TOPIC:

Perth Glory coach owner sacks coach after poor showing against Melbourne. That is after playing off in that controversial Grand final last year. Some people don't accept failure too easily and act accordingly. Wondering if Mr Sage will have a cultural figjam cleansing come season end. For the record they where robbed by that worst acting and umpiring decision I have seen of late.

Perth Glory have been s**t ever since the A League started with last season being the rare good showing from the club.

However when you go from Grand Finalist to bottom within the space of a season then something is very wrong - and in soccer the coach is often quick to get the brunt of it.

I think Sage overestimates the value of his squad, however they are not bottom of the league material.

BTW Personally I'd like to see them give more guys from the local league a go. Ever since day 1 the club has bought a lot of mercenaries and journeymen. As in all sports some work out and some don't - it was very successful in the NSL days but its not cutting the mustard for them in the A League. Not saying other clubs don't do it but Glory need to have a radical rethink of where they are travelling.

Sage could probably save a lot of money (since he's always whinging about the cost) by recruiting a number of talented youngsters from the state league and building a side rather than hoping for the quick fix.

DaveRoyal wrote: Perth Glory have been s**t ever since the A League started with last season being the rare good showing from the club.

However when you go from Grand Finalist to bottom within the space of a season then something is very wrong - and in soccer the coach is often quick to get the brunt of it.

I think Sage overestimates the value of his squad, however they are not bottom of the league material.

BTW Personally I'd like to see them give more guys from the local league a go. Ever since day 1 the club has bought a lot of mercenaries and journeymen. As in all sports some work out and some don't - it was very successful in the NSL days but its not cutting the mustard for them in the A League. Not saying other clubs don't do it but Glory need to have a radical rethink of where they are travelling.

Sage could probably save a lot of money (since he's always whinging about the cost) by recruiting a number of talented youngsters from the state league and building a side rather than hoping for the quick fix.

Couldn't agree more RD. In life people always seem to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence tilll they get there. The same applies to sport, the youth that toil away need to be given their opportunity or they quickly become disenchanted and give it away. It all comes back to having the correct people looking after development and recruiting for their sporting and business.

The Glory must of done things right the year before as they made the Grand final and where robbed. So barring a few changes in players the coaching staff should wear the blame and Mr Sage acted accordingly after a meek performance against Melbourne . Other clubs just seem to be content to sit on their hands.

RD most mercenaries are only in it for the quick buck and could not careless about the clubs they play for. Here today gone tomorrow .

Agree with others that Glory should look harder at the local talent and give more young WA players a go in their team. As Edwards was involved with the youth team we may see some of these guys given an extended chance.
This should be their long term focus.

Reckon they were very lucky to get into the Final last year, most of the year they played crap. The A League in general is a bit of piss weak comp, clubs come and go and so do players, hard to tell form from one year to the next, reckon Glory are a spent force as a major player in WA sports scene anyway, just to much comp from Wildcats and Rugby and of course AFL kills them as well.
Crowd figures are nothing like the Bernt Stanger days, the novelty is gone and won't come back.

The club did not get off to a good start in the a league (off the pitch) after Nick Tana bailed on them. They're still playing catch up on that one - not to mention poor performances and a number of odd decisions over the years.

I think there's still potentail for them though.

On a related note has anyone read about the so called "NPL" coming soon.

Basically all "division one" state league soccer clubs will soon be playing under a nationwide umbrella. Essentially they'll play their league within their own conference but the champions will play a sort of cup or mini league at the end of the season to determine a nationwide champion. Its a psuedo 2nd tier but will go a lot further in this direction than the foxtel cup currently does.

Ultimately they want promotion/relegation from the A league which is a really dumb idea (imagine the eagles got dumped from the afl and joined the wafl).

Given that the A league can't keep a steady number of clubs together the idea seems very premature to me, however it'll be interesting to see what interest it garners in the long run.