‘Forget It Happened’: Three things we learned – Brisbane vs City

Patrick Kisnorbo named a heavily rotated lineup to face Brisbane Roar away from home last night… and it all went downhill from there.

We hardly even want to recap the game, with three of the cheapest goals you’re likely to see – including two penalties – finding the back of City’s net without reply.

Here’s what we’ve taken away from the 3-0 loss:

@wisemansports (Photo from City 3-2 Brisbane @ AAMI)

Georgievski might be one of our worst bits of transfer business in recent times

Brought to City as Nathaniel Atkinson’s injury-replacement, Georgievski had a shocker last night, giving a penalty away in the first five minutes, and fortunate not to have given another away before half-time.

The fullback’s passing radar seemed to be entirely off, with the exception of one brilliant line-breaking ball for Galloway late in the first half, with countless passes either missing the mark or forcing his teammates into compromising situations.

Though he played the full 90 last night, Georgievski is quite clearly the fourth-choice fullback – the position he was signed to play in – and based on the sample size we’ve been given, is also far from convincing as a centre-back.

Fans may have hoped that the A-League veteran would bring experience and reliability, but that’s hardly been the case since his arrival.

The Tsubaki experiment isn’t working

By Lachlan Wight

When we first signed Naoki Tsubaki, we described it as a risk.

With the performance he put in against Brisbane last night, I think that we can start to say that the risk isn’t paying off.

Selected as the starting right-winger over much-loved youth academy product Stef Colakovski, Tsubaki recorded one successful cross and one shot on target, whilst just three of his passes went forward for the entire 90 minutes.

Visually, he appeared flat-footed when balls were being passed around him (in a system that requires selfless off-ball movement), lacked urgency in his press and was forced into unnecessary recovery sprints due to poor positioning.

Tsubaki has been training with City for half a year now, so should understand the requirements of his role and be expected to fulfil that role effectively.

Don't misunderstand this point - Tsubaki was poor on a night where City was poor across the board. But because Tsubaki takes up a VISA spot, the expectations placed on him are, and rightly should be, higher than other players.

Now that the negativity is out of the way… forget it happened

That’s right. Let it slide.

It can be tough not to hold on to things like pride or undefeated streaks, but cutting the team some slack and moving straight on from that result is probably the best thing for both yourself and morale amongst the fan base.

Maintaining a positive outlook towards this campaign, towards our final home game of the regular season next Sunday and towards the Finals series in a few weeks is how fans can continue to build a positive relationship with the club.

So let’s move on and get to AAMI Park on Sunday to farewell our Socceroos.