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How about this - Watts is lambasted from all sides to 'pull his finger out'. He finally looks to be doing it and we still have people sitting there telling him he needs to be traded or delisted whenever we have a bad loss - ironically when he was one of our best on the weekend this was the case. We are a resilient bunch but don't tell me Landers and Melbourne fans haven't been affected by the last decade - we have developed some pathetic habits when it comes to how we see this club. There is an overtly positive poster on here who names himself The Reverend after being touted as so positive that it stuck out amidst the gloom. Does that not tell you something about the mindset of this place - this little snap shot of MFC supporters? Positivity is so rare - it is met with mirth and eye rolls and dismissiveness.

He waxes lyrical on AFL360 all the time. Now he muses about the poor souls reflected on this site we read it as him blaming us for the last two games. Don't be so sensitive. Listen to what he is saying - reject it if you want but know he isn't alone - when supporters start talking to me about how much we are going to get beaten before the teams are out - I feel we have a problem. And of course it is going to reach the outer halls of the club - they have the same mindset and mores as us.

I think that most think he is blaming our mindset for the losses, how anyone could think a coach would think that is beyond me... You are being taken for a ride by a couple in the media if you think Roos is blaming us for losses.

No wonder you thought we could have gone 8 and 2 to finish the year... Good god, you want the club to have unrealistic internal aims? How would that be helpful? Do you really think that the players hear that they have budgeted and expect 7 wins that they are playing poorly because of it? The inept last two games have only reinforced that the 7 win expectation of the club. We were 2 and 20 before he took over and 4 and 18 last year and you want to have a 'target' of Finals? What is the point of having 'targets' or 'promises' when you are just placating the fan base by having them be so unreachable. He has shipped off 22 players and that will reach 30 this summer. How they hell can they target what you want them to target.

I don't think he means this - he always waxes lyrical on every bloody thing that pops into his brain and this is another. He is right by the way, but we see it as causation because of the terrible effort on the weekend but it got himself into this conversation admitting that he feels for the supporter base and then tried to explain his amazement at the things we think about when heading into the weekend. Sit down, calm down, and think about what you think is going to happen in Perth this weekend... I know, I know... Roos isn't used to that mindset, and he is attempting to, clumsily, explain why efforts like Sunday are taken with such fatalistic self-flagellation from Melbourne fans. I am not going to burn him for this. Now, those first quarters of the past three weeks...

Those Hawks supporters are new to footy. Got little idea.

Huh? There have been threads for the last 6 weeks titled "If we lose to (blah) I will..." We have been affected by the last decade. Don't really see a point in denying it.

He's describing MFCSS - for those who are unaware - MFC Supporter Syndrome. "What can go wrong, will and it will actually be worse and if it looks like it is getting better, it's not, it's just an illusion to make our pain more pronounced." He's not wrong, but the problem is that after last week everyone thinks he is talking causation; our negativity caused us to lose, our 'vibes' got in the way. I don't believe he thinks that, and anyone who does can f___ off. He just loves waxing lyrical and found his way over to an argument best left for when we don't get outplayed by the worst team in the league.

I like it. He was a good servant.

It does help.

No they won't. His weak right knee will mean that we won't get anything of worth - his bad form earlier in the year also makes it implausible. He will be a Demon in 2016.

Well we did try to trade him last season (and with good reason ND7 for Howe is larceny), so I am sure their is resentment. And don't give me the whole "we don't know the club wanted to trade him" nonsense - he admitted he had an offer in front of him to move which means we agreed to the trade prior to that. It would be best for all concerned - he can take hangers and kick a goal or two in someones forward line and we get Pick 20 and him out of Hogan's forward line or out of Salem's way...

I was as impressed as you were with Bolton at that coaches conference - he made me wonder about how he would go at a club like Melbourne. Frankly, I think he will struggle but because of the club he is at - like the MFC, Carlton has a culture unto its own and I don't think it fits with Bolton's enthusiastic, teacher-student, player empowerment style. But we will see...

Jordan was the most extroverted basketball player in history. And I don't mean his Myers Briggs personality matrix BS - I mean the shots he took and the desire to not only be the best, but make sure the second best knew how far away they were from him. The quote of his that I love the most is "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take"... That guy played with extroverted, confident boldness and verve and that is what made him great.

*Chokes on cornflakes* Come on, man. This group was never going to go 9 and 1 or 8 and 2. God, I hope you're being facetious...

What's wrong with Whisky? Whisky never hurt anybody. Leave Whisky out of this.

No, I am using those as extremes to prove a point - but the delusionally positive and the overtly negative are usually (I said usually) off the mark, and that if you change your mind based on the result of the past weekend(s) then you are going to make bad decisions. And I don't want to labour the point because us fans are not the reason the club makes bad decisions but a certain pressure is brought to bare as we all know. You, yourself have maintained that 2015 would look like what it has looked like with heights and lows smattered throughout. I hope the club has a similar outlook on the year as frustrating as it has been.

I think he is saying we should stop saying "If we were Collingwood, we would do ...." and just do our own thing and forge our own path. I don't know whether that would mean a change of course for the current direction though...

Supporters don't realise that 'frontrunning' isn't a bad thing. All the best players do their fair share of frontrunning - they read the play so well it usually doesn't hurt their team - in fact quite the opposite - it is their frontrunning that gets them into positions to get the ball forward and/or get into scoring positions. Frankly, I think Roos has overcorrected this facet of the game and we are so inert and worried about being hurt the other way that we don't hurt teams ourselves...

Well done a very good player who has played some of the most consistent footy in the game. His patience has been tested over the years and I commend him for sticking to his task. Hopefully, we can get him help in that midfield and he can get back to his best form in 2016 if not in the last 2 rounds...

When you say 'Introverts' I think of inertia. When you say 'ego and strut' I think of confidence and boldness with the footy. I think it is more important than this lack of speed that we have. As for the need to think in the Grey - I couldn't agree more. At one point this season there were people who thought we could win 9 of our last 10 games, and now we have people who would like to remove the coach a year early. Hopping from one extreme to the other based on the performance of 22 evidently emotionally challenged individuals is ignoring the grey truth.

3 of those years will be in a new TV money landscape. Who knows where the Salary Cap will jump to... In 2012 it was $8.8m ($9.4 with Marketing Agreements), and in 2016 it will be $10.2m ($11.2m with MA). That number will be pushed toward $15-17m in a couple years IMO and then you are looking at a contract that was the same money in 2012 being 'worth' half of what it was.

It shouldn't be. If Roos and co. think he is worth another contract or not, it will not be the major driver of our continued resurgence. It is of little consequence. And I am indifferent to the comings and goings of bit part players now, I have developed a callous to anything other than important roles and who can fill them, emerging midfielders who can play consistent footy, and generational talents. I don't buy into the cancer stuff, I don't buy the 'scar argument' anymore, but I don't want us to act like anything other than a professional and yet ruthless club. When it comes to Garland - it is a mundane situation of a club offering or not offering their 35th most important player a one or two year deal. And that just doesn't excite me. Same with Howe. Same with everyone else OOC and a few contracted for next year.

Walk and chew gum? Lynch plays a different role to Dawes and after watching him attempt to push off that right leg, I doubt Dawes will play anywhere but at the Dees in the couple years left in his career. Been better last few weeks but that's lost in all the rage.

Well, we diagnosed the syndrome about 5 years ago... I think 'calming down' would be a good option. We have to be ruthless with how we go about this summer coming up and sometimes that doesn't just mean cutting everyone. Sometimes it means sticking fat with a few players and lighting a fire under them and asking them to give more and to ask for more. The mindset of the players is troubling to say the least but, and as pathetic as this sounds, the mindset has improved compared to previous seasons. We are asking why can we get up for Collingwood and Geelong and Richmond but lose to Essendon and Carlton and play poorly against Brisbane. That wasn't a question we asked last year - it's a new paradigm where we see senior players incapable of sharing a consistent load week to week and being contributors to this inert mindset. Roos has to take some of the blame for how pervasive that inertia is at the moment. But, and there always is a 'but,' we have to keep our heads and make solid decisions absent too much emotion - if you want to build a club that Hogan, Brayshaw, Petracca, and Viney want to be a part of and mould, then we have to show them that we don't panic and that we will stick to path we have sold them.