Was at the game:
We did miss both our Captain and Smeltz but did surpisingly well without them.
Wood was my MOM, I thought he really troubled them whenever he had the ball. He needs to work on his finishing though, he had heaps of chances [many that he created himself] and a good season in the Championship will help him convert those chances he doesn't now.
Apart from 1 or 2 moments Killen was pretty ordinary and on that performance is easy to see why Boro let him go and he ended up in China.
Wee Mac had a slow start but came into his own when playing wide right in the 2nd half. Thought that he should of been kept on and Killen replaces as he was creating chances from out wide.
Bertos had moments of brilliance but I think was caught out by the pace of the game a bit. He seems to take too long to make decisons and was closed down quickly. The result was a duffed pass or a hospital one to another AW. A couple of his forays in the 2nd half were class, he needs to be more consistently good [at Nix level also].
Brockie was quieter than on Saturday but had a solid game with some good service to the strikers.
Brown - again some nice touches but I didn't notice him too much, maybe he just works away without standing out too muh at this level.
Ivan - very comfortable in the main. He is a solid defender and i like him.
Reid, interesting to see him play in what he used to call his favoured position [and the one he played in Denmark]. He is still a bit impetuous [as shown with the red card] but is going to be our Nelsen in future years for sure.
Siggy, has been playing right back in a few games so far and i think he makes a good fist of it. The crowd [and everyone on the field] was quiet when he gave away the penalty but he was well beaten. He isn't outclassed at this level in the RB position and I can see him staying there in the A League.
Paston - did nothing wrong.
Trying to think who I'm missing from the strting line up..... yes Elliott - can't believe that he can play at such a high level without having a club. Got into trouble a few times but was pretty strong.
Some of the others - boyens - geez he was woeful. The first 5 out of 6 touches were gifts straight to the opposition - schoolboy errors i thought and I expect better int he context of the players and team we now have.
Christie, don't know what he brings extra to the team - didn't do much except run around IMHO, has no spark or magic about him.
The ref, I thought he did alright, thought he might have trouble keeping up [he is a little bit chubby] but apart from one piece of inconsistency [with a free kick] thought he did alright. Thought RH was a bit cruel with his comments in the Dom this morning critising him for sending Reid off in the 90th minute. Whatever the time was, that challenge deserved a red.
I also thought RH left it too long to bring rory on - 10 minutes!!!! he should have replaced Killen miles before that. Killen was doing noting [except that beautiful strike that just missed].
Crowd size wasn't announced to the crowd - why I wonder? No replay on the big screen for Reid's red and I didn't see one for Siggy's penalty either - poor form.
Overall I thought Paraguay were better than us with their quick transistion from defence to attack and some of the deft little flicks etc [which are probably more to do with their tradition than a direct reflection on their better footballing ability] and they scored from their only real direct attack on goal. they had a lot of wild long range shots but they weren't real chances were they?
We are getting ourselves into scoring positions and that is pleasing. We need more games at this level to help us to convert [I'm seeing why many want us to play in Asian now for this reason]. Infuriating several times when we looked to ahve them under the kosh and we didn't know what to do or didn't do it fast enough and we endded up passing the ball back into our own half. Para only did that when they were wasting time, otherwise they were 'get the ball back - bang straight onto attack'.
COYN 
"Phoenix till they lose"
