If Ernie didn't think Lia was up to being our holding midfielder, Lia wouldn't be our holding midfielder.
Ernie's not stupid.
Lets be real for a minute: Ernie has also only had one good season since being at the club. The other three have been varying degrees of bad to terrible.
Not all of his decisions are necessarily winners.
But look - if we had a better DM option than Lia, we would play them. We're obviously finding it difficult to attract players - especially top level Australians.
The cold hard fact is that if Lia is our starting DM - and seemingly our only viable option there - we will likely not progress.