Melbourne A vs. Nix, Sunday 14th 5pm

 Ok so up to 7 players missing from the squad. Opinions? Thoughts on likely starting XI + bench??? Anyone have any info on the injury front?

................Basalaj

Lia (fit?) Boxall Durante Rowe

................Lindsay

Fenton   Smith  Clarke    Ifill

.............Huysegems

Or Lindsay at right back, Smith holding, and Boyd up front with Huysegems - this probably more likely actually as it fits into the 4-1-3-2 we are looking to play.

So you've dropped Manny??

All together now - 

Five foooooooouuuurrr,
We're gonna win five four,
We're gonna win five four.

 - repeat as necessary.

Is Basalaj allowed to play? He's not an official signing in the squad?

Maybe Ricki will use Gleeson as All Whites reserve keeper and leave Paston or Moss with the Phoenix. Slight conflict of interest for Ricki.

If Basalaj does play, who is our reserve keeper?

I'd expect:

                 Basalaj
Lindsay Boxall Durante Rowe
                 Muscat
 Ifill             Smith        Clarke 
        Huysegems Boyd

Spoonley, Lia, Biss, Watson

Although not sure on Lia's fitness or if Watson would be a better pick than Doyle?

The All Whites squad is already confirmed and Moss and Paston both travel as do all the others named above.

Basalaj and Rowe, and depending on injury some of the other kids will get one week temp contracts.  The problem is the 4 week stand down for the ASB Premiership if they play. 

Paper today says Spoonley a chance for bench but if he doesn't play he'll still be okay for Auckland City.

Here

Downey injured as well.

So:

                    Basalaj

Lindsay - Boxall - Durante - Rowe

   Ifill - Muscat - Smith - Fenton

          Waffles - Clarke/Boyd

Bench (Injury dependent): Clarke/Boyd - Spoonley - Watson - Biss.

Personally I reckon Lia will be on the bench.  He played in Palmy last week so must be close.

            Basalaj

Lia-Boxall-Durante-Rowe

            Muscat

     Ifill-Smith-Fenton

    Huysegems-Boyd

Lindsay for Lia if he's not fit

sorry wrote that before I saw HN's post

what he said

is there an injury scare with boyd?

Basalaj

Lia - Ifill - Smith - Boxall - Durante - Fenton - Boyd - Rowe

Moosecat

Huysegems

Bus Successfully parked!

 Given our performance against Sydney, and having watched the Derby, I don't think there is too much to worry about.

I feel a Prediction coming on.....

 A chance.  Last time I was at training he was working with the Physio rather than taking a full part, plus he didn't play at Youngheart.

Ifill up front with Clarke playing as wide mid is also an option. He's not fit enough to last 90 minutes as a wide midfielder at the moment and we need him to log a lot of minutes on the weekend.

Could actually be the way to go. With Boyd coming on again. 

I'm a lot more relaxed about this after watching the game on the weekend, particularly how Fenton/Boyd stepped up, and Manny/Smith bossed the midfield including ADP. Still not totally relaxed, but more relaxed.

Just one point re: formations above. If we're a bit worried about some shaky defence (and with Lindsay, Rowe, Bassalaj basically untested in A-league I'm not 100% confident), I would put Ifill at striker not on the wing. Ifill is brilliant at many things, but tracking back and helping in defence isn't one of them.

Actually, just noticed that rjmiller suggested this as well.

Would it be worth putting five at the back, and try to not concede a goal and hope we can steal a goal and win 1-0?

We don't have any spare backs.

Also, I don't think we need to.  I'm not scared by the changes we have to make as I would have been in most previous seasons.

Opportunity for Tobias Bertsch? Totori away.

I tend to concur with News on this one.

One interesting stat I have realised is that we have never won our 2nd match of the season in any of our previous attempts!

I'm too lazy to confirm this by checking back over previous season results so i'm sure someone will be able to correct me if i'm wrong!

I knew we had never won our first game of the season, but 2nd as well? Im not so sure...

at least we wont have to watch Pav. Good luck to the young uns

I'm a little worried about this game, but not because of the kids having to play. We have known about this for awhile, so it isn't like we are calling them up without much notice. Most of them have played a decent amount of games in pre-season.

I am worried because the Heart looked pretty good against the Victory. They have a lot of experience in the midfield, and will have 3 centre mids against our 2. Manny and Smith will have their work cut out for them.

Was thinking the same in regards to the 3v2 midfield. Our wider mids are gonna have to come a bit narrower on defense to give them a bit of support. 

However I feel like Heart hit the ground at full speed last week because they were pumped up and prepared to play a super high pressure game. They got pretty tired with those older midfield trio. Will be interesting to see if they press us the same way.

I think Lindsay and Rowe are gonna be important for shutting down Duganzic & Williams and launching attacks down the flanks

Can we have an updated list of the Available players, just to get an idea..

I was thinking, if both Moss & Pasty travel with the team, who will keep for us?

Heart played well on Friday night but

a) it was the derby and they gave 110%

b) Melbourne don't look like a Postecoglu-run team (yet), and didn't do anything special

Cheers for the correction!

seems odd they wouldn't just take spoonley with the AW's and leave either Moss or Paston with the Phoenix with Basalaj backing up. Basalaj starting is a bit of risk IMO.

Also when are the phoenix just gonna cut their losses with guys like downey and pantelis. always injured ugh