All Whites vs Russia, Confederations Cup | Sun 18 June | 3am | St Petersburg | SS3

shambles at the back from 3-4 players

haven't done anything on attack, but lose the ball

sooo many tactical reasons why that shouldnt of been allowed to happen...ffs

That's top defending - two Russians bursting forward so all four of our men back go to the same man....

I don't give a shark if we have our biggest game in four years time in just five months, I want Hudson out now

For whom... do you really think there are people lining up to manage us... would they have time to implement a style?

I'm not happy, but I am realistic.

Agreed. This is the worst time for being a NZ football fan in the last decade or so, Hudson is a disgrace and i genuinely can't wait for him to pack up and go. But we all know Smeltz is gonna score a 96th minute consolation and NZF will use that as an excuse to extend Anfony's contract another 5 years

With our team and the players available, we should at least go down guns blazing. Hudson's rhetoric doesn't match this game or the game against Belarus.

We kept possession, we kept possession

Sack this fraud and give it to Ramon and Jose, another wasted morning

Remember when we were 3-2 up against the defending World Cup champions? Remember when we caused riots in Serbia after beating Vidić and co.? Distant memories

we had a shot! we had a shot!

Reid buries those! ;-)

We had a second shot we had a second shot

great technique from Thomas on target. 

Smith so close there with the header too. 

To be honest I think Nelsen is worth a shout.

Yes he didn't do brilliant at all with Toronto, but international football is different, especially for a side who play a limited number of matches.

We need someone who will give us some confidence and get us up for the matches and he is perfect for that.

Pair him with someone who is decent tactically, maybe Jose from TW and it could work.

how late was smith with that tackle 

We have looked so much better since Tuiloma has come on with the ball. He's slowing it down, we are hitting some passes and we have at least forced a few saves now.

We can start to link play with Tuiloma on. We don't look like a football outfit with our tiny dribblers trying to play individual football. That said a front three of any of Thomas/Wood/Kosta/Patterson would be welcome, with some width.

Some journalist must ask Hudson why Tuiloma didn't start, given the stark performances in warm up and why he was so late coming on.

'Nix have to be careful we don't lose Durante after today!

Frustrating looking at what could have been, given Tuiloma, who looks composed and like A-Rod, plus a stronger presence and shots

I love Boxall and he is one of our better defenders, but he has been shocking today, just lost his man again.

Let's just hope it's just a bad day for him.

And to think we thought this would be he easy game in the group. Looking forward to Ronaldo and co, wonder why they don't use long ball? Oh yeah that's right, it's useless and we shouldn't be forced to put up with this, Hudson out

Hudson under pump now? Selection - no tuiloma. Set up - wingers in midfield. Tactics - long balls to wood. Mexico next up. Hudson spin coming up. ...

players ran hard in a broken system and that was about as good as its going to get for the next 10days or so. Oh, gotta love being an AWs fan

An improved second half, but I think it highlights the fact we didn't get our starting line up correct.

Marinovich - made some big saves, but was a little scratchy early on. Looked to release early on occassion, but was a little wasteful.

Smith - won his headers, but his lack of pace is a concern. One of our few threats at a set piece, and more comfortable on the ball than most.

Durante - tracked well, but I think he's a liability. He constantly gives the ball away.

Boxall - poor game from him, was to eager at times diving in, and then with the goal, to shy to give a good clearance.

McG - saw more of him in the second half - got out muscled regularly.

Rojas - offered nothing. Needs to be in a team with at least parity in the middle to be effective.

Thomas - worked hard, had some touches at the end, but was wasteful.

Wood - couldn't do anything today - just feeding off scraps.

Wynn - did ok on D and tried to break a couple times, but needs to look after possession better.

Covley - at fault for the first goal. Offered very little width and gave nothing on attack. Did ok on D, but we need our WB's to be options to keep possession.

Barbs - worked hard, but got nothing to work with.

Tuiloma - did well when he came on in bringing us back into the game. Just slowed it down and he also opened up... which amazingly led to space.

Patterson - not enough time.

Smeltz - not enough time.

Game plan:

1. Knock it long to Wood

2. Wood flicks on to no man's land

3. ????

4. Profit

Hudson out.

Well. That Russian team was there for the taking. Rojas was poor. Hudson was poor. Wood was mostly wasted. Kosta is a threat, but was isolated today.

Finally in the last ten we saw some passing and linking between Tuiloma, Thomas, McG, Wood and Smeltz. Patterson offered little and broke up a couple of our attacks. 

Colvey didn't seem able to get forward. Not good enough or not enough protection ahead?

Should we have seen Doyle ahead of Patterson? Probably just as big a goal threat. 

Says it all really

Doyle lmao 

Mostly agree- I thought Dura was much better than you've rated him. And I got respect for Smith. He's not the player he was, but he used everything he had, and it's probably much more fun to be doing this on this stage than in Honiara, though our tactical incompetence is quite similar. 

It's harsh on a defence who were not given a break as we didn't keep possession and rarely attacked. The defence were about the only ones playing for most of the game!

We had no idea tactically, either going forward or back.

Here's a couple of screenshots I took late on to prove my point, and there were much, much worse examples than this:

Look at all these players without any pressure on them, or in too much space, and all the NZ defenders on no-one, or two defenders on one man:

This one highlights the acres of space down the flanks, this happened time and time again, the Russians had all the space in the world they wanted out wide, imagine what a much better Mexico or Portugal will do if we afford them the same generosity out wide...

Doyle's scored a few belters in the last season or two. And had a decent, but wayward strike against Ireland. being genuine! And they wouldn't be expecting it either...

I know we don't need stats to show how shark we really were, but here they are anyway.

ITV saying we didn't turn up and were awful, they're not wrong.

We don't expect to win, but we expect a decent showing...

Wish I had stayed in bed. That was rubbish. 

On the positive side we made an average Russia side look average.

However you get the feeling that if Hudson had made the right selections and got the tactics right then might have done better.

Because it seemed like the tactics for the first 75 minutes was "long ball it to Wood" It got boring in the end.

When Tuiloma came in we finally had a player who was confident on the ball, who would look up and make a pass. When we started to keep the ball o the deck in the last 15 minutes we actually caused them a few problems.

However you can't help thinking AW football has regressed in the last few years. Some of our play was worse than you see in Central league.

As for the players...... Thomas looked like a professional player...he put in a shift on defense and had a brilliant shot saved. Wynne looks like a good player. Wood had only scraps to deal with. Smeltz still has some nice touches. Tuiloma...should have started

The rest.....Defense looks ponderous and lacks technique...especially Smith. Colvey does not look comfortable at this level. Weemac is just overpowered in midfield. We must have better keepers than Marikovic...he made a few good saves but his keeping is sloppy.

Rojas, despite having good feet is just tactically not at this level...no clue on how to bring in team mates

Hudson......what can you say?....his football is really really poor. Did he really set this side up to long ball everything to Wood?

Mexico and Portugal will be very very tough for us

I've seen a few people saying Wynne did ok, but I think he was partly to blame for the second goal (at least, I think it was Wynne, I was watching on a phone) he was too close to the CBs as the Russians broke and spread it to their right winger, who then had way too much space and time too play the ball into the box. 

Overall our positioning was horrible defensively though, as demonstrated by Fruglo's screenshots up there.

Sadly, this was exactly what I was expecting from the performances in the warm-up games. Hudson has no clue. He's had 3 years to get his players playing the way he wants and yet we look like half our team only met the other half five minutes before kickoff. No one seems to know what they should be doing and where they should be on the pitch relative to their teammates. It's ghastly to watch.

Anyone else concerned about the games vs the Solomons coming up?

I've rarely missed an AWs match since watching my first one in 1985 - but this morning I wish I'd stayed in bed.

I can handle seeing All Whites teams losing, and being second best - seen plenty of that over the years, and on paper we are invariably not as good as the opponents.  But what I can't stand is when our performances are less than the sum of our parts - and today was a clear example of that.  

The systems and tactics that have made Wood, Thomas, even Rojas, effective at club level (to the point of winning individual awards and team trophies) are completely absent, meaning we are not making the best use of our available talent.  Instead, we have a "tactic" that is wholly ineffective, and the aesthetic equivalent of a steaming pile of dog mess.  We were promised something a lot better at the start of this manager's tenure - we didn't see it in Thailand, or Myanmar, or PNG, or New Calendonia, and we certainly haven't seen it in Belfast, Minsk, or today... Mexico and USA were clearly anomolies, rather than the dawn of a new era...

I would not be the least bit surprised or unsympathetic if our European pros began to suffer from convenient hamstring injuries around the time of FIFA windows - why would you sacrifice time and effort, and risk injury, to go through this?  guys from those top environments must wonder what they've ended up in when the entire tactical approach is "pump it long to the left flank".

Short of an outright mutiny amongst the players, there doesn't seem to be much chance of this changing... maybe I'm just knackered from the early start, but this is just so annoying and avoidable.

Based on what I've seen, I'd be contacting Ramon T. and asking him to step in ASAP - we might still lose, but I'd have far more confidence that he would better utilise the talent we have available.

Grumpy.

You don't know for whom until you go to market and see who applies. It's defeatist bullshark though to just think that because we are shark then Hudson is the best we can do so we should just stick with him. There's no way we should be accepting what Hudson is doing.

Still, I don't think NZF will fire him. He'll see out his contract and leave in November once we are 100% not going to the WC.