Two Roar Home Games Before Finals: Book now 5 Jan v Victory, 13 Jan v Sydney,

The Roar is on fire. Hamish is right, Seo points to Australia's footballing future, technically brilliant, humble and fair. A keeper less than Danny Vukovic and Seo's long range strike would have hit pay dirt.

Anyway, the Roar have proved they can more than match the best in the league. So while its going to be a bumpy ride, the finals and Asia beckon. Any more than 15,000, and Lang Park rocks, its intimidating in the way Telstra Dome has been for Victory. 20,000 or 30,000 and it would be deafening. We should go for 52,000 like against Paraguay...

Book here for the final home games.

Sat 5, 7:00 PM Melbourne Victory FC Suncorp Stadium

Sun 13, 6:00 PM Sydney FC Suncorp Stadium

As Frank said in his blog:

So many people were saying this match was a ‘must win’ for us and I suppose that’s easy to say when you’re not one of the players who have to go out there and get that result against a very good team.

This group of lads has a pretty special thing going at the moment in terms of the atmosphere in the dressing room and their collective will to win.

Roar 2 v CCM 1: I'm just a poor boy whose intentions are good..

This game had everything.

A clear penalty in the first 2 minutes waved on.

A goal from John Aloisi.

Two goals from Tony Vidmar. The second a nice hand ball round his keeper. And he saved us from another penalty test.

Lots of diving from Aloisi.

Great running play from Danny Tiatto on the left wing in place of Zullo - who'd have thought it? Great ball work from Reinaldo - who'd have thought it?

Central Coast tanked half way through the second half, even emptying their bench didn't work. Who'd have thought that.

Best game of the year from the Roar. Makes up for last week. And this round was perhaps the A-League's most exciting.

Crowd of 16,442, looked and sounded like 20,000.

Victory 2 v Adelaide 2: Goal ruthlessness

This was a very entertaining match. Adelaide went 2 up against the run of play and Melbourne fought their way back. A crowd of 22,000 seemed to get their money's worth, if not 3 points.

Archie Thompson was marvelous. As he has been all season.

The highlight was Paul Agostino's absolute ruthlessness in front of goal. Well the first was a tap in - which could have been offside. But the second. He beat Muscat to the rebounding header and then rammed Muscat, head first, against the post. Take that sucker.

Muscat's revenge was a beautifully executed penalty. And a a cracking own goal from Richie Alagich. He couldn't have tried to do that.

Oh looks like Nathan Burns is out for the rest of the season with hamstring problems - just when his parter Bruce Djite was ready to play half a game - how did Adelaide afford such a strong squad?

Wellies 3 v Perth 0; Syd 1 v Newc 0; Sydney get massive boost

Suspensions but no suspense.

Perth's best players Topor-Stanley and Harnwell were both sent off to give Wellington an easy win. Helping Sydney for its 2nd last home game against Perth next week. In Sydney, a crazy moment from Ruben Zadkovich on the half way line sliding into Adam Griffiths, brought Sydney back to 10 men on 52 minutes. But the most sensational moment of the whole game was Tony Popovic's off-the-ball elbow to Joel Griffith's head - knocking Griffith's out cold, he came back but didn't look right from then on - which will make Newcastle feel robbed and is likely to lead to an FFA investigation and - I would think - 2 or more weeks on the side for Popovic. If Popovic is sent off, he already had a yellow, there would be no injury time goal for Sydney, and their top 4 hopes would be in crisis. As it is, a betting person would back them from here, maybe all the way?

In terms of crowd, Sydney's season has been a disaster. Poor weather, crowd behaviour and media beat-ups scaring off families, and general version 3 blues have kept people away - only just over 10,000 made Sydney Football Stadium look lonely last night. Amazingly, Sydney have only two home games left - after next week against Perth, the next will be the last of the game of the season - what is usually the season's hum-dinger against Melbourne. But after what happened in the other two games the clubs played this season, we can expect more police than families. The week-about rhythm of going to the game just has not been built for the legion of fans the game needs in Australia's biggest city. The FFA really needs to move on new teams to get interest back... maybe the North Melbourne Kangaroos...

For me, last night's results put tremendous pressure on the Roar. They have 3 of their 6 games at home. If they make the finals, the crowds will come and life will be breathed into the A-League. If they miss out, again...

While the Roar publicity has been about how 'the rest of the table will be willing us on against Central Coast' to bring CCM back to the pack, I don't think so. I think the other teams want to cement their top 4 place. Climbing over the Roar would be an easier way to do that rather than worry about CCM's position. Lose or draw against CCM and the Roar could be out of the top 4 by the end of next week.

Perth's debacle against Wellington, means Sydney are very likely to get 6 points (3 last night and 3 at home next week against a Topor-Stanley and Harnwell depleted Perth) from 2 games and firm its bid for the top 4. The Roar, on the other hand, can't afford anything other than a victory against Central Coast or its hopes of making the top 4 for the first time will look a lot bleaker.

Next week the Roar play a resurgent Wellington in NZ, and the following week Perth (with best players Topor-Stanley and Harnwell back and desperate to appease their home fans) in WA. Both home teams will be desperate and have nothing at all to loose. Meanwhile, the Roar has been playing a 'draw is taking 2 points from your opposition' game - which is a 50-50 option when your opponents have the same game plan. Following up the Roar play Victory at Land Park, Sydney at Lang Park and finish up away to Adelaide.

FFA signs coach

It was the strangest thing. The body language from the Australians was dreadful. Lowy and Buckley looked for all the world like they had been forced to settle for someone they didn't want. Even the room lighting was all wrong.

Perth 3 v Victory 1: Victory stumble- Thompson forced to do it all

Jerry Karpeh is looking like a great buy for Perth - speedy and with a great sense of timing and a great cross. Came on at half time and had an immediate impact flying after a long ball down the right to centre for Rukavytsya to score his second.

With Sydney with a game in hand after yesterday's rain-out at Central Coast - Melbourne are struggling to stay intouch with the 4.

Next week's game of the round could be Sunday's Roar v CCM. CCM will be without Hutchinson and Petroski whose suspensions have carried over. Moore is likely to be back for the Roar - but what does Frank have up his sleeve upfront to produce goals from the left?

Zullo looks likely to miss most of the rest of the season

Maybe proving that he can jump 2 metres off the ground wasn't such a good idea.

Time to buy a marquee striker as cover (to recover the crowd interest) or how about Mark Bridge from his wasteland at Newcastle?