Midfield Victory!

Having no Talay for the Newcastle match meant I was really worried about how we would stack up against the strong midfield of the Jets. McFlynn and Milligan were unreal in the first half! McFlynn had the wood all over Carle, allowing the 3 midfielders and Brosque in front of them to run riot in the attacking 3^rd. This pairing kind of reminded me of the one Butcher sent out across the Tasman in Round 5 but using them in the 4-2-3-1 with the attacking players in front of them really made the difference compared to the 4-4-2 used back then when McFlynn and Milligan lined up as the only ones in the centre of the park.

I want to apologise to Butcher for giving him hell just after half time for taking off my still man of the match, Terry McFlynn for at the time what I thought was no reason. You could see just how much the game changed under his absence and the one player less in the midfield for the introduction of Petrovski. Now I have not been a fan of the bloke since his outburst against Butcher and subsequent links to various other clubs and I can never tell if Petrovski is just out of form or if he is not giving his all for the club or manager that he really doesn’t want to be pulling on the shirt for. Sydney just weren’t the same in the 2^nd half and I hope that some of the bashers of the 4-2-3-1 formation can see that just by putting “another striker” up front it will not make us play more attacking or dominant!

The game is set up perfectly for the away leg. I’m pretty confident that we can score and at least nab a draw to go through. With Melbourne failing to score in Adelaide tonight in what would have to be one of the contenders for poorest game of football this league has seen, Adelaide are now favorites for the tie to me, with hopefully Sydney facing the loser. Although I would love to play Melbourne in the Grand Final down there, I really think Adelaide will now take the tie and we will be playing the tards next week. Either way I can’t wait until Newcastle away on Friday!

DANE