Match 7 vs WSW | Sun 21st Feb | 8:10pm | SS7

Cant pick a MOM.

An enjoyable game. Most players did quite well. McGarry not his usual self and not just for the error leading to the second goal. Impressed by Payne and McGing at CB. Reno and Lewis right up there with their performance, Uli the best by far. Waine could have got himself more involved, unlucky about the disallowed goal but he can hold his head up. Also Oli Sail, great kick and vision and a great shot stopper. Rufer was everywhere and Devlin changed the game. Not bad. There's hope in this season yet... 

edit: forgot Fenton. Great game too. Stoked for him. Let's hope he lasts the season (and more) and returns to the form he had in the old days 

For my money, Louie Fenton = MOM, for his excellent defence work. The well taken header goal did not hurt either.

Or a quicker pass. Piscopo and Davila are the kind of players who want to shoot themselves! 

Enjoyed the game. Paine and McGing putting their hands up. 

Surely other teams will prepare and mean we would not get space through the middle.

Yep, very entertaining. And the young lads did well. 

Definately a quicker game from us. 

Impressed with Waine, he has a lot more of a physical presence than I realised. Good at bringing other players into the game, is he the key to unlock our marquee striker?

I reckon Waine has to stay on the pitch for a while as he brings so much, more so ten Hemed at this point of time.

Farkin A. 

Him and another quality striker makes us really dangerous. He looked so wrecked at the end of the game.  Put his everything on the line. 

Don't want to single out McGarry either but he's learning some hard lessons in that LB role. You only have to make a tiny misjudgement to lose the man behind you and it's cost us a few times now.

Really like the way Lewis is developing. He's not super inventive or skillful but he gets through a power of work.

Waine and Muratovic deserves another run, no goals from Waine but he done his job well and seems to draw players in with his back to goal, not bad for a skinny lad.

Muratovic runs some really good lines so the pair of them make a good combination.

For once it seemed like we were able to play through a team whereas we would normally go over the top with Sotirio's pace or go around them due to our predictability.

Good balanced squad all things considered with injuries and suspensions.

Same team next week please with Scrappy coming off the bench for impact.

I know its early days yet buts everyones view on Sail in goal, a few nerves moments buts its his first game i and though he commanded the goal line well. I don't blame him for not saving the two set pieces as the defenders left there man unmarked. Hope to see him again against Victory.

Gutsy performance. Obviously hot & Humid. You would have taken a draw pre game, given who was out.

Waine a real workhorse role. Talay went in with a plan and it pretty much came off. 

Be interesting to see what he has planned for VUC. Don't think have to sit so deep against them. 

Payne may have scored himself a CB role, until DeVere returns. Laws and McGing to fight out the other spot.

Good thing is that with a few midweek games coming up, plus absentees, seems can trust most of squad to get a run and keep players fresh.

Nice scenes post match with Davila and his son, down with the Mexican fans.

I think our defense and midfield were on top of their game tonight. Payne stood out in the defense, marshalled his line all the way until the end. No doubt, he will be securing that CB spot. Fenton showing all of that experience. Brilliant goal to cap off an impressive performance. Rufer and Lewis showed great understanding and partnership while Davila and Piscopo caused a lot of headache for WSW. Muratovic, deserved goal for a clever run. Waine with an okay performance. A bit rusty, but maybe because it was his first start since July.

Impressed with Waine, he has a lot more of a physical presence than I realised. Good at bringing other players into the game, is he the key to unlock our marquee striker?

I agree first half he couldn't get into the game but second half I thought his hold up play in tight spots was excellent, such a shame about the offside as a goal would be amazing for his confidence.

Anyone else think McGing looks like a junky?

Are you in the UK too? lol

Fenton hands down.  One of the best games I've seen him play.

Fenton was a rock today. MOM by miles. 

Pity McGarry was at fault for one and possibly both goals, not a great game from him.

If you see him playing for SFC he was a beast there too.  Could be the next Akinfenwa (The Beast).

Fenton easily MoM, thought Davilla was back to his best tonight as well. Waine did really well as a target man, he held the b all up well and laid it off to the players coming forward, Sail did well in goal, and Payne controlled the back well. Good signs from the bench players pushing the "starting" 11 for spots in Wednesdays' game.

Given the new players in new positions all over the pitch that was a very cohesive display.  Well done Ufuk. Clayton Lewis had a cracking game.  I really liked him in the DM role.  Also, big ups to Muratovic's for his performance, and the centre back pairing that seemed like theyd played together for years...

Probably the most enjoyable game we've had all season. Only 10 minutes of frustration before genuine jubilation in my household seeing Louis getting on the scoresheet. Agree with others he was MOM, followed by Davila. Lewis a great game too, and Piscopo looking very dangerous. I know we didn't see much of him, But I thought Lokoli-Ngoy looked pretty good off the bench for what we want from him. Comparable to Bernie Ibini (the older and bigger version at WSW at the moment) - Looks physical as hell, fast, got back defensively and seemingly didn't have the Sotirio panicked first touch. Nice little introduction

While I do not think there is anything particularly wrong with Marinovic in our goal, it was good to see Sail putting in a great shift between the posts against WSW.  I like his distribution and he looked like a safe pair of hands.  It might have been Uffie's plan to rotate the keepers because of the midweek game requiring short turnaround.

So long since Sail last played, forgot how good is his passing/distribution. He had some very good pin point passes down the lines.

Definitely a tactical switch from Talay, given Nix played a bit more long ball than prior. And yeah Marinovic's form had been a bit average, if not badly out of form or anything.

I was a little disappointed by the fact that for the last 10 mins we looked like a team trying to hold a draw whilst WSW looked like a team wanting a win.

Both WSW goals were well taken, particularly the first. Kamau made the difference for them... why is he not starting??

I might be wrong but I suspect it was a wrong tactical decision by WSW coach to bring in the key changes so late in the game to win it for WSW.  Their best players were brought on late, ours (Piscopo, Davila) were taken off late.  If WSW had brought in Duke and Kamau at half time who knows.  As it is, we held out just long enough, and although they were parked in our half they were also clearly very susceptible to our counter, far more than CCM or the Jets were.  

Thought Sail did a good job punching crosses that Marinovic would've stayed for. Definitely felt like a more direct style of play as well, Waine held the ball up really well at times before bringing Davila into play, would like to see Waine get another start on Wednesday.

These are the players that didn't start:

Georgievski, Kamau, Cox, Duke, Troisi, Mutch, Dorrans, Ziegler

That's like at least half of the salary cap (which is $2.1million this season), and I can't find any news if they even have any marquee players.

Yes the commentators made mention of Carl Robinson, now building together a top drawer deep squad for the A League.

They must be genuine title contenders.

Noticed 2 of his ex Vancouver Whitecaps players - Marinovic & Ibini chatting post match.

As for Welnix, it ain't really a level playing field this season, matching budget of say likes of the Wanderers. Being away in the Gong each week, just bleeds the bottom line too much, to go out and make any new big name signings. Really sneaking into top six would be a worthy achievement, plus seeing some of the young players getting increasing minutes. 

It's also nice to see a high number of Kiwis playing. 7 starters yesterday. 

That together with a good fighting attitude, week in week out, will make it an interesting enough season.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/12...

looking at the table, we are on 5 points and 6th (Jest) is on 11, they have played 2 games more than us. All of the top 6 excluding Sydney have played more games.

All it takes is for those two catch up games to be wins and we are in the mix.

Fenton my guy!
Good game to watch! Great to see the rest of the boys normally not playing are up to the task. 

Just read on that other forum that Talay will change things around again vs Victory. Lets just hope he keeps the No1 goal keeper in the starting 11 being Sail,

I believe he has said that Sail will start.

Proud of our team and this display. Fenton, with late support from Devlin, brought the never say die attitude that we needed. Rufer got stuck in too without giving anything away.

I would rather have the points than games in hand. Only speculation that we would win, although there have been some strange results so far.

agreed, but worrying about our position on the table is pointless when the games played differs in this manner, its part of why I dislike the split rounds etc that the a-league dopes - obviously COVID has screwed things a bit this yar.

I can't believe Royz was right on this

At the risk of sounding like I am praising Royz, I would suggest that Sail has the same skill at punching the right ball at the right time that Filip Kurto had when he was in the goal for us. Sail's body build is very different from Kurto though so I don't expect the same agility when stopping low shots where Kurto excelled. But his reflexes are just fine as he showed parrying the point blank range shot or two.