I went and watched today. Corrales scored one of the best goals scored at this level and the goal scored by Tade was sublime in the set up. Auckland deserved their 5 and could have made it embarrassingly more so. I think the 1st one by Danko was offside and a few people in the stand also kinda thought the same.
Objectively, Manawatu chose to sit off and in the first half, I don't think they made a tackle. They also pushed high with the defence and all the guy Andreu had to do was chip it over the top with some nice soft floaters. Corrales was easily man of the match and he gave Nathan Cooksley an absolute nightmare time up the right flank. Embarrasingly, Cooksley was given man of the match when he should have been dragged 25mins into it. He was worse than a park level footballer and I don't think he even cared to stand within 10y of Corrales and think about marking him.
Mulligan is the best footballer in the league but to be fair, he and Auckland were allowed to play and given the time and space with no pressure to do so. They did all of their stuff easily with out any pressure from Manawatu. When you take that into context, its easy to see why they play quite well - cause other teams are nowhere near as good and because they have no idea how to defend that style of play, they sit off and let them play. The Chinese guy Nobi up front was a passenger when he should have considered chasing the ball along the back 4 a bit more. Sure it might not have been the game plan, but to just sit and watch and let Auckland do their thing was even dumber. Take away their time on the ball and make them choose decisions under pressure and force the mistake. That was never going to happen. Cory Chettleburgh, if he was seriously in consideration for a Phoenix contract then Ricki must have rocks in his head. I always thought he had something about him until today. He was a complete also ran. While its hard when you have 5% possession, it even harder when he lofted that many balls into touch or took a quick freekick to a team mate 5y away with 3 ACFC players up his ass in his own half.
Auckland looked really good but to be fair, I think their undoing in Japan might be the Kiwi players (exclude Mulligan and Vicelich from that) whose first touch is a little off. You can see the skill of the imports and the time their first touch creates. Under pressure in the CWC, they will have nowhere near as much time on the ball and the first touch of Hogg, Pritchett, Coombes and Feneridis will let them down because they will then have to regather and make decisions under pressure. Another (and the last) criticism of Auckland was the amount of times they went back from an attacking position when there was a clear easy option going forward. Ramon has really coached them well in terms of keeping possession but I think he may have over coached it where the players will not take even the remotest risk of making even an 80-20 pass. I can recall a few times in the 2nd half when they broke and running 3 at Manwatu's back 4 - ACFC have the skill and pace but yet they get over half, slow it, allow Manawatu to put 10 men behind the ball again and it was frustrating. When you are 5 up, you either bring the kids on, or you take the risk and see what happens. Manawatu were never going to have a clue about how to shut it down so it begs to defy why so often they wanted to get organised. Other teams against them will not do the same in return.
Otherwise it really was a team that completely and totally outclassed the opposition and the 5 nil score line did not do it justice.
Credit to the 248 crew who actually kept their chants on Auckland and clean today so well played gentlemen.
Agree about that Cooksley, Awful at best. Surely he did not get man of match.
Jeff... Hoggs touch cant be that bad, last time Auckland City went...he was named in the club world cup tournament team alongside dani alves puyol and messi. His touch and driving runs are outstanding i think he will be instrumental in any success they have over there. But agree Pritchett does not have best touch but would possibly start him and Feneridis will have to fight it out in training for a starting spot i feel.
Andreu looked great today but again under no pressure from a hopeless manawatu side.
Agree on Mulligan.
Think Chettleburgh for Manawatu would be better in a good side, he was their best player but had nothing and i mean nothing around him to work with.
How it wasnt 10-0 is beyond me.
