Australia Cup Quarterfinal vs Macarthur FC | Wed 31st Aug | 9:30pm | YouTube

Thought Mac were worth the win, dominated the first half in particular. They've got a tonne of attacking talent. Davila is still levels above the rest, what a player.

For us, I saw little snippets of Kraev and Sasse striking a partnership that should do well. Both look like good players to me.

Kosta is one of the most frustrating players on the planet and really needed to bury that chance.

At least Oakleigh beat Sydney.

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Ryan

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Might have to get used to a bit more of that this season. A reminder that we've strengthened the squad everywhere except in defence.

we've hired Ugarkovic 

Back four I'm more talking about. And what if he gets injured? The whole back third is basically what shipped 50 odd goals last season.

Nah but everyone keeps saying our defence is fine so we can't possibly need to sign anyone good there!

Gutted that we lost that game. With the teams left in this comp was an opportunity to win some silverware.
Much room for improvement for me. Payne at Left back WTF.
After that I worry about our defence. Shipped 50 goals last season. Looked pretty shaky tonight. 

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Ryan

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Might have to get used to a bit more of that this season. A reminder that we've strengthened the squad everywhere except in defence.

we've hired Ugarkovic 

Back four I'm more talking about. And what if he gets injured? The whole back third is basically what shipped 50 odd goals last season.

i wouldnt base my opinion of our defense on last season,  congestion and freak injuries meant we couldnt even field a bench some games, we played Sandoval as a defensive midfielder and Waine as a right back. In a normal season we will be a lot better.

Mainland FC

martinb

Waine has been very good. 

Everyone else the jury is out on, possibly with the exception of Elliot.

Kraev has been excellent so far. You can see from his moves that he is the current national squad member for a reason.  

If Kraev is Uli, or Ninkovic or Broich for us I want a bit more from him. I want him to contest for best in the league and win us clutch games. I don’t know where he should play quite. I did like him bursting into the box, but I would have liked him to have one or two of those chances fall to him. 

What’s happened to Sutton? Not in his usual inspired form tonight. 

Ballsy taking Pennington off when we needed a clutch cup goal! I can’t remember anyone else from this team scoring late for us over the last two or three years when we needed it. 

Thought the ref was good with carding professional fouls to stop breaks after giving a couple of warnings early on. The excitement in the game is in the transition play. It’s what we want to see as fans. 

Damn. Knocked out too early. League starts in October? Bloody long time until the next game to shake this one. 

lthomas20

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Ryan

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Might have to get used to a bit more of that this season. A reminder that we've strengthened the squad everywhere except in defence.

we've hired Ugarkovic 

Back four I'm more talking about. And what if he gets injured? The whole back third is basically what shipped 50 odd goals last season.

Nah but everyone keeps saying our defence is fine so we can't possibly need to sign anyone good there!

has anyone said that? A lot of people on here were hoping we'd sign Reid 

Now we won't get to see Zawada or Ball till October. :(

Nonetheless, I hope Zawada can be the guy finishing those chances Kosta missed.

It was really frustrating to see us continuously play long balls into central areas where Macarthur had 6'4 and 6'6 CBs. But tbh, they deserved the win more than us. Kind of outcoached today as well.

Onto the season!

I hope you didn’t put too much money on this

kungfu panda

All things being equal, we'll win. We're comfortably the better team.

Whilst I'm disappointed that the cup run has ended I think the squad looks good and promising good things for the league in 6 weeks. 
Pennington's brain fade in the midfield have always been there, he has one or two a game, but makes up for them with goal line headers when we are stretched. Kosta was woeful last night, he needs to do a lot better when he is getting quality chances like last night, tow one on ones and he hits both at the keeper. Waine was unlucky not to score a couple himself, if we keep creating the chances like we did last night we will score goals, we have variety up front, pace to burn out wide and creativity in the midfield. Just need our defence to work itself out and we'll be winning. Personally I think we'll see Payne and Wooten as our starting CB's with Elliot and Sutton as RB and LB. Pennington probably wont be the starting CM with Lewis, I think Ugarkovic will take that spot pretty quickly.

Does anyone else think we did more crossing that usual last night? Maybe that is an evolution of our attacking tactics. Just need a big man in the middle for it…which Kosta just isn’t. 

People on here thought that Macarthur would struggle with the pace of the game because they had played weak opposition in their cup run, but the Phoenix were the ones who looked out of energy. Waine was the main exception.

Kraev and Sasse look like they're going to have a good partnership, there were a few clever interchanges that didn't quite pan out, but will come with time together on the park. Apart from Davilla, Macarthur didn't have anyone on the park who was clearly better than us, they just had way more energy.

Also, apart from Payne, the players who didn't perform as well as we'd hope, were all players where we've got depth. In the A-League season I expect to see Ugarcovic in instead of Pennington and Ball instead of Barbarouses.

Happy with Waine, Elliot and Kraev
Lewis wasn't in the game first half, Sutton not at all, Pennington good and poor, Laws pretty good but stood off for the first goal, Wootten needs to do more than lump it forward, Old worked hard but didn't link too well with the strikers.
Kosta and Payne hmm

I think that we learnt more about each player in this match than we have in any other previously, in the last year. It was an enjoyable and interesting watch.

This was literally Kraev's second game and Sasse has hardly played one full game against A-League opposition, give them time. We've seen flashes of brilliance from both so we know the ability is there but they need more time to get consistency and understand what Talay wants. It would have been great to go further but the Aussie cup was always going to be mainly for pre season and because of it we've had a better pre-season than the majority of the A-League teams. There is plenty to be positive about even after the loss :)

Also sometimes teams are just better on the day and that was the case yesterday. We will be better next time I hope!

Regardless of the result, it was great to see Davila play after a terrible couple of months. He looked dangerous every time he got the ball.

I think there's definitely a player in Sasse you can see his talent and strengths but you can also see why he probably hasn't made it his decision-making can be questionable and can often not have his head up. But if Uffie can mold him into a more effective player I can see him being very dangerous.

kungfu panda

• Mannyriff

  Don’t understand how you can discount one players fcuk ups & say he was better than others & not take out their fcuk ups. 
  Thought the game was good to watch from both teams & had we taken some our chances earlier at 1 nil, result may have been different. Considering new combinations still to form, thought all the players did reasonably well even with fcuk ups which is always part of the game & most importantly so is luck for a good season ahead. 

• Yes you're right 🤣 
• But all of have watched the match, so I think the comment is understandable. 

Look I get you lived in Italy for a long time or something. But the Pennington loveathon is a bit tiresome now. Kraev and Sasse (esp Sasse) have literally been at the Nix 5 mins. You just can’t excuse Pennington’s mistakes and criticise their’s

Uffie knows best and he’ll make the call on who starts when season kicks off. But Lewis is a given, and highly likely it’s Ugarkovic alongside him.

kungfu panda

• coochiee

  kungfu panda

  • Mannyriff

    Don’t understand how you can discount one players fcuk ups & say he was better than others & not take out their fcuk ups. 
    Thought the game was good to watch from both teams & had we taken some our chances earlier at 1 nil, result may have been different. Considering new combinations still to form, thought all the players did reasonably well even with fcuk ups which is always part of the game & most importantly so is luck for a good season ahead. 

  • Yes you're right 🤣 
  • But all of have watched the match, so I think the comment is understandable. 

  
  Look I get you lived in Italy for a long time or something. But the Pennington loveathon is a bit tiresome now. Kraev and Sasse (esp Sasse) have literally been at the Nix 5 mins. You just can’t excuse Pennington’s mistakes and criticise their’s
  
  Uffie knows best and he’ll make the call on who starts when season kicks off. But Lewis is a given, and highly likely it’s Ugarkovic alongside him.

• Let's be fair. He was receiving a lot of criticism last season. I just came in to support him and bring some balance back. Agreed, sometimes I'm over the top. Too much brandy.

Atleast your passionate and we all need the occasional brandy when watching the Nix but let's hope for a great season.

Was hoping that we see signs that we can chase games once we go down a goal. Not sure I saw enough to alleviate my fears we won't win a game if we concede first. 

I know we didn't have a LB replacement on the bench but I don't think Payne was a great choice there, should have pushed Laws out wider.

Harpers the biggest muppet. One thing I enjoyed last season was the passionate, knowledgeable and unintrusive  local commentary from different football communities. It was pleasantly surprising how much they knew about the Nix and their history. 

His most egregious piece of bollocks was when Old wore Arzani like a backpack for ten metres before shrugging him off and then Arzani tried again, and he carried on about how it wasn’t a yellow. 

coochiee

kungfu panda

• Mannyriff

  Don’t understand how you can discount one players fcuk ups & say he was better than others & not take out their fcuk ups. 
  Thought the game was good to watch from both teams & had we taken some our chances earlier at 1 nil, result may have been different. Considering new combinations still to form, thought all the players did reasonably well even with fcuk ups which is always part of the game & most importantly so is luck for a good season ahead. 

• Yes you're right 🤣 
• But all of have watched the match, so I think the comment is understandable. 

Look I get you lived in Italy for a long time or something. But the Pennington loveathon is a bit tiresome now. Kraev and Sasse (esp Sasse) have literally been at the Nix 5 mins. You just can’t excuse Pennington’s mistakes and criticise their’s

Uffie knows best and he’ll make the call on who starts when season kicks off. But Lewis is a given, and highly likely it’s Ugarkovic alongside him.

Nothing wrong with being passionate about a player, and kungfu panda has backed up his arguments with facts which have made me re-assess Pennington. I don't think he's a starting DM for us yet, but he was being made a scapegoat and that probably isn't fair when he also does positive things.  

Every team has a scapegoat... Pennington is an easy choice because he has brain explosion when in possession... Sotorio was easy the first couple year because his finishing was poor.

Pennington won't be the scape goat this year as he won't play enough. Sasse might be though.

MetalLegNZ

Every team has a scapegoat... Pennington is an easy choice because he has brain explosion when in possession... Sotorio was easy the first couple year because his finishing was poor.

Pennington won't be the scape goat this year as he won't play enough. Sasse might be though.

I hope Sasse won't but Kosta might be worried

MetalLegNZ

Every team has a scapegoat... Pennington is an easy choice because he has brain explosion when in possession... Sotorio was easy the first couple year because his finishing was poor.

Pennington won't be the scape goat this year as he won't play enough. Sasse might be though.

It's also the unforgiving nature of a holding midfield position, you get the ball under pressure and are expect to launch the attack. It's critical, especially in the way we play. Rufer was always a scapegoat too, and before that Lia was often a scapegoat.

Anyone not wishing to read my unbiased post, please log off now.









Top 3 Duel winning players:
1. Elliot  22
2. Pennington 16+4 interceptions(76' play) 
3. Kraev 14

martinb

Harpers the biggest muppet. One thing I enjoyed last season was the passionate, knowledgeable and unintrusive  local commentary from different football communities. It was pleasantly surprising how much they knew about the Nix and their history. 

His most egregious piece of bollocks was when Old wore Arzani like a backpack for ten metres before shrugging him off and then Arzani tried again, and he carried on about how it wasn’t a yellow. 

Guy is an absolute Twit. Yesterday was a terrible combination of being dismissive to the Nix, wanting to hype a new big-city expansion club Macarthur and wanting to hype a failed Australian talent Arzani. 

I've noticed in general over an extensive period of time that commentators, formerly Fox Sports and now KEEPUP hype the sh*t out of the two most recent expansion clubs Western United and Macarthur FC.

It's like they know they're abject failures heading for disastrous ends the way things are going off-the-field, and trying to save their bacon by making them out to be something they're not, and almost never criticising them despite the vast wave of criticism they both deserve (like how the heck have Western United got away with the stadium debacle?). 

It's a further insult when you remember how the likes of Bosnich and others used to slate the crap out of us and say we offered nothing to the league back when our license was under threat, but now they're bending over backwards to cover for franchise teams that shouldn't even exist. 

Oi Oi Edgecumbe

Lots of players need to up their games second half. Kosta, Lewis, Pennington. Wootten lumps it long every time.

This is a well known part of his game that got Argyle and Leeds United in the poo quite often.

wilbaker

Payne done it again

I really think he's gone backwards as a footballer over the last 12 months, similar to how Fenton went down hill.

NZPhoenixFan

Regardless of the result, it was great to see Davila play after a terrible couple of months. He looked dangerous every time he got the ball.

I just wish he looked dangerous for us still.

kungfu panda

• Oi Oi Edgecumbe

  Happy with Waine, Elliot and Kraev
  Lewis wasn't in the game first half, Sutton not at all, Pennington good and poor, Laws pretty good but stood off for the first goal, Wootten needs to do more than lump it forward, Old worked hard but didn't link too well with the strikers.
  Kosta and Payne hmm

• I'm not overly happy with Sasse or Kraev. If it wasn't for the fcuk ups, Pennington was better than both of them. That shouldn't be the case.

With the amount of love you have for Pennington is your real name Filippo Cavadini???


edited for spelling/grammar