'HOORAY FOR FOUR-FOUR-TWO' shouts one of the headlines in today's SMH.

On so many levels, I couldn't agree more.

No - it's not from Mike Cockerill, who has seen fit to crow in each dawn's edition of our city broadsheet about Sydney's recent demise (to which blame is to be laid on Vitje and his 442 preference) in an awfully predictable effort to spearhead the sort of movement that saw his mate Kossie chucked out of Sydney to the relief of everyone 2 seasons ago.  The headline is actually from a pretty good Hassett article extolling the virtues of Australia playing an attacking system under Osieck.

And if there is one thing that Sydney have done well over the last 8 games, it's to continue to play attacking football, in a 442 formation.  And in a fairer, luckier dimension, the football we have played would have us well and truly on the winners list by now.  We have beaten the last 4 teams we played everywhere but on the scoresheet.  As a bloke next to me said walking out from the Adelaide loss, we had 60 million chances and only scored a penalty.  Sydney aren't playing like a team coming last - in fact they aren't playing too badly at all really.  It just seems that this season, Sydney are cursed... so on the list of things Sydney needs to do, changing formation is way down the bottom.  Getting John Safran and an East African Witch Doctor to sacrifice a cockerel under the goals of the SFS, on the other hand... 

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None of the foregoing is to downplay the seriousness of the situation that Sydney find themselves in at the moment.  It's terrible.  Vitje's words in yesterday's members' e-mail say it all:

Everyone is hurting. This is the hardest situation I have ever been in as a coach. But as I said after the game to the media, we will not give up. I am a positive person. The players are happy and the staff are always positive.  We also know this is very hard for you. So we must stick together and be strong. We must keep believing. Myself, the staff and the players do and we all know that you will too. This will get us through.

And that, right there, is the difference between this season and previous Sydney "crises".  As a fan, you get the impression that this is a slump, and nothing else.  There is no underlying pathology here.  No evidence of players being unhappy with anything other than their performance.  No bullshit blame game coming from the coaching staff.  No mickey-mouse act with the media.  The team is training well and hard.  The players and the coach are working as a unit.  There is a process - the same process that won us everything last year.  It will work.

There is no doubt that Vitje and the club's management are going to have to make some decisions over the next few weeks.  Not revolutionary decisions - just changes within the framework that the club has worked so hard to create over the last two years. We need wins for sure, but we also need to get the buzz back at the SFS both on and off the pitch.  Sydney fans, as always, would love an international marquee.  These can be either a spark or a distraction, and at times they have been both for Sydney.  But a world-class CDM right now might just be the thing - particularly with Nicky due back shortly to orchestrate and unleash the potential we have up front (and both Danning and Antonis have scored for the young Socceroos this week so competition at the pointy end will be fierce).  There is no doubt that someone who physically or psychologically blocks out the sun for opponents in the middle of the park and who can steel the side in those moments when things aren't going right, and open up opponents with a pass nobody else saw, would be a boon. 

The next game is against Melbourne - where this season started.  Like so many opponents this year, we belted Melbourne in round 1, but were lucky to escape with a draw.  Rectify that, and the season will look a whole lot brighter.