The impatient fan's 2014/15 season review

The Western Sydney Wanderers and Brisbane Roar, three and four games into the new season respectively, are positively rooted to the bottom rungs of the A-League ladder; neither has picked up a point to date. This would be a problem if the season ended today, which it doesn't, but what if it did?

If you don't have the time to make a reasonable judgment about the Western Sydney Wanderers or the Brisbane Roar based on more than a few games, then you sure as hell don't have the time to wait until May to find out what happened over the rest of the season.

In the spirit of the age of convenience, let's save seven months by ending the 2014/15 A-League season here – and what a season it was! Take a moment to remember the best of Australian football over the last month:

Minor premiers: Perth Glory
Once they'd overhauled Melbourne Victory at the top of the table just over three weeks ago, there was really no question that Perth would go on to finish top of the pile in the regular season. It was a rollercoaster ride for the Glory as they dipped as low as fifth at the midway point, but a lacklustre 2-1 win over Newcastle and an unremarkable 1-0 victory over the Central Coast Mariners saw Kenny Lowe steady the ship and steer the Western Australian juggernaut towards the title. Ultimately, they found themselves as isolated on the top of the table as nib Stadium is geographically, from civilisation in every direction, storming home to finish a full point above Melbourne Victory.

Speaking after the win that clinched the minor premiership, an ever-inspired and ever-inspiring Lowe was cryptic in his celebration, saying, "Hopefully we can maximise that and have half a decent year," almost as though he didn't realise that judgments in football are often made on less than half a decent year's worth of evidence.

Wooden spoon: Western Sydney Wanderers and Brisbane Roar
"Last week wasn't a good result for us but we'll learn from it and will be a lot better this week," said Tony Popovic ahead of Western Sydney Wanderers second round clash with Sydney FC in round two, a few days before going on to be just about as bad as Popovic had promised they wouldn't be.

In many ways, that match set the tone for the Wanderers' season. They might as well have never turned up for their third and fourth round byes and returned from reaching unimaginable heights in Asia to plummet to a loss against team from New Zealand; ending a pointless season alongside Brisbane Roar who, all running jokes aside, may actually be in trouble.

Best goal: Marc Janko v Brisbane Roar
Did you see how far out he was? Wow! It doesn't matter that the goalkeeper was hopelessly out of position, because he hit that from really far out, and that's impressive without qualification. Seriously, he must've been forty metres away from the goal! The concept of modern football is invalid – whether it's 1954 or 2014, for some reason everyone likes to see a ball kicked into the goal from a distance, and this one was undoubtedly the pick of the bunch across the five incomplete rounds of the season.

Golden boot: Besart Berisha
If you were really that impatient then I could've told you this before the season started.

Best player: David Villa
Three La Liga titles, a Champions League medal, the European Championships, the World Cup, the all-time leading scorer for the Spanish national side and a goal every two games that he wore a Melbourne City née Heart jersey. You find a better player.


So ends the regular season of the 2014/15 A-League! With finals football right around the corner, there's— huh? Still 22 more rounds for Western Sydney Wanderers and Brisbane Roar to find form and prove hyperbole wrong? Seven more months to firstly catch up on the games that they've missed, then probably win a lot on the way to restoring order and exposing that "desperation derby" stuff for the premature overkill that it is?

Oh, right. As you were then.