Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

[Monoethnic Social Club]

This is horrific viewing. Team looks dead.

We are NOT acclimatising to these conditions at all despite playing so many games .. The boys look like they are struggling to breath...WTF are the medical staff doing?

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

In any case our weakest team needs to go to Fiji now. Unfortunately we will likely finish 4th now.

Why? We are 6 points, massive GD and a match in hand over 5th place with only 9 point available to Vanuatu AND we play both bottom teams.. Just had an off night.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

First of all, it was an amazing crowd and atmosphere at the Honiara National Stadium. Well done to the Solomon Islands fans for getting out in their thousands to support their team.

The match was played at a wild pace. You could see the Solomon Kings players caught up in the emotion of playing in front of a sold out 10,000 crowd.

A full strength South squad would not have lost against this team. At times we looked slow with the ball. If you want to break down compact defences, you need quick ball movement to create opportunities. When we play Giannakopoulos in the backline, we lose some quality and dominance in the middle of the park. Unfortunately, we dont have a good enough fourth Centre Back. That said, I think Inglese has done well this hub and deserves to be the alternate Centre Back in this competition.

Like others, I wanted to give Swibel the benefit of the doubt, but he's starting to frustrate me. He has a great shot on him, but his movement lets him down at times, which is weird to say he is our top goal scorer in the OFC Pro League !

Decent matches by Cocks, Uchida, and Menelaou.

All in all, we have picked up 1 point from a possible 6 points in this hub. This has now opened the door to Bula FC, Solomon Kings, South Island and Vanuatu United.

I love Tommy G but that goal we copped and his "deer blinking in the headlights" defence infuriated me...

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

He has had too many poor performances for my liking.

Definitely taking up space on the squad that needs to be freed up to bring in some better players who can make an impact.

So NO different to Messy Rooni then.

 

[southmelb]

Why? We are 6 points, massive GD and a match in hand over 5th place with only 9 point available to Vanuatu AND we play both bottom teams.. Just had an off night.

Well it just depends on how the team handles the conditions. Its been a feature of our games since the PNG hub that we just die in the 2nd half of games.

The next hub coincides with our games against Preston and Oakleigh, our main guys will have to stay behind which makes us vulnerable to even the bottom teams.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Well it just depends on how the team handles the conditions. Its been a feature of our games since the PNG hub that we just die in the 2nd half of games.

The next hub coincides with our games against Preston and Oakleigh, our main guys will have to stay behind which makes us vulnerable to even the bottom teams.

we seemed to be dad after the first 10 misn last night... Never seen Yuki slipping and sliding like that and Swibel didn't get up more than a brik walk for most of the match... I think we need to just accept 4th or even 5th place and then hope conditions in Auckland in May are more humane.

 

[SMFC1959]

In any case our weakest team needs to go to Fiji now. Unfortunately we will likely finish 4th now.

With such a poor showing in the Honiara hub, the problem is what do we do for the Fiji hub.

We have Preston and Oakleigh in the NPL where we need full strength teams, but we still need another 2-3 wins in the OFC Pro League to lock in second or third spot.

I am not sure we are allowed to send our Under23 team to Fiji, as it must be from the 23 man squad submitted at the start of the OFC Pro League season.

 

[SMFC1959]

I love Tommy G but that goal we copped and his "deer blinking in the headlights" defence infuriated me...

It was awful defending all round, especially by Giannakopoulos for not clearing the ball properly.

 

[southmelb]

It was awful defending all round, especially by Giannakopoulos for not clearing the ball properly.

Pasquali booting the ball out for a corner was ridiculous as well, was an easy throw in clearance.

 

[SMFC1959]

We have 3 options:

1. Retain best starting XI players in Melbourne for the Preston and Oakleigh matches and send the weakest squad possible to Fiji
2. Send our best players to Fiji and wrap up a top 2 finish to ensure we are best placed to make semis, but give up on the Preston and Oakleigh NPL matches.
3. Half half squad again as we did in Honiara, that didn't quite work out as planned. No guarantees that it would even come close to working in either competition.

One possible way of making this work is is as follows:

• Play the Preston NPL match with your full squad and play with a weakened team against Auckland. We don't need to finish first in the OFC Pro League, but we can aim for a draw at least.
• Send 4 of our the best players after the Preston match to Fiji to focus on the OFC Pro League - we will still need to face Bula FC, PNG Hekari, and Tahiti United.
• Play Oakleigh with the remaining 7-8 starting XI players plus some youth players and try and hold onto a draw.

The above approach is not the only way of managing this situation, and opinions will differ. But given what we saw in the Honiara hub, we have to send more first team players to the fifth hub in order to secure a top 3 finish. Playing with too many youth players against the bottom 3 teams may be viable, but against Preston and Oakleigh we will get punished.

One thing for sure is that Pasquali will play against Preston given his late red card last night. That's one positive for the Preston NPL match.

 

[southmelb]

The half half wont work against high quality opponents. We will get smashed, preston and oaks are not altona or gully. We dont want to be embarassed domestically. If we cant beat PNG Hakari and Tahiti with backups we arent good enough.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

It was awful defending all round, especially by Giannakopoulos for not clearing the ball properly.

Inglese had a decent game, kept a pretty agricultural #7 wide the whole time and kept pace with him... Painter on the other side had a couple of hear tin mouth moments.

 

[SMFC1959]

I agree that half half arrangement doesn't work against the better teams. If we fielded that starting XI that played Altona against Preston, we would be smashed 6-0.

That's why you may need to shuffle players around by some playing in NPL and whilst others fly to Fiji to play in other fixtures and vice versa. I think we may need to risk the Oakleigh match with 3-4 of our starting XI players in Fiji.

I am still of the belief that we are 2-3 quality players short in making this work well.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

The half half wont work against high quality opponents. We will get smashed, preston and oaks are not altona or gully. We dont want to be embarassed domestically. If we cant beat PNG Hakari and Tahiti with backups we arent good enough.

Our juniors can hold Preston in the midifield but NOT Oakleigh.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

I agree that half half arrangement doesn't work against the better teams. If we fielded that starting XI that played Altona against Preston, we would be smashed 6-0.

That's why you may need to shuffle players around by some playing in NPL and whilst others fly to Fiji to play in other fixtures and vice versa. I think we may need to risk the Oakleigh match with 3-4 of our starting XI players in Fiji.

I am still of the belief that we are 2-3 quality players short in making this work well.

I agree with you but with a slight shift.

• Play the Preston NPL match with your full squad and play with a weakened team against Auckland. We don't need to finish first in the OFC Pro League, but we can aim for a draw at least.

I would play Preston with a U23/weakened side (and Pasquali, Lampard, Eliopoulos already here) and play a strong side against Auckland - bringing Javi, Bonada , Max, Uchida, Tommy, Cox and Jankovic back in time for Oakleigh

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

I agree that half half arrangement doesn't work against the better teams. If we fielded that starting XI that played Altona against Preston, we would be smashed 6-0.

That's why you may need to shuffle players around by some playing in NPL and whilst others fly to Fiji to play in other fixtures and vice versa. I think we may need to risk the Oakleigh match with 3-4 of our starting XI players in Fiji.

I am still of the belief that we are 2-3 quality players short in making this work well.

AT LEAST 2-3. Need a centre half, a PROPER striker and a decent left or right footed fullback for cover.

 

[SMFC1959]

I would play Preston with a U23/weakened side (and Pasquali, Lampard, Eliopoulos already here) and play a strong side against Auckland - bringing Javi, Bonada , Max, Uchida, Tommy, Cox and Jankovic back in time for Oakleigh

Only reason I picked the Preston match was because of the catch up match against Tahiti United the following week.

We have stuffed this up now by dropping so many points in the OFC Pro League that it will now impact our NPL Victoria commitments.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Only reason I picked the Preston match was because of the catch up match against Tahiti United the following week.

We have stuffed this up now by dropping so many points in the OFC Pro League that it will now impact our NPL Victoria commitments.

Thats what has worried me from the very start... As interesting as this OFC distraction is, it is STILL just that, a distraction.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Looks like the U23s are gonna have to shine again tomorrow...

 

[SMFC1959]

AT LEAST 2-3. Need a centre half, a PROPER striker and a decent left or right footed fullback for cover.

You're right

I think we need to look at it more strategically at the midseason transfer window. Definitely require another Centre Back, Striker, and maybe another winger.

We need upgrades on Swibel, Singh, Lackay, Pope, and Coveny.