The Sydney derby week verbal jousting started early, with Sydney FC coach Graham Arnold making a couple of references to playing at the "small stadium" at Parramatta during his media conference after his side's Round 18 win over Central Coast Mariners.
Western Sydney Wanderers have so far resisted calls to move their home Sydney derby games to a larger venue than Pirtek Stadium to accommodate the big crowds that usually want to attend but can't be accommodated there.
"I'm not happy with the game, I'm happy with the result, the three points," Arnold said. "That puts us in a good position now to move forward and then we can look forward to going to the small stadium next week at Parramatta."
Later, referring to his players being mentally ready for the derby, Arnold added, with the hint of a smile: "They won't need getting up, going to that small stadium."
Plenty of football fans will support the view that the Sydney derby is such a big occasion that the games should only be played at bigger stadiums.
But whether there is any chance of the Wanderers changing their view in the future we're going to have to wait and see. They are already in Japan for an Asian Champions League match and won't be back until late in the week.
How did that feel?
The injury-time winner from Adelaide United against Western Sydney was the football equivalent of brilliant surgery.
It started with central defender Dylan McGowan crossing the ball from the right side of the field all the way to left-back Tarek Elrich, who was in some space. Elrich ran the ball and relied on left-winger Craig Goodwin reading what he was trying to do.
Goodwin took off as Elrich successfully drew the defence and zeroed in on the ball Elrich put through for him. After storming into the penalty box, Goodwin could have been selfish and tried to line up a shot for himself, but he saw Sergio Cirio in perfect position and cut the ball back for him to score.
The Coopers Stadium crowd went off. It was a barnstorming finish to a game Adelaide should have wrapped up much earlier.
"I didn't have much around me so I just ran with it to draw the fullback in," Elrich told False 9. "I was giving Craig the eye and he responded. We do a lot of work on combinations and keeping the ball."
Goodwin added: "We had a few chances before where we could have scored, but couldn't finish it off.
"Once Tarek played the ball through I got my head up and saw Cirio all alone in the centre. It was an amazing feeling when the ball hit the back of the net and the crowd erupted. It was a great performance by the team and the fans deserved that win."
Man of the hour (and a half)
False 9 loves the way Sydney FC striker Marc Janko goes about his work. The tall Austrian was on fire in the 4-2 win against Central Coast, scoring one goal with a smashing header, slotting another away with his left foot and also providing an assist with a neat chesting of the ball to Shane Smeltz.
Janko has now joined Wellington's Nathan Burns at the top of the A-League goal-scoring list with 10. He and Smeltz are competing for the same starting position, but their friendship is strong.
"Shane is a great guy on and off the pitch," Janko said. "I really like hanging out with him. Our girls also like to spend some time with each other.
"Sometimes I feel bad for him that he can't contribute to the game sitting on the bench, but that's the coach's decision and sometimes you have to just take it and focus on your job. You can still influence and be happy scoring beautiful goals like he did. I'm very happy for him."
Janko's second goal, from the edge of the six-yard box, should have been a simple put-away and it was for him, but there are some strikers whose eyes bulge at the sight of an opportunity like that and they blast the ball over the bar.
It's Janko's calm in such situations that marks him as the dominant striker that he is.
Change the "c" in Marc to a "k" and add "vics" to Janko and you've got one of False 9's all-time favourite Socceroos strikers - Mark Jankovics.
Speaking of Jankovics, let me take you back 35 years to 1980 and the highlights of the match between Australia and England at the SCG, with commentary from Martin Royal and Johnny Warren.
But, before you see the team line-ups and it becomes obvious, I've got a question for you. Who was the player from the England side who ended up having a coaching stint in the A-League?
The numbers game
6 - Number of hat-tricks scored this season up to New Year's Eve - (Andy Keogh, Besart Berisha, Henrique, Nathan Burns, Archie Thompson and Robert Koren).
0 - Number of hat-tricks scored in the New Year.
0 - Number of goals Burns has scored in his last five games.
6 - Number of goals Janko has scored in his last five games.
0 - Number of games the Kevin Muscat-coached Melbourne Victory played on the weekend .
Unknown - Number of hours Muscat spent practising blowing up at match officials.
Kramar
False 9 is really enjoying the fact there is now a Kramar playing in the A-League, for Perth Glory.
It's got nothing to do with his football - it's just the name. It might be spelt slightly different to the Kramer character from Seinfeld, but it's still Kramar.
Here's some vintage Kramer for Kramar and the rest of the boys at Glory to enjoy while they prepare for Saturday night's big home game against Brisbane Roar.
Everyone makes mistakes - even False 9!
Wrongs must be righted, people, so it would be remiss of False 9 not to mention that in a story last week about the abundance of good players under the age of 23 in the A-League we left out Jamie Maclaren.
It was an unfortunate oversight and the 21 year-old Perth Glory striker would, if we had the chance to do it all again, as Barbra Streisand once sang, be in the squad's starting XI, relegating impressive Newcastle Jets newcomer Radosan Pacicevic to the bench.
We rarely see two genuine strikers start for teams these days and Maclaren suffers from being in a squad that features star import Andy Keogh up front.
Most of Maclaren's appearances have been off the bench and he didn't get any game-time at all in the last two rounds, but he is still Glory's equal-second highest goal-scorer this season with four - including a couple of very important late ones.
Tweet, tweet
The Strebre Delovski gags just keep on coming.
But could David Villa care? No, of course not! The great man (and Melbourne City guest player) was too busy practising hitting the crossbar in New York to worry about what's happening in that pesky A-League he had to guest in for a few rounds.
Take it away, DV.
Power rankings (last week in brackets)
1 Melbourne Victory (1) It took a cyclone to stop it from winning. Actually, it stopped it from playing altogether, but that wasn't Victory's fault.
2 Sydney FC (3) Not as good against Central Coast as it had been in the previous rounds, but still found the goals to win running away.
3 Perth Glory (2) Only barely doing enough to stay on top of the table. Won't be there much longer unless it improves on recent form.
4 Adelaide United (4) Got the win against Western Sydney, but took all game to do so. Butchered too many scoring chances.
5 Brisbane Roar (5) Didn't get to play because of the cyclone, but still hung on to sixth place by virtue of goal difference over Melbourne City.
6 Melbourne City (6) Had slightly the better of the game against Perth, but didn't make it uncomfortable enough for Glory defence.
7 Wellington Phoenix (7) Had Newcastle well covered from box to box, but paid the price for butchering a mountain of chances.
8 Central Coast Mariners (8) Played very well in parts, but in the end wasn't good enough to stop Sydney FC from blowing down the door.
9 Western Sydney Wanderers (9) The only way they are going to make the finals is in their dreams. Will finish somewhere from eighth to 10th.
10 Newcastle Jets (10) Got to a 2-0 lead against Wellington but were lucky to hang on for a draw in the end against off-target opposition.
Can't wait for . . .
The Wanderers to open their AFC Champions League title defence with an away game against Kashima Antlers on Wednesday.
I'm expecting the Wanderers to play like they have had new life breathed into them. It must be hard to lift for the A-League every week knowing deep down that you're too far back to make anything out of this season, but the ACL is a different story.
The Wanderers are on the same level as every other team in that competition at this stage and will surely come out buzzing.
How long their likely added enthusiasm lasts will obviously depend on results, but having won the title last year they won't be lacking optimism.
