1. Our losses have been self inflicted. No one to blame apart from ourselves as a club. The month of May madness was completely unnecessary and avoidable. You leave behind 5-6 players that can handle the demands of the NPL competition. You don't throw 18-20 year old youth players to the slaughter expecting anything else. Furthermore, you don't sack your coach for no reason and then 96 hours later rehire him. We look like a circus. That has significant impacts upon team balance and morale. The fact that Sinisa keeps putting on a certain player weakens the the team on the field and reduces attacking options if he needs to look at his bench for solutions.
2. The fixture against Adelaide United is 3 weeks away so the new players will have had time to reach match fitness and gel with their new players. Adelaide United has AFC commitments a few days later, so their focus wont be on the Australia Cup. We have time to get ready for that fixture.
3. We are only 1 point from the top 6. We are still in the hunt for a top 6 spot and if one or two results go our way, then we are right back into it. The problem we have is that we need to keep winning in order to buy us time to have our new signings playing and integrated into the squad. Retre, Juach, Yoo and Ramazani are very good midseason signings. Yoo has shown glimpses of what he is capable of.
4. If we are being realistic, I cannot see any change in the boardroom. The only way to minimise the kid's playing time is to load our squad with quality players which we have. If the match is in the balance or we need to score, Sinisa is less likely to field the kid.
Lopez injury as stated by others is not as serious as first thought. It might be a stretch for him to make it for the Adelaide fixture, but if we do make the top 6, then he will be ready for the finals where we need him the most.
Are things great at the moment - definitely not
Do we have momentum going into the last part of the home and away season - definitely not
But what we need to do is scrape together another win on Friday night against Dandenong City. It does not have to be pretty - it can be an ugly win where even if they dominate possession and chances. Just need to hold on for a win. That then buys us another week of getting the new signings fitter and integrated
Time is our enemy and we are now paying for the mistakes self inflicted earlier in the season where we are now facing little room for error.
