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Tuesday Teabag: Heart approach hilarious record

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Hi, Melbourne Heart. Here we are again. It hasn't been all that long since we last had a talk but plenty of things have happened in that time; sadly for you, none of those things are winning a game.

The last time we spoke there was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel; the Heart had just made a comeback against Adelaide to grab a point and fans had reason to believe that the club could claw its way out of the self-dug grave, maybe to even join the middle of the pack.


Six games later and, well, yeah, nah, the outlook is pretty bleak.

On the date of publishing, it has been 324 days since a regular season Melbourne Heart win. Although the preseason wins over Oakleigh Cannons and Richmond SC don't count, there must be talks of a four-disc DVD commemorating the victories in the works from the Heart camp.

Remember when the Brisbane Roar had that 36-game unbeaten streak? Remember how much praise and admiration they received as a result of achieving such a feat? Well this is kind of like that, except the direct opposite.

In fact, if the Heart don’t pick up the three-point result on Friday against Newcastle, it will notch up their 20th game in a row without a win.

Already joint holders of the winless games A-League record, tied with the now-defunct New Zealand Knights, the Heart have the chance to go one worse and take the record for themselves.

It takes a special sort of ineptness, especially with the tools the Heart have at their disposal, to go 20 full football matches without a win in a competition like the A-League, which is relatively evenly balanced for the most part.

The Football Sack recently presented the Heart with a big ol’ F on their midseason report card and it’s pretty clear to see why.

You could rattle off a list of things wrong with the club but it doesn’t even seem like there’s a point anymore - it’s going to be done anyway for the sheer sake of highlighting the situation’s hilarity - as the long list of blunders have already been highlighted numerous times, yet there is a reluctance by the club to change anything.

It took John Aloisi having one of the worst coaching records in A-League history - eight wins, seven draws and 24 losses in 39 games - and a staunch campaign spearheaded by desperate supporters for the club to realise that maybe a change of coach would be a good thing.

Although new manager John van't Schip is back on board, who is tasked with enduring another spell as Melbourne Heart's manager, he has already stated that the club will not be adding to its playing list due to a lack of space.

Here's an idea, maybe get rid of some of the excess fat, and there's a lot of it, because whatever the hell is going on at the moment isn't quite working. Not sure if you've noticed.

Yes, the Heart have had to deal with a substantial amount of injuries, most notably to big-name signings Harry Kewell and Dutch international Orlando Engelaar, but for a team to have only scored nine goals in 14 games, the worst in the competition by four goals, despite having had full service from Michael Mifsud, David Williams and Golgol Mebrahtu, is face-palmingly baffling.

Kewell and Mifsud have received the bulk of the front-half criticism, the latter for being unable to score in an Amsterdam brothel. Kewell can be excused, as in reality he is a golfer that only plays football part-time, but Williams and Mebrahtu are as much to blame as Mifsud.

You could even mount a case for Mifsud being applauded for his achievements season; it takes real skill to successfully figure out how to receive a marquee pay slip without actually knowing how to strike a football.

The fact is that Mifsud, Williams and Mebrahtu collectively possess the finishing skills of a 32-year-old virgin getting his first taste of the promise land. Watching any of them attempt to capitalise on a clear opportunity on goal is as good for a giggle as looking up a YouTube clip of Harry Kewell's missed penalty against Sydney.

Even if the Heart forwards were finding the back of the net, it probably wouldn't do much good considering the defenders deal with a counterattack as impressively as an aging woman deals with menopause.

The Heart hold the worst defensive record in the competition - 25 goals conceded in 14 games - to match their terrible scoring figures.

Ridiculously, the Heart's average home crowd attendance is currently 10,787, better than the numbers put up by Perth Glory, Central Coast Mariners and Wellington Phoenix and up on the home average of 8,560 from last year. At least the fans are still enduring their team's performances each week but you could argue that it is simply further proof that hipsters really do enjoy terrible things.

Let's just be honest here, nobody at the club has a clue what's wrong or they would be winning every now and then. Five games without a win is bad. 10 games is terrible. 20 games without winning is what you'd expect from a team of players that have had their heels surgically attached to the back of their knees.

To point out the bleeding obvious, something more than just bringing in a new manager has to change at the club. A change of playing personnel would go a long way but there's about as much chance of that happening as getting Kevin Muscat and Adrian Zahra to perform in a soft-core homosexual love making scene.

So with the 20th game without a win on the trot sitting on the horizon, which would set a new A-League record, it has got to the point where the Heart need to turn things around to validate their existence as an A-League club. If not, at least we'll always have a guaranteed source of laughter.