Introducing the new Melbourne team...

... Telstra Dome FC. Or SC. I'm sure they'd much prefer to be called a sokkah club than football club.

In case you live under a rock or refuse to watch free to air commercial news, the last Victory home game was marred by the antics of some Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory fans. I'm not really aware of all the details, so that's as far as I'll go.

As a result, Telstra Dome have implemented new plans to segregate the supporters of different clubs. Melbourne Victory appear to be happy to adjust to the demands of the 'landlord', and are more than happy to adjust to the Telstra Dome demands.

"Melbourne Victory has supported plans introduced by Telstra Dome to provide a new seating plan for visiting supporters for future matches to ensure that any potential confrontation between fans can be avoided."

So, who's running the club? The Melbourne Victory board or Telstra Dome? Who would have thought that the issues currently faced by renters in the housing area would have an parallel of sorts in the A-League...

A complete lack of vision.

I have consistently enjoyed watching Queensland Roar play, so much that I really have adopted them as my second team - after Melbourne of course! Not that I have much of a choice.

As a football fan who lives in Victoria, my only "option" is to go for the Victory. But the (approximately) fortnightly foray to Telstra Dome has become a chore. We are a bore to watch. So it's a disappointment to read that Merrick thinks otherwise.

"I think it's amazing to produce fantastic crowds without getting any wins, so obviously we are doing something right and they enjoy the type of football we are playing."

Merrick - you have got to be kidding me. I can't think of anyone that enjoys watching the Victory play. In fact, I can only think of a few people who actually attend MV matches for the football. South End is too pissed to notice* that there's even a match going on at times. North End are chanting, not-chanting, sitting, standing or whatever they are up to, and I honestly think that only a few of the Gold members really follow the sport outside of what's served to them via the television.

If Merrick and the Victory board think that their figures are due to the football offered by the club, then they seriously need to reconsider what they want to be - a business or a sports club.

Theoretically, it should be both. But if the club is happy with the current gate and happy with the takings from each home match, then it makes sense for them not to sack Merrick, paying whatever's due and hiring a new coach.

A second Melbourne club would offer football fans a choice. It would give supporters, who are currently not in a happy relationship with both Telstra Dome and its tenant Melbourne Victory, a choice. No wonder Miles is adamant that it is not sustainable for Melbourne to have two clubs. Victory wouldn't be sustainable! Its business model seems to depend on it being the only club!

Imagine if there was a second club with a boards who had the balls to clear out the team - coaches AND players. Imagine if they actually took the supporters seriously. And wouldn't Victory hate it if this second team - perhaps the people's team - performed on the park. I would love it - I'd go to the football and actually watch some football. Not what Melbourne Victory are putting out each day.

If Merrick (and I assume the board too) really believes that we like what we see, and that this is why we have such numbers at each home match, well I'd say that he is incredibly ignorant, short sighted and completely out of touch.

*Edit (18/11/07, 6.15pm): It has come to my attention that some members of South End get pissed so they do not become frustrated with what's happening on the field. I suppose ignorance truly is bliss!

Melbourne vs. Sydney

Sorry to those who have been waiting for an update - and with my assignments submitted and exams done for the year I should be writing a little more regularly!

Last night we had "the big one" - Melbourne vs. Sydney. Although I had tipped Melbourne to win (because I always do) I was not confident going into the match. We were undermanned and Sydney were on a bit of a roll. On the day I had deluded myself into thinking we were going to smash Sydney, but once I arrived at the ground and was watching the players warm up my mood changed to worry again.

I think that either team could have won last night's match Melbourne should have won if we consider how they more or less dominated the game, and Sydney had a brilliant 10-15 minute period in the second half when they were bombarding the goal!

Despite the dominance, Melbourne really did finish with nothing to show for it. Thompson had a number of chances and most annoyingly he would cut the ball in to shoot with his left, but he doesn't really have much of a left foot! It's particularly frustrating to watch when the whole team seems to play for Thompson too.

With the injury to Corica, Sydney suddenly looked less threatening. Milligan was pushed a little further up the field (where I think he plays best, making use of his decent passing) and so Allsopp was on him for the rest of the match. It put both of them out of the game, which was perhaps a good thing since Danny hasn't been 100% this season.

Muscat was helping out the defence for the day, so Melbourne had to rely on Brebner and Broxham to work for the ball. I think that if Allsopp had not have kept Milligan quiet, Sydney may have had more opportunities. In the end, Thompson was left to work on his own - something that I really don't think he can do! It's a waste of effort on the team's behalf to get the ball up to him because he's not great at holding on to it or getting the goal! Merrick never plans on taking him off either, look at the bench! Last night we had the mandatory goalkeeper (Langerak), on defender (Berger) and two midfielders (Caceres and Patafta).

It was great to see Muscat in defence. Much like I love to watch Moore play, Muscat is so cool under pressure. I don't think I ever saw Muscat aimlessly boot the ball out of defence. There were a few classy points too, where he'd take on a player. New boy Pace has been great for Melbourne, and last night was awesome with Bridges not being able to do a thing!

Juninho made a huge difference to Sydney when he came on, it was scary to see from the Melbourne perspective. And while Caceres finally got more than 10 minutes, if only he'd use his right occasionally! He's done it before!

Still sore from Friday.

Having given myself a couple of days to cools off, turns out that I'm still quite annoyed about Melbourne's performance on Friday night. Last time we lost I was quite cheery about it as Adelaide had put in a wonderful performance playing some quality football that was exciting to watch. They had beaten us, but on Friday day we lost.

Conceding the early goal wasn't too disheartening - after all, Newcastle was the team that we had managed to claw from 2-0 down to get a draw. Away. But much like last season, Melbourne are a different team at Telstra Dome.

In the preseason match against Newcastle in Geelong, Danny Allsopp was completely nullified by Adam Griffiths. On Friday night the same thing happened right from kick-off. So when attacking, Allsopp was marked by A. Griffiths, and you would have expected the roles to reverse if A. Griffiths was to go up for a corner. Instead it was a free kick, and Allsopp did not drop back. A free header and the goal was scored. Whether to blame Merrick or Danny, I don't know. I'm inclined to think that it was the former, but I suppose we'll never know the truth. The postitive thing was that after the goal Danny would drop down with A. Griffiths.

Adam D'Puzzo was having a great game, making the midfield his own domain. Well time tackleds and excellent distribution meant that Melbourne found working through the middle difficult. We had no width and continued to try to play through the middle. Even Keenan (who is as wide as we get with Caceres still on the bench for far too long) frustrates - he'll make a run down the wing only to stop the ball when he is confronted by a player and knock it into the middle. To think that this is the same player who took the opposition on in that first match of the season against Wellington, tearing an entire wing apart and leading to Allsopp scoring.

Although playing through the middle was not working, much like the rest of the season, we persisted. We need to learn how to adapt to different match situations by changing our style of play. Unless Merrick is able to change how he wants the team to play he'll have to go. And so far, it doesn't like like he has that ability.

Merrick was lucky to have found Fred last season. Fit, quick (physically and mentally), creative and a very hard worker; Fred gave Melbourne's 2006/07 team an air of unpredictability that made us exciting to watch and difficult to play against. Fred provided an excellent link between the midfield and the attackers. It's a link that is no longer there and on Friday left Allsopp ended up completely isolated up front. Thompson has been playing a little deeper to try and feed Danny - after all, Danny has the strength to hold his own, something that Archie doesn't have. But Archie lacks the pace Fred had and also lacks the willingness to chase every stupid ball down. So I think Fred's abilities masked Merrick's short-comings.

The events that left me distraught and angry involved referee Matthew Breeze. A few minutes prior to the incident, Pantelidis made an excellent diagonal run from his left back spot that had the effect of putting Newcastle in an uneasy situation. Nothing became of it, but that run gave us a glimmer of hope (last week he had us in hysterics with a run down the right wing and we all witnessed the slowest stepover ever, "a baby giraffe on ice skates" is how it was described by someone). So when Panta was in possession of the ball again there was an anticipation that soumething could happen.

Joel Griffiths chased Panta down and was shirting for a good 5-10 paces until Panta had enough and gave Griffiths an elbow (I can imagine many other players would have loved to have given Griffiths this elbow). Panta received the red card he deserved for his actions, and Melbourne was awarded the free kick we deserved due to Griffiths' fouling. Breeze did everything right after the elbow except give Griffiths a yellow. But Breeze should not have let the situation occur. The fould should have been called during those first few paces of persistent shirting, and not have been allowed to continue and escalate to the point where Panta pulled out the elbow. Dreadful piece of referreeing. Unfortunately, the A-League looks to be in a situation where we have no other refs...

To make things worse, when Griffiths did get a yellow a few minutes later, in my head he then should have been off. So it's not an easy pill to swallow when he ends up scoring. That goal was the result of a dreadful piece of Melbourne defending. Griffiths had broken through the defence line through his right moments earlier, no-one could catch him and he had a shot, which was saved by Theoklitos. My memory's a bit hazy at this point (and I haven't seen any footage of the match), but a poor throw from Theo or woeful ball control from Vargas (?) resulted in Griffiths with the ball again, off onto the right and in exactly the same play as before he scores. We obviously couldn't immediately learn from our mistake. It doesn't help that we don't have any pace in the defence either, and we are clearly missing the pace that Leijer had.

I could go on for a while with Caceres only being given a run late, Ryall not starting, Hernandez significantly improving but with holes in his game that are not being covered by teammates, but most of all I have to say that Kemp is absolute rubbish.

Our first proper returning Socceroo

Just watched Elrich score a gorgeous goal for the Phoenix and dad was a bit confused. Turned out he wasn't aware that Ahmad Elrich had returned, nor was he aware that John Aloisi had been signed for the Mariners.

I'm personally a bit tired of heaps of ex-Socceroos returning to our shores for the domestic league and all being labelled "returning Socceroos" as if it's a measure of their class and ability. There's a contrast between the Socceroos of the past and the current crop. Even though we're still a physical team, I would say the the current crop are far better players of the ball than the past ones. When they come to the A-League to play out their careers, they continue to play in their appropriate style.

Tiatto, Laybutt, Muscat are all from the earlier style, and generally don't bring anything 'nice' to the league. While I have included Muscat in that batch, I do treat him as an exception. He still had a career over in Europe but he came home to play in the A-League as a continutation of his career. Many of the others who have since returned look like they're just here to keep getting paid for what they do.

So, let's move onto the new batch. Moore, Vidmar and A. Elrich could be included here, but we have to consider that the latter two had some fitness issues and Moore had his club problems. Not in exactly the same position as Muscat. So I would classify John Aloisi as our first returning Socceroo. He's still a player, and while he is coming home for retirement, at least he still has something to offer to the local game.

Perhaps it's just for the sake of media hype, but we ought to be far more careful of what we define things. I'm sick of "professional fouls" (there's no such thing in the rulebook, but then there's no such thing as 'backpass' in the rulebook either), although my dislike of the PF has probably got more to do with my passionate dislike of Cockerill and Harper. 'Backpass' at least defines something that does physically occur in matches, whereas the PF is completly subjective. So, when a nasty tackle occurs, it's either a foul or it's not a foul. Nothing about the PF.

And it's something similar with the "returning Socceroo" tag. How many of them are actually active as Socceroos? Covic, perhaps. And Vidmar would have been too if he didn't have his heart condition. But I think that's really about it. Covic on the bench for the World Cup, Vidmar missed out, but Moore and Aloisi were actually there. Moore's been great for Queensland so far (minor hiccup with that red card), and I expect that Aloisi would be a greater revelation for the Mariners.

Hurrah!

A suspension that won't bite me back on the ass!

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