Darije Kalezić: We hardly knew ye.

Weemac has been a concern, he was on fire at CCM and very rarely repeated that form here. Shame as he was pretty damn good. Maybe Dura is going to make the game on March 25th his last game? If so, the protest movement can assemble as mentioned and we can give him a real send off - in a positive way. 

Rumours are now that Dome will be resigning, fingers crossed

Contract Extensions all round!!!

Chaaahooo!

Well, unless the announcement it has been pushed back (or was never happening in the first place). There is nothing on twitter from any of the sports people and nothing from the Nix. Apparently was heard by some people on Radio Sport by Piney this morning.

i don't get it

(feel free to take the mick)

EDIT: hang on, are you saying...?

I couldn't remember the Greatest Coach inthe World. This is just a Tribuliex

Two o'clocks come and gone, no word from the club?

hate waiting!!!!

Sauces weren't exactly solid.  More Soy than chunky tomato.

'The Wellington Phoenix are pleased to announce the last remaining home game scheduled to be played in Wellington on the 25th of March will now be played in Canberra as per planned at the start of the season. See you all next year! Be sure to buy your season passes for next season and be a Nix Level supporter!' 

Wow wasn't expecting that!

link

that link is broken

try this one

fixed link

Tempted to hide posts but countered with "if people are that stupid" ...

It's almost like we need some distraction or entertainment like a football team to follow to keep us out of trouble. Remember the days when people would post different line ups and debate them all week because there was competition to get into the team?

There is competition now.  What is the worst line-up we could field and see if we nail it.

Yup. It's amazing how this plan for next year is going to deliver massively different results to this year, but strangely enough just isn't able to be executed right now... 

End of the day the football has been dull, the results terrible, we're definitely the worst team in the league and the players he has brought in through his "European contacts" aren't good enough. Oh and he's fallen out with his assistant, and failed to get the best out of our only decent defender.  I literally cannot think of anything at all positive to take from this season. 

I’d have believed that if it wasn’t for the ‘fake tweet’ text! 

Is it ture?

So Kale Herbert then?

I was just about to ask for "his balls to be 'on the line' ", by 28 Feb, and then I read the byline of a fake tweet.

Well played.

You can do ones without the fake tweet disclaimer, but I didn't want people to have a heart attack.... Just to skip a beat!

so its well past 2pm, no announcement?

6 o'clock and all is ... well ... confused

So by "rumours" we mean dudes on Facebook, right? I assume also that no-one here heard Piney on Radio Sport, it was just second-hand rumours as well?

wait is it the off season already?

The off-season seems to have started when Rado and his prodigy both left the club.

At least then we had suspense and drama, including hammy performances all delivered with a stony face and difficult accents, much like a good Mexican telenovela (soap opera).  But after that, it's just been a depressing B grade movie instead. 

Long off-season.

For me, the club culture has been destroyed by this Coach. He talks of a winning culture - when the team is dead last. Does the "no dickheads" policy apply to coaches? There was a lot of debate on dickheads when we got a certain Joel Griffiths on to the team, but he was a passionate player who believed in the team and the Coach ultimately ending his career here. He probably had something to do with Ernie at the Jets.  We've got two years to get this right, but we don't need another European coach who is surprised by the speed of the A League, can't work in a salary cap, or doesn't understand distance issues. For me the options are: 

Ramon (unlikely due to technical qualifications issue) but would unite fan base I feel sure.

Eat humble pie and bring back Rado.

A successful A-League Coach - Ange, or Popa

"Bring back Buck" or Green Eggs and Ham revisited. There really isn't time for anything else.

The blame the coach thing is interesting. For me, the main issues with previous coaching has been:

a) Lack of real discipline within the squad. It's good when everyone is getting along and the team really gels as a group, but this doesn't work when it appears that the playing group also appears to be responsible for enforcing certain standards. He's possibly gone the wrong way about it, but DK seemed to at least try and address this.

b) Wasted transfers on players that aren't what the team needs. Ernie did this a lot, Ricki too to some extent. However all DK's transfers seem to have been with a purpose, to fill a noticable gap not only in a positional sense, but also with regards to specific player attributes. 

c) Mind-boggling substitution and selection decisions. Ernie was by far the worst for this. So many times watching the games with mates discussing subs and what we'd do (normally the forum would be in agreement) and Ernie would end up making an absolutely bizarre change. Not selecting Fox when we were out of contention for the playoffs still bugs me greatly. DK seems to make more agreeable selection and substitution decisions.

d) Not giving young kiwis gametime. All coaches have a varied history here, Ricki cost us Kosta but did give Rojas decent gametime. Ernie's snubbing of Boyd forced him overseas but he oversaw the rise (and fall, literally) of Fenton. DK has let Ridenton shine through and seems to be happy giving Patterson and Singh decent time on the park recently.

e) Tactical rigidity. The Nix have basically had no Plan B for the last 10 years. First it was the Ricki ball and then Ernie tried to shoehorn in the title-winning Victory blueprint without the players to match. Credit to Greenie and Buckingham as they were the first coaches to really try to develop more responsive tactics. DK has maybe taken this a bit too far, but he does appear to select the team and tactics based on strengths in the team as well as how the opposition is likely to setup. For the CCM game, selecting an attacking side but sitting a bit deeper was an obvious response to the pace that CCM have in their front three (basically pace is all the front three of CCM have). However the team weren't able to transition effectively through the midfield and turned over the ball far too often inviting all the pressure, this was actually addressed in the second half and the team were much better.

So they've brought in a coach that has dealt to all my (and many others) previous annoyances with former coaching regimes, but for some reason fails to get results. Injuries and individual errors may be outside of the control of the coach, though it's the results that count and DK has to be responsible for these. However outside of the results, he has arguably pushed the team towards a better overall model of a football club. With this in mind, I think the management team had the original idea for this season spot on; DK's management style is good for the club on a whole from a high level and supplement possible technical coaching limitations with a top assistant. Too bad it didn't work out. 

My opinion on him staying is the board should give DK and his assistant full public backing for the remainder of the season. If incremental improvements are shown then he stays, if it keeps going the way it currently is he goes.

I agree with everything except the last sentence. I think he needs next season to prove he is good enough. Then he will have had the opportunity to get rid of as many of the 15 players coming off contract as he wants to. If Welnix are true to their word, they'll make the funds available to get the type of players he wants [within fiscal reason]. I hope he's been looking in the Handy because he's going to have to recruit Kiwis from there most likely if he wants to get rid of the current dead wood.