offside goal. I was a bit confused how the assistant could have flagged the play offside when it looked like it came down to a very close call in the end. Without the lines we can't tell, but it may have been play on had they used the thick line to judge it like they do in some other leagues.

Dehmie has not improved his touch over the off season. That one ball where he had been played clear in behind the defensive line and his touch was a good 3 metres or so too heavy was a typical moment. The commentary team seemed locked in to the game playing out how they had expected - with City providing the onslaught and class, and Roar desperately struggling to stay in the game - but I think they were a bit skewed in that perception. I was seeing good football by the Roar mixed in with the desperation, and we certainly had very good moments throughout that first half when City were playing quite dominant football.

City were the better team, but we were not blown away and could have had a draw or even a win on another day with those two teams as they were.

I am still leaning towards a better performance overall from us this season compared to last season. Enjoyed the game - and can even now laugh off the Champions of last season having to stall for time at the end of the match.

Hope the core of the team is now settled and they can start to build off the familiarity that playing together generates.

And from my understanding of the penalty rules, where it is very very close (which it was) I thought the rules favour the attacking side. Sometimes I think these officials are trying to ruin our game!

with the offside i believe that as it was close it would have gone back to the onfield decision which was offside so unless he was clearly onside it was never going to be overturned even with the thick lines (note also the offside is done by a Hawkeye system not the broadcast cameras) as was the case for city's second goal. there was an offside in the lead up with what looked like the same sort of margin but as the on field decision was he was onside it was under the "too close to call so stay with the onfield decision.

on our performance it is clear that we still have the same game plan of trying to be very defensive and tight in the first half then be more expansive in the second. I think we were way too defensive though in the first half. with the amount of ball and field possession city had we were under the pump, and really deserved to be 2 goals down at half time. (even though under other circumstances we could have been 1-0 up, we did not deserve to be). how we played in the second half showed that we are capable of mixing it up with the premiers so we should have played the whole game like that. 

dehmie not quite up to a-league standard yet he needs games off the bench to improve his touch (DWH and parsons were the same when they first stepped up, it should come with time). ivanovic needs to start and parsons needs more time on the pitch. I have been completely unimpressed by Melusenic (though i understand that he was somewhat limited by the tactics on the weekend) for me he has one more game to put his hand up and show he deserves a starting spot, so far i have seen nothing (except maybe fitness) to show he is any better than parsons or dehmie.

I don’t think it was O’Shea and Matti being off, I think our formation was off in the first half, once our formation went back to normal they were much better. I think we set up too conservatively in the first half, our back 3 was very narrow, and Jack and Corey played more as full backs rather than wingbacks. My guess is we set up that way because, we traveled on the day of the game, to protect Milnaric a bit more on his debut, and because we were facing the reigning champions who have 3 national team attackers as their front 3. Once Warren had a chance to reset the team a bit at half time we looked a lot better, our back 3 was wider and we had wing backs again which opened up the midfield, this also allowed Ivanovic to change the game up front.

Agree on Parsons, but I think he was limited because of Jacks injury and the desire to keep at least 1 sub up our sleeve for later in the game, every other sub was spot on in my opinion.

For the offside goal, my concern is that the assistant flagged it despite it looking extremely close. Unless he was much more offside in the build up and the margin dwindled as the play rolled on, I would expect the benefit of the doubt to have given that goal - and especially bothersome if that same margin is not consistently applied within the one game.

I guess it is closer to the traditional live sports calls where you expect some decisions to be wrong (and bemoan it appropriately).

I sort of don't have a problem with playing a defensive half if we do it well. Having Aldred out (unsettled defensive group) and playing a creative and capable City was enough reason to be careful to start - but if we look back at last season would we be unhappy about playing a defensive half and an attacking half if we had put a goal or two away each game instead of missing so often? I think I would have been quite happy with that strategy if we were Premiers on the back of it.

Dehmie has game changing prospects - we can clearly see that - the time he gets now as a starter has a chance to improve his results considerably. Fingers crossed. From what some have posted on here over the years, it might be too late for him to develop decent touch this late in his development though...?

Parsons is a tough call. He needs time, also can turn a game, and I had half expected him to be the regular starter so he can develop into the senior game. But whose place does he take? His age might count against him - as a coach is more likely to overlook a run on attacking role knowing there is always next year if a player is not winning games immediately. We will probably end up losing more of our great, young, developing players if they don't get the games they need and deserve to hone their skills and get their chance.

Don't get me wrong though - I want Warren to pick a team and stick with it for awhile, whoever that is, rather than rotating players every game like we did last season.

The good bits in our game against City were very good bits!

At the moment Parsons takes Melusenics spot, and Ivanovic takes Dehmies. It will be tough this week against MV who look like a traditional poppa team, well organised in defence and quite workmanlike. They will absolutely pounce on any stray touches. 

it is never too late to develop your touch (yes you may have to break bad habits and it may never get an "elite" level but) it will always get better with more experience at a higher level. just look at DWH, when he first came through his touch was terrible but it has consistently improved. however at the moment dehmies touch is not good enough to be a starter at this level. better to bring him on against tired defenders where he wont be punished as much for it. 

Thomas Deng has become a free agent, I wonder if we have signed him and that is why we picked up Mlinaric on a short term loan. If we did he would be the long term replacement for Scott Neville, and hopefully not taking Kai’s spot in the team.

I’d love for you to be right but I think it’s wishful thinking. I can see him going somewhere like WU or MV.

Yeah probably a case of me doing 2+2 and getting 5, I have just had an assumption that we have a defender to come in January and that is why Mlinaric is in on the short term loan, and saw Deng and went oooohhhhh.

Do anyone think Deng is something to get excTied about. ??

Yes, he is one of the best Aussie CBs going around and we are thin on CBs.
Do I think he will join us?  No.

I’m feeling quietly confident for tomorrow. Definitely think we can jag a result.

I mean does anyone get excited about signing a centre back in the A-League? We will have a gap in January once Mlinaric’s loan is finished so we need to sign someone, and what do you know an Australian defender playing at a decent level becomes available and can join us conveniently when we need a defender. It probably is just 2+2=5 from me but the speculation passes the time between games, particularly with how awful most other teams are playing.

Feeling confident with the game tomorrow, victory struggled to get over United, and after last nights game I am happy to say United are awful at the moment. If we play our game, then they won’t be able to keep up with us and we should be able to score 2 or 3.

Little nervous as MV away at AAMI is away bad history. Really we where robbed of a result Las week and based on that we should be in a good chance for a win. However, we kind of a one half team at the moment and another loss puts a lot of pressure on us. 

No. He's failed to cut it in Japan. 

Is Aldred playing tomorrow?

I would be shocked if he was, he has a hamstring complaint from memory so it will take a couple more weeks from what Warren is hinting at. Hoping we get to see Lescano off the bench today

If its another FIFO game.I’ll take a draw now.

Victory looked like they had mostly sorted their attack out this season. I am expecting some very fast fluid attacks coming at us so going to be a tense game for us.

I still have nothing to base a prediction on for us - it all depends on keeping our defense solid and I have no idea if we can or not. Conceding no more than one I give us the win. Conceding two or more I think we lose.

I am not expecting a draw.

Yes it’s a fly in fly out game, no Tom isn’t available. Juan will probably come off the bench, Juan scored lots of goals in preseason so he’ll be a good one to watch. 

No Parsons?!