Wow.... and I thought that I was critical of my team's players...!

Speaking of Melbourne Victory duds, Adelaide have just signed Joe Keenan.

trimster wrote:
Speaking of Melbourne Victory duds, Adelaide have just signed Joe Keenan.

He played for Chelsea you know.

Hopeless for Victory then he went to Scotland where he was hopeless for Hibs then he came back to Australia and probably found his level at South Melbourne (he's actually scored a couple for them).

Melbourne Victory have won a game and kept a clean sheet, beating Gold Coast 1-0 away. A beautiful pass from Carlos Hernandez set up Robbie Kruse who decided to round Glen Moss to score rather than fall over him and look for a penalty. Kruse was wrongly booked for diving last week but maybe it has changed his attitude.

Later today, Melbourne Heart were denied their first win by a horrible dive from Perth's Michael Baird in the 93rd minute.

Today's 2 games were watched by a total attendance of 9,500. Melbourne Heart have already lost half their supporter base from round 1 although they were in direct competition with AFL matches at Docklands and the MCG this afternoon. Both of those games, however, were meaningless end of season affairs featuring 3 of the worst supported teams in the AFL including Port Adelaide whose travelling support wouldn't fill a taxi - the combined attendance was nearly 70,000.

It's obviously far too early to draw any conclusions but Heart have been a big disappointment so far. Even NQF got a bigger crowd this weekend.

A topsy-turvy A League table now, with last season's champions, Sydney FC, on the bottom; and last season's bottom team, Adelaide United, in second place!

Adelaide had a good 3-2 win in Townsville, although I do think Fury are a bit over-rated. Marcos Flores scored a spectacular goal, which had the Fox commentators going into premature raptures about "goal of the season..."

I'm glad Vidmar has gone, now. Coolen seems to have instilled a more positive mentality in the players. They actually look like they want to score goals now. Last season they often looked like they were trying their hardest not to score.

What sort of crowds were Heart expecting to get, I wonder? Six thousand is about what South Melbourne or Heidelberg would get in the NSL on a good day. I suppose you can't expect tens of thousands to flock along to support a brand new club that was created only a couple of months ago... although you would have thought the Robbie Fowler factor would have swelled the crowd.

Michael Baird has been given a 2 match ban for his dive at the weekend as has CCM’s Patricio Perez for diving against Sydney (I haven’t seen that one I must admit).

This is excellent news – or it will be if divers continue to get punished from now on and this isn’t just some publicity stunt.

Both men went down very theatrically, but I have yet to see a decisive camera angle showing there was no contact.

In the case of Perez you can see Reddy's left hand didn't touch hm but the right hand is obscured in every shot I have seen and it was that one I thought might have clipped him.

Again with Baird the only angle I have seen is from the grandstand and you cannot see for certain if there is contact - though it looks as if there wasn't.

What puzzles me with the Baird one in particular is that the angle is the same as the referee's (although higher, obviously) and the ref was much closer.

My first instinct was it was dubious, but the ref was on the spot so fair enough.

If there is decisive vision which I haven't seen then good on the FFA, but if they rushed into this because of media pressure then it is not very fair on the players.

trimster wrote:
Wow.... and I thought that I was critical of my team's players...!

I didn't get a chance to express my opinion on Nick Ward - he's so bad he can't even make the bench of a team with loads of injuries.

Anyway, good news - Ward has signed for Wellington. He was once the A League's youing player of the year; he was good enough to get a transfer to England; Melbourne Victory made him their first young marquee player.

Ward, though, couldn't give a fuck about football. He's only interested in jerking off in front of the mirror or over the endless topless pictures of himself that mysteriously keep appearing in the Herald Sun.

This is almost as good as the departure of Glen Moss.

Now I'd like to start a rumour that Evan Berger is homesick for Sydney.

Some real desperation from Melbourne Heart - they are offering half price admission to Saturday's game against NQF to Collingwood and Western Bulldogs fans attending the AFL qualifying final at the MCG.

Heart CEO Scott Munn said:

''The Olympic Boulevard precinct will be a hub of activity on Saturday night and the timing of the two events presents a magnificent opportunity to indulge in a feast of elite sport."

This "hub of activity" will be 85,000 people going to one ground and about 80,000 less to the other. Even if this is a smart idea, there's not actually going to be enough time to watch all the Heart game and then get inside the MCG for the first bounce anyway.

I understand that attendances are always a problem when the AFL and NRL are still playing but it has never been this bad. It really does feel like the A League is on its knees.

Melbourne Heart's reduced admission price was a miserable failure - a crowd of 4,184. Meanwhile, Sydney had their worst ever crowd - just 7.5k and this after just winning the double.

I've seen the CCM goals from Friday night.

How did Michael Petkovic ever get capped? Six times!

And to think Danny Vukovic is sitting on the Wellington bench.

I think the absolutely stinking weather in Melbourne has kept a few people away. Atrocious rain season.

You're leaving us, Max???!!!

The weather was glorious for Victory's last home game but the crowd was the lowest in 5 years. I think the problem is far greater than whether or not it's raining although that certainly impacted A League and AFL this weekend.

Freezing cold, rainy weather has kept Adelaide's first two home crowds this season well down. Can't see it warming up this Friday, either. Sydney's crowds seem to be the A League's biggest problem at the moment (along with the impending demise of Newcastle Jets!)

Bizarre look to the league table at the moment, with Adelaide and Perth at the top, and Melbourne and Sydney around the bottom! Sydney's performance on Saturday night was the most inept Sydney performance I have witnessed since the A League started. From an Adelaide point of view it is just so enormously encouraging to have scored three goals in a match for three matches in succession- I don't think it has ever happened before. After the shambles of last season it is a real boost to morale.

Many fans are putting the turnaround down to Coolen being more positve and attack-minded than Vidmar. I also think Coolen seems to be a more mature, balanced personality. Vidmar was always bitching at people behind their backs, etc. Wonder what impact he will have on the Olyroos?

Decent crowd at Glory yesterday and good performance too apart from awful defending and keeping from one corner.

I'd have snapped up Vukovic if I was Mitchell, but I doubt we have any money left for wages.

Interesting comments from the CEO on the radio afterwards though. Talking about the club bleeding money and cutbacks being made.

I was watching one of the games over the weekend, I think it was Melbourne Heart v North Queesnalnd, and the commentator started gushing about there being "no margin for error at this level of the game".

You'd think that Fox could employ someone who has at least seen the occasional A-League game before handing him a microphone.

The falling attendances are a real concern. The NRL and AFL vultures are waiting to pounce...how "soccah" is not really "Aussie" etc.

It needs FTA coverage and to be away from the sole "friendly" hands of Murdoch.

The FFA have given Newcastle some short term financial assistance. Ben Buckley has said this will enable them to play "the next couple of games."

What then? I've lost count of the number of clubs the FFA is having to rescue. Has the expansion really been too much too quick?

Can we say that Ben Buckley has performed pretty poorly overall and that Frank Lowy's not done well since John O'Neill left?

Good editorial by Ray Gatt on this. This season should have plenty to be positive about as there are some good players around, but the FFA just don't seem to know what to do other than fight crises.

Archie Fraser has given his first major interview since leaving the FFA – it seems he quit because he was frustrated at the amount of time being devoted to the world cup bid at the expense of the A League.

Archie reckons the FFA is “reactive” and “bloated” and says there is “no cohesive strategy” and “no promotion of the game.” That last point is timely because I heard an interview on SEN today with Archie’s replacement, Lyall Gorman, who said that the FFA were planning a major promotional campaign in October after the end of the AFL and NRL seasons. By then, more than a quarter of the season will be over. If the A League can’t compete with the other codes, why not start the season in October when there’s no competition and end it in the early weeks of the AFL/NRL which should be less of a challenge than the weeks leading up to finals?

Archie reckons the A League is a “basket case” and doesn’t seem convinced it will survive the year – he says “hopefully” it will be around when the world cup bid decision is made in December. He doesn’t seem to believe that Sydney Rovers will get off the ground and says the aid offered to Newcastle is “unsatisfactory.”

On Sunday night, the very irritating Spencer Prior made the point on Fox Sports News that, if there’s a problem in the AFL, Andrew Demetriou is out there being interviewed and delivering a positive message. When the A League has problems, Ben Buckley is silent. The soccer bashers are growing in confidence every day that the A League is finished; for supporters of the A League, we are getting no reassurances from the FFA that it is safe – all we see are clubs in financial difficulties and empty stands.

To answer VF's question, I think we can say Buckley has performed poorly. Sack him and bring in Archie?

The NSL struggled on for 27 years of chaotic administration, poor promotion, small fry clubs that appealed mainly to ethnic supporters, no world cup qualification, let alone hosting, etc.... so it would be really pathetic if the A League folded after only five years, with its so-called "professional administration" and broad-based clubs.

Maybe the game would be better off with real football people at the helm, and not these mercenary sports administrators who move around from code to code and sport to sport... although O'Neill did look like he was on the right track for a while, Buckley has been very poor, I think.

On "The Gruen Transfer" last night, competing ad agencies were asked to produce adverts to "persuade Australians to abandon other codes and concentrate on soccer". Their solution: soccer players aren't "tough" enough to succede in the world cup, so AFL and rugby stars should convert to soccer to strengthen the national side. Presumably it was only a temporary conversion.

With lamebrained attitudes like that quite common in Australia, it is little wonder that the game will always struggle here.