Although there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that its already about noon by the time this dawn came.
John Aloisi has been sacked, while this isn’t an overly big surprise in itself, his figures can now be looked at fairly starkly and they don’t make for pretty reading. His record sits within that of Mehmet Durakovic, Ron Smith (who, walked into a Heart job after a shocking run of results at Perth), Franz Straka and the man with the easily the worst coaching record of anyone in the A-League, John Adshead (whose best moment, dragging New Zealand to the World Cup in 1982, occured some 23 years before his appointment at the now defunct New Zealand Knights.
| Games Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Win % | |
| Aloisi | 39 | 8 | 7 | 24 | 20.51282 |
| Durakovic | 14 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 21.42857 |
| Smith | 32 | 5 | 11 | 16 | 15.625 |
| Straka | 30 | 4 | 7 | 19 | 13.33333 |
| Adshed | 21 | 1 | 3 | 17 | 4.761905 |
This table is terrifying and confidence building at the same time, terrifying because the results of two of these managers had a contribution to the dissolution of two clubs (although off-field problems plagued both the North Queensland Fury and New Zealand Knights from day one). While a poor coaching decision from Perth lead to them hanging around the wrong end of the A-League table for a few years after Smith. However the Durakovic saga (whose record is most similar to Aloisi’s) should give the Melbourne Heart faithful some much needed cheer, as a year after one of their worst, with a good manager at the helm managed to become a powerhouse of the competition. It is also a touch worrying that Aloisi held onto his job for longer then any of these other coaches.
Post mortem.
What went wrong? You can nearly go back to the initial coaching team that was put together, where good vibrations were probably put ahead of common sense (as hinted at in this article by Tom Pollock at the time of the appointment), Aloisi, Foxe and Didulica had no coaching experience at the time of all their appointment. While there is no point crying over spilt milk (I’ll do it anyway) the loss of Milicic looks especially bad and he had all of the right characteristics to be a senior coach, but was over-looked due to the lack of marketability compared to eventual appointment, Aloisi. The Western Sydney Wanderers model also provides a lot of useful hints for what to get right. The appointment of Terry Morgan as youth coach is probably the most shrewd of them all, his connection with the Westfields Sports High School will be invaluable in the mid to long term. Ultimately, surrounding an inexperienced coach with no local support (The aforementioned Ron Smith was based in Canberra and working in a part time capacity was the only coach who had any first team experience) was an experiment that was doomed from the very start. So how can Melbourne Heart make sure that this never happens again?
The first move made was the right one, appointing John Van’t Schip (JVS) is a good move for several reasons, he has past ties to the club and left it in a very healthy position wise, and while the club (From chairman, through manager) might be talking up finals prospects, JVS lead the club through its most prosperous period while playing a lot of youth players, something which has entirely disappeared in the last year and a half. While Aloisi was backed into an impossible position, due to the ineffectiveness of his players and his unwillingness to change his system, JVS has the liberty of 15 games at the end of which, he’ll likely walk away and return to his other ventures. He won’t be in charge of a lot of player movement due to this, but the club needs to make some hard calls in the January transfer window and this is where John Didulica should earn his crust, there are several players which need to be shown the door now, football is no place for sentiment and sadly, the likes of Jonathon Germano (0 games) and Dylan Macallister (0 games) should be shown the door. There is also a need to take a good hard look at the recruitment decisions regarding international players, with only Wielaert and Mifsud being the current two being picked on a week in, week out basement from a total of 5 allowed players, this is entirely unacceptable and should come under a strict review. The signing of Marcel Meeuwis last year didn’t work out, however the clubs endeavour was right (it also came right at the point where the club started its mammoth winless streak, something that Meeuwis shouldn’t be held accountable for). So there is still work to be done on this season, but more importantly, who should our next coach be?
All Heart 