The landscape can change quickly

Four weeks ago Frank Farina was a dead man walking or, if you prefer, John Aloisi. If you believe everything that is written then the former Socceroo boss was potentially just a single loss away from the sack just a month ago. He had even had the dreaded vote of confidence. Now four weeks on and the Sky Blues are somehow sharing second with Western Sydney Wanderers. Yet there was not a single truly inspiring 90 minutes over the month. All four wins owed far more to blue collar work ethic than their long-held bling moniker. With such a fine line between relative success and the coaching scrapheap it is little wonder that Farina’s ‘week at a time’ mantra features heavily in the A-League book of coaching platitudes and clichés, version 9 (updated to include extra Tony Popovic chapters).

Self-assurance is everything for a striker

Football is often a game of tight margins, meaning lining up with a potent striker can be everything. Turning those draws into one goal wins can be the difference between winning and losing the league. Who knows how much better the Wanderers debut season could have been, had they lined-up with Tomi Juric rather than Dino ‘goal a season’ Kresinger as their No. 9. Besart Berisha’s winner on Saturday against Perth Glory was a classic striker’s goal, and one that few other players in the competition could have executed. Indeed, Berisha is playing with a rare confidence and sometimes that self-belief is the distinction that separates a goal and a near miss. Witness last week’s determined and confident run through the middle of the Wanderers defence to score a goal which reeked of that oversized kid using all his growth-spurt advantage to power through the opposition U-14 defence. And while we are on the topic, has there ever been three more confident strikes than Adam Taggart’s long-range treble last week? Discuss...

Del Piero not essential for success

It seemed last year that any success Sydney FC enjoyed was in concert with Alessandro Del Piero’s form. They won just one of four games in which the Italian didn’t start last term. This season Del Piero has nabbed a single goal from open play in seven starts. Though injury may have been a factor, Saturday night was arguably his most ineffectual performance since arriving in Australia. His yellow card for his huffy ‘don’t you know who I am’ exit from the field was poor form at best, though it perhaps hints at a greater unhappiness. It may be that Il Pinturicchio’s storied and glorious career only has a few months to run.

Fan culture takes another shift

Melbourne has always been a militant kind of town. Perhaps it is some sort of traditional flow-on from the Eureka Stockade era and a strong record of robust protests, or the 21st century equivalent of suburban anti-establishment; indolently hanging by the ticket machine on the tram with no intention of touching on or off that myki card. Either way it is hard to imagine many, if any, other A-League cites doing the silent protest for the first half as the Yarraside did in a slightly curious protest, which oscillated somewhere between petulant and admirably rebellious. Perhaps, though, the desired effect was achieved because Melbourne Heart were finally involved in a genuinely pulsating game for the first time this season. And the atmosphere – though the second lowest crowd of the season, behind only Central Coast Mariners on Friday – was electric as AAMI Park again proved itself to be the A-League’s most atmospheric venue.

Roar are the best A-League team ever

It’s official. Brisbane Roar are the best team in the A-League. The statisticians said so and who are mere mortals to argue. Brisbane Roar’s three points this weekend lifted them above Central Coast Mariners on the all-time A-League points table. Rather like the Unofficial Football World Championship, the merits of such a claim are debatable but there is no doubting Brisbane’s consistency in the Postecoglou-Mulvey epoch.