By the Palm Trees – Central Coast Mariners vs Perth Glory
It was disappointment for our boys when they visited Allianz Stadium last weekend coming home after a two nil loss, but there were still some positive signs for the future of Phil Moss’s men. Much to the dismay of our fans, Graham Arnold’s men defended well and took their chances brilliantly when they came. On the other hand our boys were good in patches but lacked consistency in defence and failed to finish when the chances came.
Plenty won’t agree with me about the positive signs in our loss but I’m not ready to make predictions of doom for our team until I see us playing the majority of a game to our capability and still struggling. Terry Antonis scorching strike is a difficult one for anyone to stop and no less difficult to produce. As per my blog last weekend, through Antonis’ finish, Sydney FC was able to continue their spectacular finishing of some of their previous matches. The second goal had an element of luck to it but it would be hard to ignore the sloppy defence which allowed Sasa Ognenovski’s lucky deflection to go unprotected.
The way I see it, our boys were competitive through much of the loss to Sydney FC and again showed glimpses of their capabilities. With some good chances created, if Mitchel Duke finishes either his one on one, which slammed against the cross-bar, or his penalty, the result could easily have been different. The #MossOut calls I’ve seen on Social media are (for me) premature and while no fan likes their team losing games, it’s a long season and there is still plenty of time for the team to develop the right combinations and begin to deliver what their capable of delivering. The biggest need at the moment continues to be scoring goals and I’m hopeful Mossy will continue to tinker selections in the front third to try and achieve some change to that. In that vein, it can’t be too long before Mitchell Duke gets his opportunity to play as the central striker, while Nick Fitzgerald deserves his shot in the starting line-up. Fans picking teams is divisive but from what I’ve seen I’d be looking for something like – Reddy, Rose, Bosnar, Poscoliero, Roux, Montgomery, Caceres, Fitzgerald, Trifiro, Sim and Duke to start – with Hutchinson, Simon, Mane, Anderson and Nash on the bench. While I love the look of some of what Kim provides (especially in the dead ball stakes) I’d like to see more hard work and toughness for him to return to my team. It’s too early to expect to see Matt Simon back in this weekend’s team but watching him go around with the NYL boys yesterday gave a me some confidence he is headed in the right direction to return to his past level of performances. I’m hoping to see him during our mid-week FFA cup match.
This weekend’s Perth matchup represents an opportunity to move on from the results of the last couple of weeks and put ourselves back on track. A loss sees us fall further behind the leaders while a win over the relatively in-form Glory would see us moving ahead into a tough period of scheduling with a level of confidence and optimism.
Perth Glory has been playing well and getting results with no-one playing better than their striker recruit, Andy Keogh. Scoring consistently in both the FFA cup and A-League matches he’s played so far, there is no doubt he is a key man for the Glory in this match. While Keogh has been banging in the goals, the Glory has found some consistency in their selections and I think this is why the results have been coming. The team has been producing the service required for their new striker and the signs are good for them. While they have managed to improve on their usually fragile away form a little they have won only one of their past nine away encounters. Additionally, they have never won an A-League match in Gosford (with the exception of a Preliminary Final won on penalties) and will need to produce their very best to have a chance of improving on that statistic this weekend.
For the Mariners, I’m hoping Mossy is getting closer to coming up with the best starting side and this will hopefully help with the team finding some combination and consistency in the upcoming matches. Smarting from last weekend’s loss, the boys come home and will be determined to restore the fortress aura of our Central Coast Stadium home.
I’m going to go against form and with the statistics for this one and predict the Mariner’s to tough it out with the travelling Glory and take the points by at least a goal.
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