Be careful what you wish for.

Now, I wanted Newcastle to finish in the top 4, because I thought van Egmond had done a brilliant job turning the team around, getting them to play good football, and consequently bringing crowds back to matches. Essentially, Con Constantine would be mad not to keep him. As things turned out, Newcastle needed to beat Melbourne in the final round...

They smegging demolished us! And like the Queensland match last week, I'm furious at Melbourne.

Let's look at the first goal - Allsopp had the ball, was facing our goal, smothered in Newcastle players. Let's forget to ask where the hell our right midfield (did we have one?) and right-back were (smegging Lia - grrrr), that's another issue which I won't cover with any detail today...

Back to Danny - Leijer was facing him, but far too close to risk passing the ball too. Vargas was relatively free in the middle, with Bridge nearby, but at least he wasn't outnumbered. I think Allsopp did the right thing, to try an maintain possession - you're struggling on the right, let's switch play to the uncrowded left side, using Vargas as a pivot point. Bridge read the ball and applied pressure to Vargas. Vargas received the ball, and turned around to shield it without having touched or made any attempt to control the ball. So, when Vargas ended up completely mistiming whatever he planned to do, the ball had not changed its path whatsoever. Making it easier for Bridge to do something, and something he did do... Even a slight touch would have altered the path, thrown Bridge's run off, even only slightly, but perhaps enough for Roddy to get back in to it, or for Theoklitos to smother the ball. Grrrr grrrr stomp stomp.

The second goal... trying to remember... (do I want to remember?) No, I don't want to - this was the Lia moment of how he cannot be good example so he set out to be a horrible warning. Again, credit to Bridge for following the play, and not assuming Lia won't control the ball. In fact, you'd assume he wouldn't control it really as Lia is truly awful...

The third goal - Have I told you how I dislike Theoklitos? If you're going to come out from under your goal, you come out and attack the ball (and player), you don't reach 16 yards and decide to just stand there and watch Coveny. I don't care if you thought that you were going to be ineffective. Come out, put pressure on the player - perhaps by forcing him to rush the shot he'll miss! But no! Theo's chicken...

The fourth goal - I'm over it now. Do I have to go through the pain, because this was a shambles. Complete and utter rubbish. I think Theo was left standing in the middle of nowhere again here, but with two opponents breaking through what can you do? Well, you may as well pressure the one with the ball - as I said before, he may just stuff up!

It is unfair to solely blame the defence for what happened. I'm a believer in defending from the front, and a reason why I'm not an Archie Thompson fan is because too often he will lose the ball and not try to fight for it back. But the main problem we have is a lack of width. I had a Caceres/Storey/wingers rant last week. And how did Newcastle exploit us? They used the width. Fred, Muscat and Brebs play as central midfielders, and were largely absent during the game - effectively giving us no mid-field.

On the left we had Alessandro, backed up by Byrnes. I think Byrne's needs a confidence boost, he is capable of playing decent football, just not lately. Alessandro's been figured out by other teams and is no longer effective going forward, and was never effective coming back. On the right we had Lia. I think most of Newcastle's goals came from the right, via Lia... who was effectively unprotected by the midfield...

Anyway, I saw this match at a pub (the Royal Derby) with some lovely Victory supporters, instead of the comfort of my own home. And it was probably a little more difficult for me to follow the match as I was getting far more fired up than usual when it comes to away matches. This, combined with Queensland's loss has set up a pretty poor weekend for me - can it get any worse? Yeah... if Central Coast win tomorrow, Newcastle come second.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Going for Adelaide, two weeks in a row? Someone medicate me!

P.S. Very disappointed Steven Old didn't even feature as a benchwarmer.

Who's the "best looking bloke in the A-League, in Australia, in the world, whatever"?

From the most recent Queensland Roar podcast:

Stu: I’ve got a sneaky one here, you’ve done your last, I’ll do my last if you don’t mind. Spas Dilevski. Now, if he’s chocolate he’d eat himself, this boy, I’ll tell ya. So what he wanted for Christmas was some kind of nomination or award for the best looking bloke in the A-League, in Australia, in the world, whatever, he didn’t mind. As long as it was some kind of nomination for being good looking. I’ll tell ya, he couldn’t even win the best looking bloke his house, and he only lives with Massimo. Not saying Mass is an ugly–

Josh: Not having a crack at Mass in anyway.

Stu: No shape or form. It’s a two horse race…

Josh: And got pipped on the line!

Stu: He did!

Josh: Actually, not even pipped I think it was four lengths going away. I don’t think he’d want to hear that at all. He does rate himself.

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And thus begins the search for the best looking A-League participant. I need to whittle nominations down to a manageable number, I've decided for 8 - one player from each team and have made a thread in each forum.

Perhaps I shouldn't have pointed out that I was from Melbourne, Adelaide think I'm spamming them. Ah well. If they don't want to participate their rep will be Greg Owens. They have been warned. They now seem to be ok with it, in fact things are now going pretty well. Unlike...

Sydney, who don't look to be taking it up at all. Okay, maybe a little... a Sydney fan posted Bolton on the Melbourne forum... turns out he's banned from the Sydney forum!

I can't tell what Perth are doing... they seem to be taking the piss out of it, but at least they're funnier than Sydney.

This is looking like a shambles...

Melbourne are going for it a bit, and just like the other forums, they're listing players from all teams.

Queensland's been pretty good too (sob, sob), along with the Mariners - where someone's put my link up anyway. Cheers to those two forums for taking it with a sense of humour. Jeccy, no-one's nominated Matty McKay yet!

Newcastle were the last forum added, as there were some probs getting onto the site in the first place last night. Like Queensland and the Mariners, this forum has also taken to this silly quest of mine like a duck to water.

And finally, New Zealand. There have been three replies so far, which is proportional to the other forums when you consider their crowds at home games. :P Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm trying to get guys to respond to this, as surely you can assess whether a guy is good-looking or not, like girls can pick out and accept that other girls can be pretty. So, during the week when I get a rough idea of who's popular in each club I'll try to set up an anonymous poll for each forum. When I get my final 8, I'll then make each forum choose by removing the 'home' player. Hopefully this will take out any bias.

Oh, and Spase Dilevski might get nominated in the final lot by default. So it might be a final 9. I haven't decided yet. I wouldn't how I'd go to go about removing 2 options from the Queensland forum... Who will be "best looking bloke in the A-League, in Australia, in the world, whatever"? Dunno, but I'm abbreviating it to the BLBA award (Best Looking Bloke in the A-League - trying to stay true to McLaren's 'terminology.')

For Watt

Dear Watt,

This is what I wrote for Wayne, with some edits due to typographical errors/ambiguities!

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I think our wings are an issue for us. Caceres and Storey (left and right) are ’soft’ players. They don’t go in hard.

And we have a defensive problem. Byrnes had a shocker against Perth, but is usually reliable. Leijer was suspended for the last two, and I will be happy to have him back. Vargas has done extremely well to slot into the back, and I like his ball distribution - often opting to play the ball out from defence rather than whack it up the park. New signing Kovacic is better off on the bench or not even on the squad list. He is extremely slow. Not something you’d want in a defender (it’s a reason why I don’t play there regardless of how much I like defensive positions). Heck, he had fresh legs and was still being out-run.

Pantelidis is been such a great plug throughout the season, and he plays hard - which I like. Lia was extremely disappointing last season and things haven’t changed. Alessandro didn’t play, but I doubt he would’ve helped us. Ferrante hasn’t been playing, but last season he showed that he was decent. Hopefully some game time will fix him up.

Muscat woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and it was a massive difference compared to the fire of Brebner against Perth, who was suspended for the week. Our other new signing, Broxham, has been a breath of fresh air. He make not be technically great, but with his can-do/never-give-up attitude and youth, it means that he can learn. Also, being short, he is great midfield material due to his low centre of gravity.

Sarkies finally showed his dead ball specialty against Perth, but you* missed his wonder corner against Queensland. It didn’t even get off the ground. And he’s also soft. While Sarkies is young, and can still learn, his attitude needs to change. He needs to be tougher, and once that happens I look forward to his development as a player.

I don’t like Archie - he doesn’t work hard, and often won’t even try to win the ball when he loses it up front. Danny didn’t play against Perth, but I can’t think that’s an excuse to use for his lucklusture performance against Queensland. And Fred was largely absent during the match.

I can see what Merrick’s doing - but I’d prefer for him to maybe change one player in the starting line-up and then put others in for the remaining 25, 20 or even 15 minutes of the match. Let each one integrate before forcing another change. But as I said, one week off from a game isn’t really an excuse. Especially since Murdocca seemed right as rain when he hasn’t played for a number of months.
--------------------------------

You - this was directly to Wayne as he said he could only follow the match via radio and didn't actually see any of it.

The who needs coffee player of the week

Due to my knack of falling asleep whenever I get bored, I tend to be a bit of a caffeine addict. But, there are times when you don't need a cup of coffee to wake you up. Sometimes a cute footballer does the trick.

So, while I had already had a cup of coffee, it came to my attention that Newcastle's Steven Old is a bit of a cutie. Photos can be found at Getty Images. Photos won't link up properly... :(

Note: I'm going to try my hardest to put a new player in the swoon of the week. Usually the player needs to be halfway decent for me to realise he's there and consequently take a closer look. In this case, I blame a closely contested match, as I spotted Old before he had touched a ball - as he came off the bench. I'd seen him before, but I'm making an effort here to put a new swooning player each week.

The penalty against Newcastle

So I forgot to talk about the penalty in my previous post...

First, when it's a ball-to-hand incident, I am quite against awarding a penalty to the other team. Secondly, I thought Covic's footwork facing the penalty left much to be desired. To be honest, I considered that Colosimo would shoot to the left (i.e. 'keeper to dive to right) based on the approach he had to the ball (no angle) and that he's right footed. I don't like 'keepers to guess, but it can be read somewhat, roll the dice, eh? Just never guess during training.

Now back to Covic. Yes, he dived in the right direction, but he took a long time getting there. Why? Because his first move was a two-footed jump forward (to narrow the angle), followed by a push from the left foot to get to the right side of goal. Do it yourself, and you'll find it's two distinct movements. Considering it was likely that Colosimo would shoot to the right side of the goal ('keeper's p.o.v.), I would've taken one step forward with my left and then push off from that movement. Although it's still two moves, it can be far more fluid and consequently faster.

I suppose if Covic didn't read the kick or didn't want to gamble, then taking that two footed jump forward allowed him to reduce the angle and still gave him an option to go either left or right. However, since I did say out loud to my family to dive right, I'm not particularly happy with how Covic handled it. Heck, I could've been lucky to have 'guessed' which way Colosimo was going to shoot, but I doubt it. :-P Modest, aren't I? :-P :-P

Who's not biting their nails?

I had made some predictions for matches in earlier posts (here and here) as I had wanted certain teams in the top four and others out. Naturally, this has all come unstuck, partly because not all matches went my way and partly because I couldn't think of a single Sydney player I liked whereas I was very happy that Beltrame was back in goal. I also began the Adelaide vs. Sydney match going for Burns, but more on that later.

Round 20 began poorly for me, with the Kiwis unable to get 3 points and earning themselves the wooden spoon. Such a shame when considering their form of late... The Central Coast are now out, thanks to the kind of player every 'keeper wishes they had in their team - Richard Johnson. He also started the headwear trend for the round. Take away the on the line clearance and he still had a great game.

Edit at 10:40pm: Oh, and why did the CC keep shoulder charging Paston in situations where they had no chance to get the ball? It was ridiculous! And the fact that it was multiple players suggests that it was McKinna's doing...

I'll gloss over Friday night - great 'keeping display from Velaphi. Melbourne played so poorly I can't really commend Queensland, even if they had played well. Replay is on tomorrow, but I fear I'd end up in a foul mood again. Mori and Pantaledis carried on the headwear trend for the round (photo linked from mvfc.com), but took it too far such that no other player was game enough to try and up the ante on Panta, who had a nose that was still bleeding.

By comparison, I don't look that bad here now do I?
Except that my hair's far too short and a mess!

Anyway, back to the football... and the match that had me asleep for the first 22 minutes. Although I had wanted Adelaide out rather than Sydney, when the day came I decided that there was no player in the Sydney line up that I would cheer on as much as I cheer on Daniel Beltrame and Nathan Burns. Talented kid that Burns... Shame that he straightened his trailing leg during the match after he was tackled. Luckily Beltrame playing, making some great saves and reminding me of how in awe I am/was of Nigel Martyn. How can such a big guy get around so much? And when he lands - ouch! Hehe... I don't think Beltrame's as big as Martyn, and probably not as brilliant, but pretty damn good otherwise.

Regardless of how I was watching this match with a red eye, I was very disappointed in the number of opportunities Matthew Breeze gave Milligan. First Breeze pulls out a yellow for the mad Irishman, McFlynn. Next, Milligan fouls and only receives a talking to. An evil tackle here, and complete pulling of the man down there, and finally on his fifth offence after the warning Milligan receives his yellow. Should've easily been his second.

And if I bring up the officials, why not the linesman on the far side during the Perth/Newcastle encounter. Facing the sun, not wearing a cap, and paying too much attention to one thing to determine if a player is off-side or not. It's clear that most of our A-League assistants pay so much attention to just the ball that they miss everything else, including malicious tackles slightly off the ball and of course the off-sides. I feel sorry for Griffiths and Newcastle, especially as I wanted Newcastle to get a top four placing so that van Egmond would become the Newcastle coach.

Addition 10.25pm: I forgot to discuss the penalty. As it will be goalkeeper oriented again, I've made it a seperate post that is linked here.

Which brings me to a bit of a conundrum, and unfortunately Newcastle's going to lose out. Although we don't need the points, Melbourne must win this Friday to get a good run into the finals. As a result Sydney would be safe and Newcastle out. Even if Newcastle lose, I'd like Queensland to get a win at home, partly because they're playing at home and partly because I would also like them to get some momentum heading into the finals.

And on a final note, today I nick-named one of the lenses we use at work the Dilevski lens. No, I'm not obsessed, it just fits. It's an A-League thing, I even remember patients' names significantly better when I'm switching between computer systems if they remind me of players.

Reddy found guilty...

Not much to say, I've covered the incident already and concluded that I didn't think anything had really happened. Hopefully there'll be some news tomorrow about it. At the moment, all there is is this press release, and a rather strange ABC sport report, where the injured Willis is mentioned as the replacement... Elsewhere, the Age reports the signing of Tambo Velalphi, and the Courier Mail notes it's a 'one-week-suspension-cover.'

Does this mean you can cover suspended players to get a full roster? Or is it just for 'keepers? I, like others on the Qld forum, am a little confused.