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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

Talk about a match of 2 halves. We started off like a house on fire with 2 quick goals within 4 minutes. Got a third half way through the first half. And then we gave away a goal. They only had one shot on goal for the first half and they converted it. The most frustrating part was that we missed another 2-3 certain goals. We were so wasteful. Luckily in the second half we kept them scoreless and we added another 2 goals. But that 15-20 minute period where Bentleigh had us on the back foot was unacceptable. That point of the game where Mesourouni turned the ball over and then Bentleigh missed that one on one to nearly make it 2-3 was heart in mouth moments.

Serious question marks around the starting XI. There must be a credible reason why you would start Lackay and Mesourouni. For me, Lackay is someone you bring on for the last 15 minutes to run at tired players. He is not a starting XI player. Lackay missed at least 3 certain goals. He can run but that’s about it.

Those midseason player signings cannot come soon enough.
 
Souk said:
I'm not a massive fan of Mesa or Lackay but both were fine tonight
Didnt like the midfield set up as @southmelb said we allowed them too much space - Cocks is a good winger but loses his man often in transition
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Every time we move Giannakopoulos back to defence we lose our a bit of our control of the midfield battle. It highlights the lack of a third quality Centre Back in the squad. This needs to be rectified in this midseason transfer window.
 
The womens team have all but blown their chance of finishing 1st. Missed a bundle of chances at 1-0 up and undone with a late set piece, story of the girls season.
 
Let’s look at the ladder. The best we can aim for is 4th spot. Avondale are 9 points ahead and I very much doubt we’ll catch them. Heidelberg faces Oakleigh next week and we play Green gully. Assuming both results go our way, we would potentially be only 2 points from 4th spot. That spot is important as it allows us to host a finals match. In order to even reach the Grand Final (assuming the ladder doesn’t change too much), we may potentially need to go through Heidelberg and Oakleigh. Two really tough matches. The positive thing is that grang final is at Lakeside Stadium.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to sign 4 quality players to strengthen the Starting XI.
 
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SMFC1959 said:
Let’s look at the ladder. The best we can aim for is 4th spot. Avondale are 9 points ahead and I very much doubt we’ll catch them. Heidelberg faces Oakleigh next week and we play Green gully. Assuming both results go our way, we would potentially be only 2 points from 4th spot. That spot is important as it allows us to host a finals match. In order to even reach the Grand Final (assuming the ladder doesn’t change too much), we may potentially need to go through Heidelberg and Oakleigh. Two really tough matches. The positive thing is that grace final is at Lakeside Stadium.
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Firstly im of the idea and preference bergers beat choakleigh (Or atleast Hume topples them at the end) so they dont make championship.. prefer the village scum to the southeastern town crooks, atleast they have a history! We focus on getting max points here on out in every game, unlike first half of season we undoubtedly will face very different sides moving forward (thats what made the Altona loss so painful) with players coming in you will get less change at the top than in the lower challenegers which we wouldve theoretically already faced especially of they in any way get suddenly more competitive... WE do US and let the rest fall in place!!!

Dandy city proved that all you need to do is scrape in, advantage is ok but not be all and end all, if your in ots anyones game on the day!
SMFC1959 said:
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to sign 4 quality players to strengthen the Starting XI.
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100% this...
 
Despite our areas of concern if we didnt have the ofc pro league we would be on top right now.

Our future in the ofc worries me because we probably need to sacrifice at least 6 games a year if not more. You cant just be giving away 18-21 points in this league.

Hopefully we can get drawn at home in the Australia cup. We have a fantastic away record this season but we simply havent played enough games at lakeside.
 
southmelb said:
Hopefully we can get drawn at home in the Australia cup. We have a fantastic away record this season but we simply havent played enough games at lakeside.
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If we have to draw an A League team at home for the Australia Cup, let it be Melbourne Victory so the club can really cash in. It’s an easy way to sell 7,000-10,000 tickets and make $100,000 profit.
 
southmelb said:
Our future in the ofc worries me because we probably need to sacrifice at least 6 games a year if not more. You cant just be giving away 18-21 points in this league.
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Totally agree. We need to be better organised to balance both competitions. Have 6-8 players that purely focus on NPL. That way we never have the U20/U23s being heavily smashed and lose 18-21 points each season.

If the club doesn’t review what worked and what didn’t work, then we are doomed to commit the same mistakes again and again.
 
A full house for MV sounds nice but based on past meetings the trouble makers will come and trash the place.

We got 3.5k against Auckland last season. Maybe Melb City at 5-6k might be a safer option.

Hopefully we avoid the Victorian npl teams, i dont want to do Preston and Heidelberg reruns.
 
southmelb said:
Despite our areas of concern if we didnt have the ofc pro league we would be on top right now.

Our future in the ofc worries me because we probably need to sacrifice at least 6 games a year if not more. You cant just be giving away 18-21 points in this league.
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all we need to be is smarter and learn from this season.. there is no reason to scarifice that many NPL games if the format stays similar, u sacrificr some of the ofc games instead and take the longer pathway to finals if need be.. or better still upgrade the quality in the squad so there isnt such a huge gap between them.. 6 NPL players skunds about right to me to be all doable
southmelb said:
Hopefully we can get drawn at home in the Australia cup. We have a fantastic away record this season but we simply havent played enough games at lakeside.
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I personally hope for the easiest run possible through to the quarters and then come what may!
 
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