ThunderPower_14

Sounds like a job for Lucy Zelic if i've ever seen one. You'd imagine the Mariners play exclusively on the counter attack now. Imagine trying to deal with that as a defender!

It clearly and obviously hit him in an outstretched hand. It took that many rewatches to decide whether it was reasonable for him to have his arm flailing about like that. Harsh but ultimately fair. I'd be filthy if I was French and that wasn't given.

3rd kit is cool. I'd never wear it personally but I like it. I'm definitely of the opinion that a claret body and blue sleeves should be the norm, but it's also fine to deviate from the norm from time to time. The 99/00 stripes kit was great as well. We'd had something like 14 kits in a row that stuck to the normal formula, so i'm fine with the claret sleeves for a year, especially when it looks this nice.

I know it's not the thread for it but f*** Randy Lerner. He'd clearly realised that we weren't going anywhere under his leadership years ago, probably shortly after MON left. At that stage there was still no FFP. Why not just put the club up for sale then? Why allow club culture to become so rotten that we get relegated and then sell to a chancer when we're at our lowest and most vulnerable point? He probably lost a stack of money by waiting as well. Madness.

Phew. One of the defenders needed to just deal with that

I can get it shipped to Australia for Aus $102 ($12 shipping) which is so reasonable for a football shirt in 2018 i've now gone from definitely not buying it under any circumstances prior to the launch to now seriously considering it.

Yeah absolutely. They absolutely can't win with something like bringing back Lando, because they're stuck between raucous, angry fans who want them to do something new and unexpected, and raucous, angry fans who aren't happy with anything that strays even a hair from Lucas's original vision.

It's definitely growing on me. My only real issue is that I can't help but see West Midlands Village. The detailing and quality looks terrific in the close ups. Rubberised badges are pretty common these days aren't they? I think it looks fairly sharp, and the way the lion is rendered looks really sharp. It's 2018. Badges don't have to be embroidered just because that's the way it's always been done. I do wonder how the badge will hold up after a few washes. I was a bit unsure as to whether i'd like the Luke logo on the shirt, but he's made it fairly small and innocuous so I can't complain. I was half expecting it to be as big as the badge itself.

Really pleased. Smart and classy.

The blue is a bit garish but the design isn't too bad for trainingwear. I think the unibet in the plain font looks way better than their logo with the circles from last season. It gives off a bit of a retro vibe.

That wideish shoulder stripe seems to be a bit of a Luke staple. It wouldn't shock me to see it on the kit, but who knows. I quite like those training shirts at first glance.

According to a comment from avfcofficial on the Instagram post of those training shirts, the kits are released on Monday at 10am

I'll probably buy a Grealish shirt if he stays for the season. I really don't begrudge him going to the Premier League. He's a wonderful player and you know he'd be with us for life if we had our shit together. His career shouldn't be held back by the state our club has gotten into. I just hope we're in a position a bit later on where we can get him back.

If Brazil win the tournament it'll do absolute wonders for his legacy. Nobody will care about the rolling around on the ground. I'm surprised the Mexican player didn't get carded for treading on his ankle though. Knew exactly what he was doing.

This was my tactic, just react to what happens. That said, I did give away keeping in my late teens, so I rarely faced a player who could strike the ball with accuracy and power.

I wouldn't want to even if we could. Moving to Asia wasn't just about avoiding the cutthroat playoff against the 5th placed South American side, it was about playing more regularly against better quality opposition to build cohesion.

These countries don't have 2 much larger financial powerhouse football codes competing for players and sponsorship dollars.

Ha, i've just argued the exact opposite point, that we should be getting our most talented kids over to Europe to get elite level coaching before they are too set in their ways. Edit: And by overseas I mean Europe only. Players going overseas to Asia or the Middle East is so frustrating and such a waste IMO. Actually we may be sort of arguing the same point, as Leckie and Rogic both moved when they were 19-20 years old. Totally agree that the A-League should stop paying big money to average journeyman professionals from overseas and focus on youth development. Sure, if you can get Romario or Del Piero over, great. But not Ross bloody McCormack. I'm not sure what the rule is in terms of the salary cap bonus for marquee players, but it should be pretty strictly restricted to players who will genuinely bring people through the gates.

The FFA has been butting heads with the A-League for years which is incredibly frustrating. Football is the 3rd biggest winter sport in Australia in terms of financial clout, and there are only 24 million Australians, so we're probably never going to be rivaling the big European or South American teams, but we can definitely be doing things better. Putting quality coaching ahead of paying big money for the likes of Ross McCormack would be a good start, but until we have that sort of coaching, we really need a culture shift to where it's expected that anyone who wants to be a professional goes and does his apprenticeship in Europe. That used to be the case in the Kewell/Viduka era but has dropped away since being a professional in Australia actually became a viable option. Absolutely. The technique isn't there and the defending in the A-League is awful. We aim to be fairly tidy without a whole lot of natural flair for the most part. At a national level we've relied on Tim Cahill to score headed goals from set pieces for over a decade now. Cahill doesn't even play as a striker at club level, which shows how far away that is from a reasonable strategy, especially now that Cahill is 38. I think the attacking trio of Leckie, Rogic and Arzani are all fairly individually talented but they struggled to play off of each other very well. It just seemed to be one making a run then getting to a dead end and laying off to a fullback or a central midfielder. Inside the box we don't have anything resembling a competent striker at world cup level. I feel like we could play for weeks and not find the back of the net from open play.

The double edged sword of the A League is that while football is more popular than ever in Australia, young aspiring professionals can make a living playing football without ever leaving their home country where the quality in coaching etc simply isn't there. The good players seem to get snapped up by teams in Asia and the Middle East and precious few actually make it to Europe. We had 3 players playing in the top division of a big European league in that squad. Ryan and Mooy in the Prem and Leckie in Germany. Compare that to 2006 where something like 18 of the 23 were playing in big leagues against great players week in week out. We need to get the likes of Arzani to Europe ASAP.

I feel like we're playing okay but having no luck and having nobody with any idea how to score a goal outside of a set piece anywhere near the side.

I went for my first run of any variety in over a year today. I definitely got a bit long term relationship comfortable and then my fitness went into the negatives when my missus got pregnant and we stopped walking the dogs every day. A light jog, about 3km. I'm going to try to go 3-4 times a week. I've started playing social basketball again but i've lost all acceleration and power in my legs. It's really bizarre. My mind thinks I can do things like move laterally and jump more than 2 inches off of the ground but my body just can't do it. I just really want to build up a bit of strength in my legs and tone up a bit. I'm definitely getting old man knees now as well, they feel good after the run but I actually need to warm up before a basketball game these days.

I felt like we had the better chances but we just don't have a natural striker at all, apart from Cahill who is about 70 years old and was sitting on the bench. Really happy with Arzani, Rogic and Leckie. I think there is huge potential there, they just need someone to finish off their work. We really need to get Arzani over to Europe asap.

That penalty is a microcosm of everything that's wrong with video replays refereeing in a contact sport but I'll take the goal at this point!

In the tackle where VAR gave the penalty to France against Australia, the defender clearly gets a touch on the ball. It deviates on every camera angle. If getting the ball means the tackle is legal (and I know it's more complicated than that), then it should have been waved away.