Controversial Derby Draw

Not a bad result given our poor 1st half performance.

The playing group should derive plenty of confidence from their 2nd half effort.  

5th, I'll take that atm. 

763 days since we last lost to the Smurfs.

While it wasn't a win there are so many positives to come out of that performance.

Margush has been outstanding. His 2 saves within the first 5 minutes of the game saved us from losing in my opinion.

Defence has been very good. There were moments today where they weren't great, but they show so much heart and find away to stop opposition attacks. The fact that we have only conceded from set pieces in 3 games is very impressive, in which there wasn't much we could do about them (apart from Newcastle's goal).

Dorrans pass to Russel that lead to the goal was impressive, easily his best piece of work for us so far and he will only get better.

Baccus is different gravy this year, him and Tate have gone to another level under Robinson.

Troisi wasn't the best today, very confident that wasn't a penalty but at the end of the day he scored a very important goal for us.

Thought Muller was good, some of his touches are very clever. Should have scored the chip, but he didn't. He will be one of our most important players this season. 

Cox's effort has been awesome, he looks like he really cares. The are passes last season I didn't think he could get to that he was getting to. Hope he scores soon, he deserves it.

Ibini had his best performance for us and showed some real signs of what he can do when at full fitness. His solo run was insane, would've been one of the best derby goals ever scored. Think he had Yeboah open however so he was probably a bit selfish, although Yeboah probably would've fallen over ot something like that.

Overall thought the game was very even and could've been won by either team. Penalty was never a penalty, both teams had a few clear cut chances. 

We are only going to improve, hopefully a positive performance against the Mariners.

My 2c.. Probably not the popular opinion here but I think it was a penalty. I feel Troisi makes eye contact then changes his line of running before turning his back on Ninkovic, **** one to concede and probably a little harsh, but I didn’t complain too much about it.

I think we have the makings of a strong squad and just might go close to giving this thing a shake. We have depth. Players are starting to gel and are buying into what the coach wants. They all busted their gut tonight.

Disappointed not to get the win but we are on the way up.

2 hours ago, HillsWanderer said:

Margush, so far so good.

 

Also I found myself yelling abuse at Speed and Harper more than the Smurf players.........

I miss Simon Hill.

I was getting so upset by the rubbish coming from speed and Harper's mouths that my wife made me turn the volume down completely...was much better after that

Easts had the better of the first half. 2nd half was evenly poised until they got the penalty. Reality is Troisi was too square to Ninkovic ref is always gonna give that as a pen (personally ot was soft). Ninko was looking for it as well and he was smart of enough to get it.

Funnily enough after they scored it was all us.

Old reliable Redmayne came back for us. Probably needed new underpants when he saw the Tank that is Russel come up and scare the crap out of him. We really should have won it after that we created enough chances.

Unpopular opinion: even though Ninkovic milked it for what it's worth... that was a Penalty. Most refs would wave it away and play on but had this happened outside the box, that would have been a FK regardless. I know what Troisi was trying to do but the ref saw him blocking or obstructing the player.

It's a harsh call against us but it was enough to finally fire our players up, since the penalty, we were the better team, I seriously thought we can do enough to snatch a win there but it wasn't, the free was a fair result I reckon.

Entertaining match, the Smurfs in the 1st 5 minutes could of had to 2 goals but we held on, they had control of the midfield and were too easily getting into our final 3rd. 

Come 2nd half we held the ball for longer periods and didn't let them dictate in the midfields so much. The penalty as some one else pointed out you could tell Ninkabitch was going to fall down like a sack of potatoes and then stay down for another 2 minutes, got to be smart in these situations and Troisi will be non the wiser next time round.

After we picked up another level searching for the equalizer and this is what i loved about the team head high up knowing that they are capable of scoring, alas our thumbling friend Redmayne to deliver us a simple tap in. We had the momentum and the last 15 mins we looked good. Smurfs realistically lacked firepower if Bobo was upfront the score may have been different, the penalty was their only goal.

Good to see the fans in the crowd and the cameras pull away quickly as soon as the middle finger salute went up.

Harper has always and always will have a hard on for ESFC, but in the end of the day we are still undefeated against the smurfs for 4 matches.

On to the next chapter now quick turn around against the Mariners, i suspect we may have more ball possession but we can not make the same mistake and be on the backfoot from the beginning. 

2 hours ago, StringerBellend said:

Not the result I hoped for but I’ll take that, once the pen went in we were all over them. They have years together, that is as good as they will get, we will improve 

it’s all going to be eetswa 

so what was the Fox Verdict on the pen from the in stadium replay it didn’t look like a pen at all 

I thought Ibini did ok when he came on too 

 

yes Ibini i thought was going to lose the ball inbetween his a feet a few times but made decent runs and coming on with fresh legs push the smurfs back line

4 hours ago, scarcev said:

add Troisi to that list I think he is the biggest culprit

Absolutely,  he's an enigma,  I don't mention it because I think we all see it. (?)

Post match presser:

https://www.a-league.com.au/video/robinson-xxx-press-conference-a-league-0

10 minutes ago, wswnick said:

Post match presser:

https://www.a-league.com.au/video/robinson-xxx-press-conference-a-league-0

You think the club would have told him to simply say nothing about officiating mistakes after the treatment that gave to us & Babbel after he rightly pointed out multiple major mistakes.

1 hour ago, Xfactor said:

My 2c.. Probably not the popular opinion here but I think it was a penalty. I feel Troisi makes eye contact then changes his line of running before turning his back on Ninkovic, **** one to concede and probably a little harsh, but I didn’t complain too much about it.

I think we have the makings of a strong squad and just might go close to giving this thing a shake. We have depth. Players are starting to gel and are buying into what the coach wants. They all busted their gut tonight.

Disappointed not to get the win but we are on the way up.

 

I agree with everything you've said, except the penalty. I don't get the eye contact comment. A few have made it on Twitter as well. It's meaningless and distracting. Imo the penalty decision was a terrible one. Ninkovic lays the ball off about 5 yards from Troisi. He then runs directly into the space Troisi occupies. Troisi makes a slight movement to his right, not even a full step, and Ninkovic clatters into him. For mine Troisi hasn't made any significant movement to block or impede ninkovic. Contact was made because of the line Ninkovic ran and his momentum.

Also, penalty and red card decisions are the most significant decisions a ref can make. They should only be made when the basis for the decision is clear.

This was just another example of poor officiating, with a referee imposing himself unnecessarily into the game.

15 minutes ago, LetsPele said:

I agree with everything you've said, except the penalty. I don't get the eye contact comment. A few have made it on Twitter as well. It's meaningless and distracting. Imo the penalty decision was a terrible one. Ninkovic lays the ball off about 5 yards from Troisi. He then runs directly into the space Troisi occupies. Troisi makes a slight movement to his right, not even a full step, and Ninkovic clatters into him. For mine Troisi hasn't made any significant movement to block or impede ninkovic. Contact was made because of the line Ninkovic ran and his momentum.

Also, penalty and red card decisions are the most significant decisions a ref can make. They should only be made when the basis for the decision is clear.

This was just another example of poor officiating, with a referee imposing himself unnecessarily into the game.

Agreed. The soft nature of fouls in general frustrate me in today's football,  particularly in the aleague. 

Watch the replay of the 'penalty'. Troisi is taking that step to the right AS Ninko is laying off the pass, Troisi then does exceptionally well (imo) to not make any further movements to impede Ninko.

Ridiculous foul every time I see it in open play,  to give a penalty for that,  a good example of one big issue in our game - softcocks falling over for a whistle. 

1 hour ago, matty said:

Agreed. The soft nature of fouls in general frustrate me in today's football,  particularly in the aleague. 

Watch the replay of the 'penalty'. Troisi is taking that step to the right AS Ninko is laying off the pass, Troisi then does exceptionally well (imo) to not make any further movements to impede Ninko.

Ridiculous foul every time I see it in open play,  to give a penalty for that,  a good example of one big issue in our game - softcocks falling over for a whistle. 

Pretty much every week the refs let go numerous studs up tackles from behind or the side that hit attacking players in the ankles or shins but then you see them give such bullshit non-pens like that one to a few specific teams.

And the never ending amount of fouls given when a striker who is playing back to goal dribbling backward toward the centre circle doing nothing useful with the ball, has a defender behind him, slows down for a second when they feel any contact they fall over like they're shot and always get a foul.

Does my head in.

I had a look at the sh*tty Smurfs forum to see what they are b*tching about:

- One said Bosnich "doesn't understand the game" when he said our penalty was harsh and another said "#BosnichOut". I f*cking laughed so hard at these comments that they are probably the same time of morons that love it when Harper, Slater and Speed are on commentary.

- Ironically, they also think Barbarouses was useless...until he scored the penalty goal.

- They think Ivanovic's time is up and will be released next season.

- They desperately wanted Bobo to play today (even though I think he won't be the same as he used to be in his first stint for the club).

2 hours ago, matty said:

Agreed. The soft nature of fouls in general frustrate me in today's football,  particularly in the aleague. 

Watch the replay of the 'penalty'. Troisi is taking that step to the right AS Ninko is laying off the pass, Troisi then does exceptionally well (imo) to not make any further movements to impede Ninko.

Ridiculous foul every time I see it in open play,  to give a penalty for that,  a good example of one big issue in our game - softcocks falling over for a whistle. 

3 fouls to Ninkovic (including the penalty) were him simply falling over (one was the free kick outside the box). The clear foul on him was when Baccus got him a beauty as I think he did to the Mullet. 

Unlike the movement when Muller should have awarded a free kick, and when that was missed, the one to Cozy who had Retre push him over, and again King did not award the free kick.

King looks like he was trained by Beath in school of not seeing free kicks for our team 

I have an App (SofaScore) which @Unlimited would like where ratings are given on performance. 

Baccus 8.0 Ninkovic 8.0

Margush 7.3 Redmayne 6.2

Wanderers ave 7.01

Smurf Ave 6.90

6 hours ago, Taurus said:

Not a bad result given our poor 1st half performance.

The playing group should derive plenty of confidence from their 2nd half effort.  

5th, I'll take that atm. 

 

At least were still in the Top 6 with the Fraudsters losing.

7 hours ago, wswnick said:

Post match presser:

https://www.a-league.com.au/video/robinson-xxx-press-conference-a-league-0

 

IMO he never puts a foot wrong in his responses.

As anyone sensible managing a team does, he uses "we", unlike a certain other manager, whose pressers so often featured "I" and "they" (his players) when discussing his team's performances.

He just oozes good judgement, and inspires confidence, to my mind.

Performances this week

Margush-excellent 
Russell- good. Smurfs pressed him hard so had less time for decision
Aquilina - another good week
Gordon- good. His usual workmanlike performance 
McGowan- see Gordon 
Mourdoukoutas-average. Caught out of position by Buhagiar on multiple occasions
Baccus - excellent 
Dorrans - improving every week. 
Troisi - Average probably because Smurfs marked him very tightly. 
Muller - good. But is he carrying a knock
Cox - workmanlike but lack of speed shown up.

Subs
Ibini - best performance so far
Yeboah - showing glimpses 
O'Doherty - good

20 minutes ago, wendybr said:

IMO he never puts a foot wrong in his responses.

As anyone sensible managing a team does, he uses "we", unlike a certain other manager, whose pressers so often featured "I" and "they" (his players) when discussing his team's performances.

He just oozes good judgement, and inspires confidence, to my mind.

Excellent responses without saying anything that would get him in trouble. He looks to be a great communicator. 

Looks like we need a new match day thread as well as he sId a few a carrying knocks and won't be playing or starting.

Those who disagree with the pen, would you have the same opinion if it was awarded to us? 

The penalty was never a penalty. This eye contact by Troisi as an argument doesn't add up, of course he is looking at his man and of course he is looking to stay close. What Troisi is I guess guilty of is turning your back on your man in the area and so not really knowing where he is, its poor positioning. That still doesn't make it a penna, but with such poor ref's around you leave yourself open to this kind of decision.

As soon as Ninkovic seen Troisi turn he was only ever going to deliberately charge in to him to try and suck the ref in. Anyone else see Ninkovic go up to Troisi at the end and word something like 'no hard feelings', Troisi shook hands but Ninkovik looked very sheepish lol

Ibini is clearly getting his fitness back and must be close to knocking on the door of a starting position soon.

Tate and Aquilina are  a good combo, continue to be impressed by both. Some very good passing and vision by Aquilina. Baccus getting stuck in is good to see, but needs to be careful with the early yellow cards, as it was a yellow and a clumsy tackle..but it is also what derby games are about.

Great to see quick movement and transition forward when attacking. We all remember the dirge served up last season where we turned the ball over and struggled to get across the half way right, the 0-0 Brissy home game a terrible reminder.

We are now light years on from that. We have pace and look a genuine threat. Still not as solid at the back as i would like, but that will come. McGowan looks like a proper captain.

The blend of the team is not far away from what I have always wanted - youth, experience, pace, threats up front and some who will get stuck in...

Positive times.

3 minutes ago, hughsey said:

Those who disagree with the pen, would you have the same opinion if it was awarded to us? 

Of course lol Thats football..

But it wasn't.

Just a word on Cox also...as yes I have digs at him lol

No goals but you cannot fault his work rate. He is often isolated but really shifts around and looks like he has improved his fitness. Shame he will need to jet away soon.

Muller should have done better with the chip with his skill and experience, but again won't fault his work rate.

All players are putting in a shift for the new gaffer and you have to be happy with that.

Well no long ball goal kicks anymore, seems CR is determined to play out from the back, so be it and we looked okay apart from one or two instances, but generally when we decided to keep the ball and move it around you could sense the confidence rising, but our ball retention could still improve further, lost a few promising sections of play with a bad pass resulting in losing the pill.

biggest thing to me so far our two young full backs are very VERY promising, truly a breath of fresh air 

10 hours ago, jockman said:

I was getting so upset by the rubbish coming from speed and Harper's mouths that my wife made me turn the volume down completely...was much better after that

I just hope Redmayne follows Harper's advice and takes his goal keeping gloves and wears them to the birth of his child lol

Harper is a random ****er lol

32 minutes ago, hughsey said:

Those who disagree with the pen, would you have the same opinion if it was awarded to us? 

I’m not that biased

What is more of a penalty was late in the game when J O’Doherty was running down the right wing into the penalty area and Alex Wilkinson runs behind him and basically gives him three big shoves and pushes in the back. O’Doherty didn’t fall over but kept the ball, but meant he regained ball control on the goal line which snuffed out the chance 

11 minutes ago, Smoggy said:

I just hope Redmayne follows Harper's advice and takes his goal keeping gloves and wears them to the birth of his child lol

Harper is a random ****er lol

only humanised thing to come out of his mouth all match