Robbie Slater and Marco Monteverde examine A-League, football’s big issues in On the Attack
With Wanderers’ coach Marko Rudan postion on the line, MARCO MONTEVERDE and ROBBIE SLATER discuss his future at the club, poor crowds and more.
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Wanderers must lift for fans
RS: It’s time for Western Sydney Wanderers players to stand up and be accountable for the club’s dismal form.
While the buck stops with coach Marko Rudan, his players also must take plenty of the responsibility for Tuesday night’s disastrous 7-0 loss to Melbourne City.
The way they folded after City’s first goal was unacceptable, and so was their body language.
MM: I couldn’t believe what I was watching, despite the signs not being good going into the match.
What’s your call on Rudan’s future, particularly with news of the Wanderers having approached both Tony Popovic and Patrick Kisnorbo?
RS: For me, that’s only a rumour.
The Wanderers need to concentrate on Saturday’s match against Perth Glory and nothing else. There’s no point in sacking Rudan now.
he Wanderers have only six games left in the regular season.
If they decide they want to make a coaching change, that can wait until the end of the season.
For now, they just need to take things one game at a time.
They can still make the top six, but looking too far ahead will get them nowhere.
MM: Maybe a few days away in Perth together will do them good.
RS: The players need to get together over there and make some type of pact to put all this rubbish behind them and finish the season on a high, particularly for their fans.
If there’s tension with the coach, they need to deal with it and get on with what they’re paid to do, play football at a decent level.
What they’ve dished up in their past few games has been abysmal.
City super but crowd awful
MM: I know how bad the Wanderers were on Tuesday night but we probably should acknowledge the performance of Melbourne City.
That could be the performance that properly kick-starts their season, although in saying that, they beat Brisbane Roar 8-1 in December and didn’t kick on from there.
Still, they have won two on the trot, and have also kept back-to-back clean sheets.
Jamie Maclaren also scored for the first time in 11 matches.
That might not guarantee him a start in City’s next match but it will lift his confidence.
RS: There’s no doubt it was a good display from City, but where were the people?
I know it was a weeknight, but seriously, an attendance of 2182?
That’s embarrassing for City and the A-League.
And it’s not just City where crowds are a problem.
It’s happening throughout the competition. And what are the A-League doing about it?
To me, it seems that they’re not doing much.
Their lack of promotion for this competition is obvious and it’s just not good enough.
MM: Low crowds have been a concern all season.
RS: For many years in the A-League, crowds of less than 10,000 were considered poor.
Now it seems that people are rejoicing if we manage to get one crowd per round of more than 10,000.
I’ll commend Sydney FC for their crowds this season but there’s not much else to cheer about in terms of attendances.
Again, the APL needs to do something about it because the way we’re going, we’re not going to have a competition in the future if we’re not careful, such is the disturbing lack of interest in it, and people’s lack of knowledge about it.
Support the Socceroos
MM: We definitely need crowds to lift, not only for A-League matches but for Socceroos games as well.
Let’s hope the people of Sydney and Canberra turn out in big numbers for Australia’s upcoming matches against Lebanon.
It’s great that we get to host an extra World Cup qualifier and we need to make the most of it.
RS: Yeah the Socceroos, like the Matildas, deserve big crowds when they play at home.
MM: What did you make of Australia’s squad?
It’s great to see Ajdin Hrustic back in the squad, and Adam Taggart as well.
Josh Nisbet and Apostolos Stamatelopoulos can consider themselves unlucky considering their A-League form but coach Graham Arnold did suggest they would be a good chance to be part of the squad for the June World Cup qualifiers against Bangladesh and Palestine, particularly if we seal qualification to the third round of World Cup qualifiers by beating Lebanon twice, which we should.
In planning for the future, I thought “Arnie” might have gone for Stamatelopoulos, who has attracted interest from clubs in Germany, England and at least one other European nation, over Bruno Fornaroli this time, but Fornaroli found form again on the weekend in the A-League, and this gives him at least another couple of chances to score his maiden goal for Australia, which I’d love to see him do.
RS: Yeah, Fornaroli deserves another chance.
Hrustic’s creativity, which we missed at the Asian Cup, should provide him with chances when he’s on the park.
It’s also good to see Brandon Borrello back in the squad considering he missed the Asian Cup with an ankle injury.
With Martin Boyle out, Borrello should get more of an opportunity on the wing.
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