Nix @ CCM, Thursday 7th Feb 9:00pm SkySports 3

What a shambles. Must've been fixed.

If Fenton was with another A league team we eg; Roar -  he would look alot better

It took Rojas and Kosta to leave the Phoenix to become better players

Sad but true

Rojas was great for us. So unsure what you're on about. 

Young players do improve year to year (usually), so it makes sense that they got better after leaving here. 

If Rojas had stuck around would he be at the same level he is now..?

Postecoglou must do something right with our young talent..

I don't think Fenton would to be honest. Roar and Tards built their game on passing. Fenton is the complete opposite of that and prefers to run with the ball to the point that he carries it too far, too long and invariably in doing so, cocks up better opportunities for others. 

I remember one last night Fenton got the ball just over half in the 1st half and was going forward, had Cernak in front of him on the left in acres of space and instead of giving it to Cernak who could have run at their RB, Fenton ran into the space himself, left Cernak with nowhere to go and the ball goes for the throw in.

He needs more experience/coaching, he needs to think of his next option before he gets the ball (if I get the ball now, where it my next two team mate options) and most of all, he needs to get his head up, open his eyes, read the game situation, spacing and players/positionals around him and do it before or as he receives the ball, not after he has taken it 15 yards.

I have wondered if they review the tape at all because for Fenton, its an easy coach. I doubt they do because then Sigmund would have stopped leaving the line.

I can respect how you arrive at that but lets be honest, our team are playing like shit and continuously repeating the same mistakes. Its only patronising if they are aware of it and trying to fix it and based on performance, I am not so sure they are.

I think it is not (just) a midfield or defence problem, it's a system problem. Our pressing is uncoordinated, we have players high up the pitch that press but once the opposition are through that half-hearted press we have players in zones which has then created so much space for the opposition. We need to either learn to press as a unit, or pick when to press better, or shift more to a zonal defence. 

In recent seasons we have dropped into two banks of 4 with a player roaming between midfield and defence or two banks of four with one of the strikers dropping onto the DM of the opposition team.

I absolutely agree with this. We have been defensively shambolic this year like we've never been before.

I reckon we miss Browny in midfield more than people reckon. 

Pancakes.

That is all.

 Can't remember your old sign-on then?

yep, for all the knockers claiming brown went missing etc he did a hell of a lot of unseen work defensively and probably in the leadership of that midfield - right now the mids have no onfield leadership and look lost, confused, rudderless.

Yeh people used to say he did 'unseen' work!

 Only three players looked capable of beating players yesterday- Fenton, Totori and Cernak.

Ifill was very ineffective.

These are my thoughts on the Nix vs CCM with some reflection on where we are at as a whole. For mine it’s all about our lack of ability to play any kind of constructive football (not ground breaking I know). I certainly don’t think this is anything new and have been on the record as saying we have always played atrocious football, i.e. hump it forward ASAP and hope for break downs, or get it wide and cross. The difference being that league used to be such that we could get results playing that football. As we all know it has moved on.

Last night we started counting passes at the 60 minute mark to see how many we got, amazingly we never got past 3 in a row and then gave up after around 10 minutes. The pattern which repeated time and time again was CCM would attack with numbers, we would win it back (sometimes), CCM then put us under a high press, we either get caught in possession or more likely we panic (assumption) and hoof it long, usually to their full backs and they get to set up again at halfway (as that’s where we press from) and start again with attack. Below I will attach some stats (from the Leopold method) around our failure to complete passes as compared to all A-League teams and secondly our even more startling failure to secure possession when playing out from the back from round 18 (either long or short). Potentially the Nix are working on the theory that if they are being pressed then there will be spaces behind to exploit with long balls. However CCM and a lot of other teams are just far too sophisticated for what is essentially a “club” level tactic, and even at that level this type of tactic is dying out.

I feel as though the responsibility sits with both the coach and the players. From a coaching perspective, clearly they are encouraged to get the ball forward as quickly as possible which is at a cost of any possession based plan, also other aspects around systems and pressing etc are failing miserably. Further to that though and in fairness to the coach I very much doubt his instructions are ‘every time we get the ball panic and hoof it as long and as far as you can to the opposition fullbacks’ which is what happens over and over again.

We are woefully short of the mark in our ability to play “football’ and by that I mean a modern passing based game. Not purely passing, just passing based. And this leads to us being being out played 99 times out of a hundred and coming under huge amounts of pressure. We get into these defensive discussions after the big losses but realistically its like a training run for CCM because they just get to attack and attack again due to us repeatedly gifting the ball back to them. The Sydney game was different but I actually believe bar Manny Muscat who was beaten/out of position for several of the CCM goals our defenders did OK for the sheer amount of pressure they were put under.

Routes to failure:

1.  High pressure by opposition (out coached)

2.  Lack of willingness, faith and ability to pass the ball (Players)

a.  Short to feet

b.  Long to a team mate.

3.  Out thought by opposition in terms of regaining possession. (out coached)

4.  Lack of coordinated pressing approach (out coached)

5.  Opposition begins attack with numbers on and around the halfway line. (by product)

In terms of recent discussion around approach, for me I actually preferred watching us trying our new “total football” approach over our recently reverted to “pragmatic” approach because I have been at my wits end with the tactics we have always played to for less and less result and felt at least there was some potential and entertainment value in the new approach namely the brilliant Game entertainment wise vs. heart (3-2) win.

CCM Playing out - Green complete Red incomplete - consistantly retain possesion

Nix Playing out - Green complete Red incomplete - Consistantly give away possesion

Also got to remember that Brown really suited our style of play of getting it wide and crossing it in. How many goals have our midfielders scored like this in the season? They can't make dangerous runs from midfield into the box and lack Tim's fitness of being able to get up and down the park all game, which is what allowed him to be able to commit forward as much as he did. Tim was regarded as one of the fittest in the A-League.

While the youngsters have potential and fair shakes to them for there effort the fact is we see far more accomplished players in the ASB,  deVreis and Krishna in particular 

Well said there is more talent in the asb than a lot of people have been led to believe

Where exactly did Fenton, Boyd, rojas, kosta, siggy and to a lesser extent mulligan and rowe come from then?

Don't make out like we ignore ASBP players. There is also several that have trialled with the club. 

RH take on the match:

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/263293,herbert-embarrassed-by-phoenix-effort.aspx

The  1st half may have been even, but CCM always looked like they could step up a gear and looked more likely to score.

Where is the ownership from the coach saying,"my tatics were wrong" or "I picked the wrong players for this match".

This was a perfect game to park the bus, play 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 or whatever, and try and sneak one on the counter.

Try closing the gap between defence and midfield. Pick players who will at least try and if they don't, drop them. Results can't get any worse. 

I don't know, Im not a football expert, all I know is that Im still pissed off about last night

 so Ricki's embarrassed, what the hell are he and the players going to do about it??