Shanghai Shenhua 2 - 0 Kawasaki Frontale
Another awful result. Can’t really comment too much on the performance for a few reasons. Firstly I didn’t see most of the game as I was working. And secondly, I guess the performance is never going to be particularly good if you have to play with ten men for 85 mins of the game. In previous years Oniki has been shown up in this competition and this year when we get shown up by pretty much anyone on a weekly basis, it’s no surprise we’re not doing well in the ACL. I think I said previously that the big problem with us not sacking Oniki or even coming to a ‘mutual consent’ agreement for him to leave earlier meant that he had the opportunity to not only destroy our league, Emperor’s Cup and Levain Cup prospects, but also do irrevocable damage to our ACL campaign for 24/25 before we’ve even got to 2025. In a competition where eight out of the twelve teams progress to the next round, it really takes a high level of incompetence to get your team knocked out, but it looks like Oniki has got the skills for the job. with only two teams sitting below us, we look like we’re in a pretty bad position. One of those two teams is Ulsan, who we just about sneaked past, against the run of play, in our opening game in what was a great triumph for Oniki. The fact that their two consequent opponents haven’t had much trouble scoring against them and beating them says a lot. We have one goal from over 270 minutes of football in this competition. Truly glorious stuff.
I can’t say for sure, but it seems that Oniki might have reverted to his favoured 4-3-3 for this game. Remember that formation that prevents us from winning almost every game recently? You know, the one that when he changes it results in significantly better performances? And then is brought back right in time for a defeat to follow up any half decent result? Lovely stuff! It’s hard to say if this game really was 4-3-3 as we were almost immediately a man down. But the pre-match line ups seem to suggest that is what happened. And after all, it’s Oniki we’re talking about, so it probably was. Marcinho has been sent off again, for pretty much the same thing he is always sent off for. You have to go back to 2017 for his previous red card before the ones this year. Which all suggests that perhaps he’s being asked to do something he clearly can’t do. But still the clown in charge is asking him to do it. I guess maybe Oniki doesn’t mind so much, as now it gives him something to divert the blame for the defeat from it being the result of his own massive inadequacies. In recent years Marcinho only seems to pick up a couple of yellows a season at the most. But this year he’s on fire in that respect too. Although a ratio of five yellow to one red suggests that more often than not, when he fouls, he really fouls. Given that he clearly can’t tackle, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Oniki try him at full back sooner or later. Because whilst it’s easy to say Oniki doesn’t ever really change anything much, the one thing he is constantly innovating with is playing new attackers out of position at full back. There really is no beginning to his managerial talents. But still, we can look forward to the after game comments where he once again says that the team wanted to win the match for all the fans who’d gathered in the stadium and those who were watching at home. Quite why he persists in saying something so blatantly obvious after every cock up makes me suspicious. Such is the lack of managerial talent from him that if he ever tried to throw a match I suspect we’d probably end up winning it. For years we said Oniki was an unbelievably lucky manager. I’m not sure he ever really had the golden touch. I think it was more a case of us having a platinum situation that he managed to not cock up too much. But whichever way you look at it, any golden touch is long gone, and any gold we might see now is clearly going to be from the kilolitres of golden liquid resulting from masses of absolutely piss poor performances, mostly thanks to piss poor management.
It’s very dangerous for us to get a win in 2024. After a win against the mighty Sony Sendai, we crashed out in the following round of the Emperor’s Cup to a J2 team. After just about defeating another J2 team in Kofu in the Levain Cup, we royally fucked up the next tie and were out. After a win in our opening game in the league, we then lost to Jubilo at home conceding five. It might be an exaggeration to say that put paid to our title hopes, but I think it clearly pointed at what was to come. And then in the ACL, a squeaky win against Ulsan and then two defeats. I mean, I know 2024 could have gone worse, but honestly it couldn’t have been much worse, could it? Next up Kashima at home on Friday next week. I intend to get smashed before the game and perhaps then I can sleep through most of it in the stands, the most effective way of enjoying Oniki’s football to the max.
GK 1. JUNG Sung-Ryong
DF 5. SASAKI Asahi
DF 13. MIURA Sota
MF 14. WAKIZAKA Yasuto
FW 41. IENAGA Akihiro
FW 20. YAMADA Shin
FW 23. MARCINHO (Red card 5')
GK 22. HAYASAKA Yuki
GK 98. YAMAGUCHI Louis
FW 9. ERISON (on for YAMADA 69')
DF 15. TANABE Shuto
FW 17. TONO Daiya (on for MIURA 79')
MF 19. KAWAHARA So (on for YAMAMOTO 64')
FW 24. MIYAGI Ten
FW 26. YAMAUCHI Hinata
FW 30. SEGAWA Yusuke (on for VAN WERMESKERKEN 69')
MF 34. YUI Kota
DF 44. CESAR HAYDAR
Goals
WANG (Shanghai) 24' 1-0
ANDRE LUIS (Shanghai) 90+3' PEN 2-0
Highlights
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