Trying to think back in regards to the worst starts to a season for Roar, surely this season is up there. 

Pretty sure it's our worst.

Man to have a consistent striking option. It's not for the lack of chances. Lack of investment is really just depressing now. Added that someone like Aldred who probably one of our most expensive players doesn't look close to playing is another big hit

Worst bit is that Aldred would make little difference.  Mileusnic would be lucky to start at other clubs yet he is our only attacker. 
Moon 's body language is getting worse...

Reckon the season has already been written off by the club, otherwise we would have tried to bring in reinforcements like other clubs are doing. I imagine we can expect a clean out and potentially a new coach next season. 

What about now?

He wouldn’t be lucky at all actually. 

He walk into our starting XI for sure and would do very well. He’s just not a striker and he is also a confidence player. When you take that into account, it’s no wonder why he isn’t performing anywhere near his best.

Never liked Mileusnic when he played for us- too much hit or miss. Lots of pace, but often no end product.

Confidence player is certainly not what roar need.  He had two one-on-ones with the keeper without looking like scoring.  For a pacey forward,  I found that surprising.  

He wouldn't make the Adelaide team with Halloran and Goodwin. Now he would start.  

Shame that dehmie is injured as this would have been an opportunity to play a young forward as a starter. 

Will moon be the scapegoat at end of season?

Only saw the second half and first half ‘highlights’. Very uninspiring. When you’re a goal down and the coach brings on a defender for a striker and moves a guy who has never scored a goal up front, you know it’s gonna be a long, hard season.

O'Shea had fantastic periods again, but there were long periods in the game when we were not in the game at all - chasing shadows and applying some sort of semi-press that flickered between pressure, sending a single man up, and sitting back. Plenty of times we controlled the ball and created well to see the promise - equally plenty of times when we seemed aimless with or without the ball.

An unlucky deflected handball by Longbottom, a stupid foot in from behind for a second pen, and one good goal against us. Against a plethora of chances for us to score (at least in the first half).

But despite that, the defence was still holding pretty well.

Steinmann sticking his foot out in the box later in the game was criminal and reminded me of Kristensen when his legs were getting weak. Too many games in a short period for older legs? O'Shea lost a bit too as the game went on which did not surprise me because he really burned hot in the first half.

Mileusnic was really the talking point of the game for me. His finishing (being based on confidence I agree) was woeful, but for the most part the chances were actually created by him with speed and skill. We could wonder how any real striker would have buried those chances - but we are selling out Mileusnic somewhat when we say that because another forward may not have been able to be in the positions that he was to get the shot on. Sums him up for me - so dangerous when he uses what he has and is in a position to do so - but wasteful and lacking composure when he is in the position to make it count.

The chance when the keeper came out and went to ground would have been the perfect time to use his speed and simply dribble past then shoot at the open goal but he went for the lift over the keeper to the back post. All in a split second but not beyond his skill level at all if he trusted in his pace and touch.

I am happy with Mileusnic's progression over this season and I hope he will keep getting chances so he can work on his composure.

Punished by the curse of not taking the chances when we had them, and another bad result - but not a totally bad game by any means.

Our young players are certainly having a go and showing some quality.

always like seeing your optimistic pov RIMB.

I said it after the perth game, our gegenpress is not organised enough, not working as a team and not pressing at the right time/too slow to put pressure on, and a team like adl would punish us if we pressed like that. exactly what happened in this game. it was unfortunate that we lost all our attacking options the day before the game but even with them available, Melusenic is our most dangerous player and that is absolutely not good enough because he murders chances. Melusenic fits in well with a team that has a clinical striker because there is no pressure on him to take his chances but with an non existent strike partner it is up to him to finish his chances which he cant do. when he and kitto were playing at adl i would always feel comfortable, just give let them have the ball, dont put  tight pressure on them because they will just run themselves into a corner and take a bad option and gift you possession. 

I have really liked Zabala hopefully that spells the end of brindle south because Zabala is much, much better than him. Hingert should also be worried about his spot. 

Funny comment........I liked Mileusnic when he played for Adelaide...can’t beat that pace.
Happy to have him in Brisbane, though hasn’t showed a lot yet...but last 2 games I think we can see possibilities.

Well done lads - made it a closer two thirds of a game than we should have with our woeful accuracy on goal, but how good is it when we play open football and have players who get themselves into position to have one of those lousy shots!

Players stood up all over the park, and the drive and commitment was visible all game.

Mileusnic again making a difference, and I don't count the crossbar as a wasted shot - as long as he keeps improving and taking some chances I am happy to forgive his wastefulness. Trewin rose to the occasion again - I like him and Longbottom at the back. I was worried when Longbottom went down injured early though.

Steinmann was playing on half a leg by the looks of him in the second half. Really struggled to cover ground. Hope that isn't an injury.

And I laugh at people who don't agree that O'Shea is quality - he is far more than a big fish in a little pond.

One interesting moment in the game was someone putting a through ball for Akbari between the Wanderers CB pair then the dirty look Akbari got for waiting on his heels until the ball was through before moving. Sums up the specific mentality that strikers possess to be running into the gap on the off chance that a pass will come (and should come) rather than simply reacting to the through ball.

I don't care that Wanderers are not firing and seem to lack any drive at the moment - we earned that win with good play.

Agree on most points, but the most pleasing thing about this game Roar were first to the ball and controlled. Plenty of chances too, could have been 6 - 0.

I've watched so many poor aleague games this year, but can any Roar supporter say, with conviction, you played well when the WSW were so bad. It's obvious why they were beaten by an NPL team. Take the points and crow, but when you lose to a half decent team don't be inconsistent with the comments of your performance.

If we were able to put our first choice team out regularly and played like then sure that game doesn’t prove much, but we haven’t had our first team on the pitch once all season so when our cobbled together side that has 4 defenders and 6 central midfielders dominate a side that most people at the start of the season thought would be very good and based off the name recognition index should pummel the team we put out, then yes it is something to be positive about. 

I just did - maybe you need to take time to read posts properly.

Comical. One good result on the scoreboard and you need to bury the team quickly.

Crow?

"I don't care that Wanderers are not firing and seem to lack any drive at the moment - we earned that win with good play."

Acknowledges that Wanderers were crap whilst also recognising the good in our own play.

And if you actually read back through all my comments this season where do you see any glimmer of inconsistency?

Positive recognition is not crowing - but constant negativity on the Roar's performances over time shows a bitterness that normally does not normally warrant a reply. Consider this one a gift on a lazy Sunday.

A better performance but still a lot to be worried about. 40% possession will be a worry when we play against teams that know how to open us up (though that possession stat is lower because of the effectiveness of our counter press against WSW). 80% pass completion is too low to be competitive against a well organised defence particularly when we have so little possession. We were wasteful when our opportunities came as well which is not good when we face stiffer oppositions. 

happy for melusenic to find the net hopefully it gives him confidence as he is so clearly a confidence player. and Akbari finally gets off the mark in the a-league. on the bright side oshae look to have found is form which will help as he is our only creative spark, when he is not firing we don't attack. 3rd clean sheet which is a surprise. Probably points to the fact that freke is a young keeper, if he concedes he will likely concede a second, makes it all the more important to get Aldred back to be more of a leader on the field and keep the team concentrating if we concede. 

Well said RIMB.
i like your your analysis at times, don’t  always agree with everything but hey that’s football as they say and the discussion and analysis is what makes it interesting.
i think you have optimism where sometimes it’s hard to find but keep it up, your posts are valuable on this site. 

game day. I really hate that the ins and outs are no longer published. I have no idea what squad we will be taking and have no idea who we will be facing. I haven't even seen Newcastle play since the beginning of December so I couldn't even tell you one of their danger players. At least with the ins and outs i could say Oh yes i recognise that player he will be dangerous we will need to keep him quiet. The APL really should go back to publishing the squads/ins and outs for the round simply so fans have an easy reference for when games are being played over the weekend.

hopefully we keep building on our improved performances but Papas is a great manager. One of his great strengths as a manager is identifying weaknesses and exploiting them. for us that is our very disorganised press and lack of possession. we need to keep more possession, and keep creating (and more importantly taking) chances, our defence is reasonably strong but when we dont take our chances up front the pressure builds on the back.

another painful game to watch of absolutely terrible finishing. we dont take our chances up front and get punished for it at the other end, we score typically 1 goal less than our Xg and concede 1 goal more than our xGa. when we dont take our chances the pressure builds on our defence and we ship goals.

How many pens has oshae missed, surely he is off them now. melusenic taking 100 chances and not putting any on target (though he is not the only one) 15 shots for 2 on target as a team is rubbish, neither of which were even a test for Duncan (who behind freke is the biggest liability of a keeper in the league). Absolutely not good enough. the second goal simply should not have happened. we had 3 chances to clear the ball and in the end all hore could do was roll it to the opposition inside our defensive 3rd.

melusenic needs to play on the right side of midfield, when he gets the ball on the left everyone knows he is just going to bring it back on his right and when he does he loses his chance at scoring because when he thinks about what he is going to do he screws it up defenders dont even need to press him when he is on the left just jog back towards goal and wait for him to fuck it up. Most of the second half he ended up way over on the right anyway which screws our shape defensively when we inevitably lose the ball. Parsons on the left, hore and akbari to the bench lescano up front. freke to the bench. 

I have been a supporter of hingert pretty much since Franjic kept going down injured but i think his time as a starter is up. Olsen and Zabala both offer more. 

Its hard to get too upset about Roar these days.Its like complaining about the Socceroos over the years.
There are very few quality players and that is the difference between scoring more chances and conceding less goals.
We are down the bottom for possession and goals scored and up the top for goals conceded after nine games.So we are one of the weaker teams.
When you look at the other teams struggling,we really would be lucky to avoid the wooden spoon.
Perth,Wellington and WSW all have massive reasons for struggling and they dont rest on the players alone.

Ha, ha, ha!!! Don't worry the Wanderers probably think they're world beaters, as well, beating a decimated Glory team.

So true.
WSW,BR& WP are the only teams with a clear negative  F/A tally so unless there is some dramatic turnaround with players or coaching for these teams.I’m pretty sure they will be fighting to avoid the spoon.

Yeah - another game where what we lacked most was a clinical finisher.

Plenty of opportunities to win that game; can't question most of the squad as a group of players who are working well together and creating (not being given) genuine chances consistently.

I agree that Hingert had a horror game - he got roasted or made bad decisions several times. He can do better than that even with his old legs. I thought Zabala was out with covid so he wasn't an option if that is the case.

Even losing, I love the way we can bring the ball up the wings or through the middle when there is close attention and pressure. It is not for want of chances that we are down the bottom. Some really nice periods of play against the Jets.

Our new striker seems another on paper who scores occasionally rather than often. We need something to change up front with Ivanovic out as to me he was one consistent attacker we had - let's hope Ryo Wada has a clinical eye connected to a skilful boot.

Looking forward to the chance to play better next game. This season has been such an inconsistent performance by us - some really great stuff, some really poor stuff, and plenty in between. Just find us or coach us a finisher please.

Ryo Wada....are we supposed to be excited.

if he’s as good as Danzaki, well maybe,

if he’s as ordinary as Kudo, well.....

remains to be seen......but I’m not excited. 

Not excited, but happy to have another FW if it means we stop having to put Akbari in the forward line. He works so much better for us in midfield.
You'd think Wada must have showed something to be signed by a J1 side, but seems weird given his lack of output in the lower J leagues.

I am not too bothered by our slow start against Perth - plenty of games have seen one side really pushing and controlling for the first half hour then the game settles into a rhythm.

The penalty was a soul crusher. Nyongabire's (?) speed and elusiveness really caused us grief when we were trying to get control. Our backline often found that he was nipping at their heels when they thought they had time and the result was a lot of dodgy panic plays. In attack he was equally dangerous as the penalty showed - pure speed creates its own chances and he has quite good ball control to back it in close.

O'Shea playing deep stops our attacks.
Akbari had quite a few awful touches that gave Perth the chance to pile on more pressure, but we could handle that at the back relatively well.

Olsen's inaccurate shooting offset his ability to create the opportunities - absolute shame that. His play deserved better finishing from himself and hopefully he has that in his repertoire. Opportunistic winger might be his place more than outright striker - which is how I have also categorised our main strike weapon Mileusnic at times so what do I know.

We missed Mileusnic, and while it was great to have Ivanovic back he needs Mileusnic or someone else to draw off some pressure to give him better opportunities to be dangerous. We know Ivanovic has more to offer so it was a good first game back for him.

Trewin had a horror game for his standards - some bad touches, bad passes and bad decisions that we do not normally see from him. Not entirely due to Perth's press either.
The wind may have had an effect on our style of play but it did not seem to bother Perth's passing game so not that likely.

So much better in us than that game showed - but doesn't count if we can't bring it and deliver on it.

Lescano and Dehmie are not proving to be the end products we need. Lescano just does not seem to be where the chances are, running is not his thing, and he is invisible in so many games. Whatever it is that he brings is not suited to our playing style. At a glance I would say he is better suited to some sort of midfield role but his lack of pace and seeming lack of effort chasing rules that out. Dehmie's touch is atrocious. That basically sums up his main weakness and makes any of his good work irrelevant.

Had we scored a couple I would have called us the better team in a very close swinging game - but Perth's finishing, clinical passing and calm decision making made them the deserved winners and better team on the day, That stat halfway through the first half showing 1 shot to 7 in Roar's favour but only 14% accuracy for us tells the story for our team yet again. Without someone capable of finishing calmly we are where we deserve at the bottom of the table.

It just comes down to the quality of players and Brisbane just lacks that quality to score the goals and defend at key moments.
Perth weren't that good.But their quality made the difference.
Its harsh to say Brisbane is an NPL team with a few quality players.But the truth is hard to escape.
We are bottom of the table.