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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

Can someone explain to me WTF we were thinking today ????

We’ve played so many senior players in the second half for a result that has ZERO bearing given we have qualified for the Leaders Group. The points reset to zero, so there’s literally NOTHING to play for !!!!

This is nothing short of a train wreck. It’s not an issue of players coming on for a portion of match time. They’ve played in difficult hot and humid conditions which would have sapped their energy levels.

Are we expecting our players to fly out Sunday morning, sit on a plane for 5.5 hours, then head straight to Lakeside to play against Oakleigh ??? Those players should have flown out on Friday to rest and be ready for Sunday’s match.
 
Today was an utter strategic failure on our end. The job was done after Bula. As soon as that match ended priority should have shifted to the Oakleigh game. Our next 3 npl games could make or break our season.

We will have to play anywhere between 5-6 must win games in Auckland next month meaning we will have to play kids in the npl for pretty much the entire month. Teams will make up ground on us but this could be softened startibg tomorrow. Instead it looks we are giving akis mob a free hit.

Jankovic, Uchida, Lampard and Bonoda playing 50+ minutes in those conditions is the equivalent to a full game here.

We hardly ever see our team play at lakeside so i'll be fuming if tomorrow is treated as a throwaway.
 
One thing is for sure... if we had any worry about what to do with such a big squad after OFC and how to manage the minutes ... its simple..

For the following you simply wont need to bc they have to go:
Trenkov
Lackay
Singh........... All gone

Coveny (no way he plays 1st team)
Charleston (hot and cold)
Burchmore
Skapoulas
Saristavros
Papadimitriou ...... all back to 23s and pulled up as required and assessed end of season who can actually make step up.

Menelaou
Swibbel
Leech
Messourouni (prefer he departs)
Pope
Inglese (personally have little confidence he is the player that should be first choice backup but Coveny is worse and we cant giaannakop play back).....All assessed end of season regarding squad and necessary decisions made then imo...

The rest are cemented squad plus what should come in tranfer window (ST & CB backup minimum hopefully).
 
SMFC1959 said:
Can someone explain to me WTF we were thinking today ????

We’ve played so many senior players in the second half for a result that has ZERO bearing given we have qualified for the Leaders Group. The points reset to zero, so there’s literally NOTHING to play for !!!!

This is nothing short of a train wreck. It’s not an issue of players coming on for a portion of match time. They’ve played in difficult hot and humid conditions which would have sapped their energy levels.

Are we expecting our players to fly out Sunday morning, sit on a plane for 5.5 hours, then head straight to Lakeside to play against Oakleigh ??? Those players should have flown out on Friday to rest and be ready for Sunday’s match.
Click to expand...
Agree that all the senior players should have flown back to Melbourne at the conclusion of the Bula FC game instead of staying in Fiji to play and lose against the team who are in wooden spoon position in OFC Pro League, which now means that most likely we'll have to field an understrength side for the match against Oakleigh with players promoted from the reserves.
 
The worst part is we just had everyone laying around on the bench, they could have come back days ago. Hell we could have got a draw just by playing Lopez.

Hate the idea of an understrength team getting smashed by Macheteleigh.
 
southmelb said:
Today was an utter strategic failure on our end. The job was done after Bula. As soon as that match ended priority should have shifted to the Oakleigh game. Our next 3 npl games could make or break our season.

We will have to play anywhere between 5-6 must win games in Auckland next month meaning we will have to play kids in the npl for pretty much the entire month. Teams will make up ground on us but this could be softened startibg tomorrow. Instead it looks we are giving akis mob a free hit.

Jankovic, Uchida, Lampard and Bonoda playing 50+ minutes in those conditions is the equivalent to a full game here.

We hardly ever see our team play at lakeside so i'll be fuming if tomorrow is treated as a throwaway.
Click to expand...
Recipe for burn out and ahuge risk so close to the second round... shouldve walked this one in and played the oakleigh game then played the midweek ofc game slightly more rested imo.
 
southmelb said:
The worst part is we just had everyone laying around on the bench, they could have come back days ago. Hell we could have got a draw just by playing Lopez.

Hate the idea of an understrength team getting smashed by Macheteleigh.
Click to expand...
I just don’t understand the logic of what we did today. We literally have self sabotaged ourselves. Playing 45-50 mins in that heat would mean that we’ll be lucky to get 30 minutes out of them on Sunday against Oakleigh.

We are going to field either a very youthful side or a strong and experienced starting XI that will run out of puff by the 30 minute mark.
 
southmelb said:
We will have to play anywhere between 5-6 must win games in Auckland next month meaning we will have to play kids in the npl for pretty much the entire month. Teams will make up ground on us but this could be softened startibg tomorrow.
Click to expand...
The matches against Heidelberg, George Cross and Avondale will be sacrificed due to the OFC Pro League finals. Plus we have a Dockerty Cup fixture as well if we get past Bulleen.

As such, we need to win the St Albans and MelbCity Yth NPL matches just to retain our spot in the top 6 by the end of May.
 
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