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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

southmelb said:
2nd half was dominant, similar to Preston game.

If we can get the 3 points next Friday night we should remain top 4 until ofc ends. Realistically the best we could hope for. Take away ofc and i doubt we would have had dropped a single point yet.
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We win next win and we retain top spot for one last time for a while. It is extraordinary that we are top of the NPL Victoria league ladder with the OFC Pro League finals just a few weeks away.

If we can stay within 4-6 points of the top spot by end of May, we’ll go on a decent run for the second half of the season. That match against George Cross could be crucial to achieving that.
 
southmelb said:
Still a quality outfit. We cant play the exact same team we did last week against them.
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If we play our U23 team against Heidelberg, we would lose 10-0. The kids would play their hearts out but Heidelberg is much stronger than Oakleigh. We will need to hold back 3-4 reserves just to minimise the damage.
 
Swibel getting rubbed out doesnt really ruin much in terms of our play, he is probably the least catastrophic loss from our best 11. You throw Bonada up top and bring in Dovison out wide and you're still super strong. Ok he scored but his performance was poor, he makes terrible runs and provides a poor option, and that speculative shot he took in the 1st half when he could have played Bonada through on goal was mind boggling. We upgrade his position and the sky is the limit.

Its also noticeable how much our bench players dominant late in games when our best team has done the damage. Leech and Messourouni looked like superstars last 10 mins lol

As for Bergers game in a fortnight, it will literally be 10-0 if we trot out those kids and bergers will be looking to break records. Losing is one thing but it cant be completely catastrophic that our GD gets tanked.
 
southmelb said:
As for Bergers game in a fortnight, it will literally be 10-0 if we trot out those kids and bergers will be looking to break records. Losing is one thing but it cant be completely catastrophic that our GD gets tanked.
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Agree that we need at least a few senior players to stay back in Melbourne and supplement the playing list for the game against Heidelberg United instead of fielding a starting XI entirely from the reserves and under-23s, but even if we suffer a catastrophic loss we still have an easily winnable match against Caroline Springs George Cross the following week and our for and against won't be tanked that much.
 
You should only need 17 players for the first ofc hub game including 2 keepers. Would give 5 outfielders. You could surely keep Charleston inglese birchmore pope Singh and lackey back. Add dovison skapoulas osullivan papadimitriou agelatos and you've got an 11 that could at least put up a fight. Keep them for the bergers game then fly them over for games 2 and 3.
 
Whoever stays back for the Heidelberg match will miss the first two OFC Pro League finals matches. Those are played on 6th (Auckland) and 9th (South Island) May, whilst we play Heidelberg on 8th May. You can’t fly someone back for the South Island fixture when they played 24 hours earlier in another country.

There will need to be a core group such as Shalamanov-Trenkov, Coveny, Pope, Singh, Gorr Burchmore, and Lackay to complement players such as Dovison, O’Sullivan, Angelatos brothers, Papadimitriou, Saristavros, Killick, Skapoulas, Van Riet, and Brown.

In an ideal world, you would also leave Inglese, Menelaou and Leech back in Melbourne. But then you reduce the options on your bench against Auckland and South Island. With the amount of pressing and running players do, you need to freshen up your midfield with about 15-20 minutes remaining.
 
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The problem with having a thin bench/squad in Auckland is that it leaves you little chance to rotate much. The games are on a short turnaround.

Locally you're leaving those namds here to hopefully only lose 3-0 again instead of 10-0.
 
southmelb said:
As for Bergers game in a fortnight, it will literally be 10-0 if we trot out those kids and bergers will be looking to break records. Losing is one thing but it cant be completely catastrophic that our GD gets tanked.
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Spot on. It has to be about damage limitation. Our best starting line up is not guaranteed to win at Olympic Village, but we need to keep the scoreline as respectable as possible. We don’t want Heidelberg recording a historic winning scoreline.
 
SMFC1959 said:
Spot on. It has to be about damage limitation. Our best starting line up is not guaranteed to win at Olympic Village, but we need to keep the scoreline as respectable as possible. We don’t want Heidelberg recording a historic winning scoreline.
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Another season NPL game easily forgotten no matter what the score (bragging rights can stay with those that have nothing higher to play for like your choakleighs)... as long as we maintain advantage to hopefully walk away with the trophies in the end and who exactly will ever care about dropping points here or the score? No way of balancing the month of May with this squad.. we go out and bring this FIFA trophy and prize money home and deal with NPL upon return no other distraction imo... why we should in any way risk anything on this game baffles me or how this is even a concern given what is actually at play... this is an internationally sanctioned comp, a recognised FIFA trophy, this is the essence of the continuation of the argument (after the chanpionship win) that we are well beyond where they hold us!

We gave away the oakleigh game i am in no mood to allow those pricks the courtesy of any advantage so id be happy with a nominal loss here and the experience for the youngings if it pegs back any advantage they gained... better the bergers in championship than them and i wont be convinced otherwise!
 
southmelb said:
Swibel getting rubbed out doesnt really ruin much in terms of our play, he is probably the least catastrophic loss from our best 11. You throw Bonada up top and bring in Dovison out wide and you're still super strong. Ok he scored but his performance was poor, he makes terrible runs and provides a poor option, and that speculative shot he took in the 1st half when he could have played Bonada through on goal was mind boggling. We upgrade his position and the sky is the limit.

Its also noticeable how much our bench players dominant late in games when our best team has done the damage. Leech and Messourouni looked like superstars last 10 mins lol

As for Bergers game in a fortnight, it will literally be 10-0 if we trot out those kids and bergers will be looking to break records. Losing is one thing but it cant be completely catastrophic that our GD gets tanked.
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I was saying teh same thing on Friday about our bench players coming on late and steamrolling .. I haven't done the maths but its not often we get beaten in the second half when we have a full contingency of players...
 
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