Macarthur FC absolutely thrashed Perth Glory in the Australia Cup. The two sides both played a mixture of experienced players and younger players from their reserve sides who are still in season. But the difference in quality between the two sides was evident from the off.
Ratings:
- A1 – Very good, could play higher
- A2 – Strong potential to play higher
- B1 – Good, strong player at level
- B2 – Potential to be a strong player at level
- C – Average for the level, rewatch
- D – Below average in this match
Rhys Youlley
- Nationality: Australian
- Age: 18
- Date of Birth: 13/02/2005
- Current Club: Macarthur FC
- Career: Western Sydney Wanderers (Y)
- Position: Midfielder
- Preferred Foot: Right
Rhys Youlley played as a #6 for Macarthur in this match and showed some very promising ability as well as some room to grow. Youlley is very much a deep-lying playmaker. He liked to drop deep and get on the ball. He often served as a pivot point for Macarthur’s build-up, changing the point of the team’s progression with short quick bounce passes. He also played a number of line-breaking passes.
He played a major role in Macarthur’s opening goal with a pass that split Perth’s defence open. Youlley was generally better at playing these line-breaking passes in transition phases. When the Perth defence was set he generally kept things safe and recycled possession. He also was a little inconsistent at weighting these progressive passes. There were times when he ended a promising-looking move by overhitting a pass. Youlley has not played many professional minutes, having mostly played in semi-professional NPL, so I would expect that as he gets more experience with games at this level he will improve in this regard. He may also become more comfortable playing line-breaking passes against a set defence. Youlley is really technically strong and good at dribbling out of pressure when pressed. He is not really a ball carrier but he’s more than capable of getting himself out of hot water.
Defensively Youlley is ok. He can make some good defensive interventions but he is not really a reliable ball-winner. He’s reasonably quick and can cover ground to close players down but he can’t always take the ball off them. So he would probably have to be fielded alongside a better wall winner, at least at this stage of his development. Again, I think as he gains more experience at a higher level he could improve in this regard.
Rating – A2
Youlley is an extremely talented player with a skill set that could take him far. However, he has only played 10 A-League minutes so far. He is still very raw and will need more A-League time to hit his ceiling. I don’t think he quite has the juice for the top-5 leagues but he could certainly make his way to a decent European league at some point.
Isaac Hover
- Nationality: Australian
- Age: 20
- Date of birth: 08/09/2002
- Current club: Macarthur F.C
- Career: Western Sydney Wanderers (Y), Northbridge
- Position: Left-back
- Preferred foot: Left
Isaac Hover played as a left-back for Macarthur in this match. He showed some very strong 1v1 defending but his skill set was a bit limited. Hover was nearly unbeatable on the dribble. He is big and mobile, making him really hard to get around. He also uses his body very well to shepherd opponents away from the goal. But this is where the problems begin.
Hover’s off-the-ball defending is really bad. Time and time again runners evaded him. These runs mostly went into wide areas and didn’t lead to any goals against. But Perth’s few successful attacks often came from balls played in behind Hover. He also got sucked quite narrow a lot, leaving space for runners to put in crosses with little resistance. On the ball, Hover is also really lacking. His passing was poor. He made a lot of attempts to play balls into the channel for Lachlan Rose and Raphael Borges Rodrigues but I don’t think he completed a single one successfully. He didn’t really give the ball away in any super dangerous areas but he wasn’t able to progress it with any kind of reliability. His size and 1v1 defending might make him a candidate to move to centre-back but his ability to track runners might be an even more serious problem there.
Rating – B2
If Hover can improve his off-the-ball defending and ability to track runners I think he could be a very effective A-League defender. Unfortunately, I think he lacks the technical ability to make it to a higher level and at 20 the road is too long for him to develop to the required standard.