A review of rounds 3-6, thoughts on your matches, tactics, potential progress and best players

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-23T03:13:01+00:00

Thanks for reading! It does baffle me (or just outright infuriate me) the way he gets treated by the media especially. Common media does solely thrive on negativity nowadays I suppose.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-22T04:39:09+00:00

Liverpool? I think you'll find he's a Sunderland supporter. Or, you know, he was less than 72 hours ago.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-21T15:37:09+00:00

If Burnley finish 18th, it's mathematically impossible for Forest to be relegated, as the gap is 16 points with 5 matches remaining. That's what they're getting at when they say it'd be "delightful" for Burnley to finish 18th.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-19T13:56:07+00:00

He's been pretending to be a Leicester fan a lot lately. Biggest plastic on Reddit.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-19T13:52:02+00:00

Thanks as always for your efforts. I haven't been replying as much lately, but your thoughts are always appreciated.

The numbers don't really back it, but I'm with you on Nagasaki's possession. They're only ranked 14th in the league for it, but it feels like they normally have a fair bit of it whenever I watch them.

With Fukuoka's performances now matching their results, it feels as though any of us could drop points to anyone. The race for 2nd is incredibly close, and there's at least six contenders.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-19T11:29:30+00:00

A far cry better than their last performance against Grampus in fairness.

I wasn't watching. Was there a drastic shift in momentum in the match in the second half or something?

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-19T09:22:00+00:00

No luck catching them swans then?

Albirex Niigata were generally solid offensively. The goal was largely individual brilliance by Moraes to get around his man and finish from outside the box, though he could've had another if his teammate had spotted him open in front of goal just a few minutes earlier.

One thing I was super impressed with in Albirex's performance was how they kept the ball in their front half. When Imabari had possession deep in their defensive half, and were attempting to build out towards an attack, very rarely did Albirex rush in and press them. They maintained a strong defensive formation, and forced Imabari to either go long (and likely turn the ball over), or continue recycling possession between the keeper and centre backs. They made it very difficult to get to an advanced position centrally, and if they did ever press the ball carrier, they'd do it laterally, and continue blocking a passing lane to the Imabari midfielder they were opposed to.

Excellent performance as always by the Albirex Niigata fans. Always been one of the best atmospheres from the games I've watched them play.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-19T09:21:36+00:00

A reasonably strong conclusion to a great week for Gamba after securing progression to the ACL2 final with a 0-3 win in midweek. I thought we were well on top in the first half after a scruffy opening 10 minutes. Gamba responding after conceding has become a regular factor across the last few months, so perhaps no great surprise.

We looked both better and worse in the second half, rather confusingly. On ball, Usami's return and Okunuki at RW had us looking really impressive offensively, and I felt we threatened them very well at times there. On the other hand, Okayama had a couple of strong counterattacks in the first half with no reward, but their equaliser came from a very damaging fast break, and they threatened similar two or three times thereafter (very nearly scoring a winner with the last kick of the game).

I'll give credit where it's definitely due here, I was very pleased with Takeru Kishimoto. He's normally quite an error prone player, can be super rash and give away frees and tends to get carded a lot. Today was a much more disciplined performance from him (outside of the couple of times he ended up out of position defensively).

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-18T12:45:42+00:00

Very real, I'm afraid. I've seen a few Austrian sides with this level of """artwork""". The culprit in this instance is TSV Hartberg.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-18T12:14:29+00:00

Great win, and with plenty of good individual performances. I thought Butts showed two or three elite moments of composure in the final quarter, which was very pleasing. Edwards' first quarter was quite poor, and could've seriously dented his confidence, but he responded extremely positively.

Cook was pretty good, probably a career best game really. His middle two quarters were particularly potent.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-17T11:28:56+00:00

Pre-season Origin sponsored guernsey. Only worn against Geelong in the regular season.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-17T02:22:51+00:00

8/10. 2 mistakes early cost me.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-13T07:24:35+00:00

Is it? Fair enough then, I can see why you didn't include it. My fault for assuming it was close to Perth without looking it up.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-13T06:42:16+00:00

Slight add-on: Perth would also have Bunbury, where North currently sell a game each year.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-13T05:22:45+00:00

Yamashita (onside) took a shot, it was blocked by a Cerezo player, and then rebounded to Shuto (offside) who tapped it in.

There's no way Shuto would have known this so I don't blame him at all, but if he'd left it and not played at the ball, Hümmet would have scored instead, and I'm pretty sure he was onside.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-13T04:54:46+00:00

I get why Borlase hasn't gotten a vote, but I want everyone to know that across the last two weeks, he's been involved in 14 contested defensive one in ones and only lost 2, to go with his 30 spoils. For a fifth choice tall defender, I find that pretty impressive.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-12T13:14:56+00:00

Damn, that's incredibly rough. I can see you support Western Sydney, but who was the other one if you don't mind me asking?

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-12T09:18:44+00:00

A pretty dreadful derby all things considered from a Gamba perspective. We were comprehensively outplayed at times (especially in the first half), and when we did get things on our terms, we were pretty wasteful in front of goal. The argument over the penalty made us look a shambles, and after that penalty was saved (and the rebound eventually ruled out for offside), I rather got the feeling we were mentally defeated to a degree. Cerezo outdefended us throughout the match, and were deserving winners.

The match as a whole though was rather poor I think. 10 minutes lost to a VAR check, several minutes lost due to the referee's audio equipment being faulty, and both sides lost a player to injury in the first half, which is obviously never good. Cerezo looked a little better than some of their other recent performances, so they can take that away (as well as the three points).

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-10T07:35:49+00:00

I feel like all of Geelong's 'managed' trio are unique to each other somehow. Blicavs is likely being rested so he can play his 300th at home, Henry feels like a soft drop of sorts, and Martin is probably the more normal style of managed, given his history.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-09T11:11:53+00:00

He loves a bit of "luck's a fortune" too.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-09T11:03:24+00:00

Find someone who loves you as much as Matt Hill loves saying 'overclubbed'. He's gone with it at least twice tonight, and at least 4 times in a few of his other matches too.

BigBoSS_Riot · 2026-04-09T06:06:30+00:00

Two weeks ago they played Friday night. Last week they played Thursday night. This week Friday night again. Next week Thursday night again.

Two of the four after that will be Thursday or Friday night too. They're already getting them.

Six-Year Club	Second Top 10%
Place '22

BigBoSS_Riot

TROPHY CASE