Nix vs Brisbane Roar, Sunday 7pm SS3

Well fuck it , this season has well and truely sucked the big one and tonight was no exception. Did think Corey is worth another look at , though.

Jr and I have only missed one home game in the history of the Phoenix . We have had season tickets since day 1. We will be getting season tickets again next year. Does that mean we're happy with this season ?- no , because we're both pathetic and unsophisticated. But without people like Jr and me , who in the grand scale of things Phoenix are nothings , there will be no Phoenix. So we'll be there again next season and the season after that and...

Couple of standard saves. Badly miss read a through ball and got caught stranded. No blame on the goals.

The angst on here seems pretty disproportionate  to the performance.  We looked much better today. Looked to maintain possession and knock it around more. Couple of sloppy mistakes and poor finishing cost us.  Another day we would have got something out of it.

Not sure what game you were watching. First half it took us more than  30 mins to get more than 3 passes together. Second half we were better, but were 2-0 down and the Roar stopped playing.

 Some such stupid comments on here today. Sanchez makes one mistake and people say f-off. His is more of a footballer that 80% of the other players.

Moss today was OK, but no better than Paston. Lochhead was no better than Hogg.

Muscat, Ifill,Lia and Ben S on that performance would not even get in the squad of any other team in this league.

Playing the second 'worst side' in the league and we were second best. Says it all. I said as much last year when we finished quite high in the league and mentioned that we needed to strengthen the team and was shouted down.

To get back to the top 4 next year we need to get rid of at least 4/5 players, but that won't happen.

I am not anti Ricki, but the fact is we do not have good enough  players.

Some of our supporters need to get the patches off.

The one that was on SS3 at 7pm.

 Hernandez is not going to win games on his own. He is no longer the fast striker of old - he is going to be more of a midfield presence, and he shoots well from distance. On the face of it, only Garneiro and Muscat were prepared to have a crack at Theo's goal today.

The angst on here seems pretty disproportionate  to the performance.  We looked much better today. Looked to maintain possession and knock it around more. Couple of sloppy mistakes and poor finishing cost us.  Another day we would have got something out of it.

The angst is not just related to this one performance as you well know.

Well  I guess 90% of the other post on here tonight are wrong as well.

Can't argue with that post sir.

 Hernandez is not going to win games on his own. He is no longer the fast striker of old - he is going to be more of a midfield presence, and he shoots well from distance. On the face of it, only Garneiro and Muscat were prepared to have a crack at Theo's goal today.

I think I am in Doloras's camp over this one. Somewhere in this team lurks a good team. Trying to be positive because in reality I do see some signs we have good players. Stein looks a good player when the ball comes to his feet, Fenton is industrious and will be a very good player for us. Leo has had a good season. Durante and Muscat are quality but out of form.....ditto Iffill. Hernandez will be great for us, so will Moss. 

The problem we have is that whatever is going down between the coaching staff in training and the players in execution on match day is seriously not working. (How much can we read in Ricki turning away when Iff's came off...no handshake, no eye contact.? )We can't do a huge player cleanout. We will have only one import slot left.....so any replacements have to come from Oz or NZ and I would like to know where we are going to find a bunch of quality A-League standard players that or not already tied to another club.

So if we can't really do a player cleanout then the coaching staff is the only other area where we can make a radical change. For me this season is probably going to be a a right off. But I believe that with the right person in charge next season we can turn this team around.

I don't have a problem with this post.
My thoughts:
We were not bad towards the end but Brissy did park the bus in the later end of the game which gave us an appearance of being better than what we were. That said, I can see the quality in Stein when he plays. Its obvious that he is not used correctly so Ricki does get a brick bat for that. I thought Fenton put himself about a bit which was good and Gameiro was ok for his debut but I don't think its enough to go raving about. Moss was solid too I thought.
I think Boyd has probably done his dash for the season. The boy is falling further off the pace of the league. Losing Cernak and Bertos early (I know Leo was prior to KO) did not help and I think having Lia in the middle with Cernak would have helped as opposed to Boyd and Sanchez. Both those two made some really basic mistakes that are disappointing for pro footballers (both giving away a goal and not slotting a goal). Some players touches and passes were embarrassing as was the pitch but that was the same for both sides. Agree that we have a few players out of form and I guess when they are the previously on record as being the 'stars of the team' (Siggy, Durante, Manny and Ifill) thats when the coach has to pull it out of the bag.

I've moved from being a Ricki supporter a month ago, to sitting on the fence. I'm still on the fence but I'm starting to fall off. For people to blame Ricki for Boyd not scoring and Sanchez passing to the opposition (and Manny not picking up the trailer through the middle) is not the coaches fault. There is a good team there but there is a massive lull over the team. Its certainly off field stuff and whether its a coaching relationship or a owner relationship (revolt against comments) I can't really tell but the troops are certainly not happy. Perhaps a different voice is needed and like you say Austin, with only 1 import and perhaps 6 slots available (taking out a couple of re-signs) then they need to invest in quality cattle. Ifill is not going to get any better and today he was pretty poor.

I guess I am a little exasperated at how poorly we are playing with a lack of answers considering most of these players have done the job before. I guess I know how Ricki feels in that there must be a way to snap these guys out of it.

Still, we are here, and we cheer although we are being perplexed as to when we will see that little light at the end of the tunnel.

The angst on here seems pretty disproportionate  to the performance.  We looked much better today. Looked to maintain possession and knock it around more. Couple of sloppy mistakes and poor finishing cost us.  Another day we would have got something out of it.

on the negative side - Siggy is having a horror at the mo, and if we had another centre back option..

lochy's corners continue to suck

Gammy seems to have potential and waffles was one of our best despite playing about ten seconds.

we played some decent stuff when two nil down and if waffles had finished the one Norf blocked then it would have been a quality goal. Toward the end we were guilty of faffing round out wide when we could have put it in the mixer (down the left side). Needed to be some old fashioned non-total footy and drill it in instead of going backwards.

um and that's about it really. We weren't shit but needs to be a notch up before we collect points.

I didn't say that the angst wasn't justified. Was implying that the level of angst was up near CCM levels, when for me, the performance was much improved.

Isn't that part of the problem though?  other than looking lively and passing the ball a little bit in patches we don't look like we have any patterns of play designed to score.  And we lack quality in the final third which makes it more surprising that we aren't playing the one guy with goal scoring pedigree - and who has actually scored goals this season in Huysegems.  Plus, we are almost guaranteed to concede goals.  You look at the whole thing in total and wonder whether there is an actual plan here to win games and score goals - what does a typical phoenix goal look like? I'd love to know what the players are being told before they go out there.  

These are all coaching issues...player quality may be what is stopping us from being a top 2 team but the difference in squads between us and 6th isn't what's holding us back

 @ James Dean - "You look at the whole thing in total and wonder whether there is an actual plan here to win games and score goals - what does a typical phoenix goal look like?"

A typical Phoenix goal is a header scored by Tim Brown, or a long-range effort from Brockie. Possibly a penalty scored by Ifill.

whats rule 4

Isn't that part of the problem though?  other than looking lively and passing the ball a little bit in patches we don't look like we have any patterns of play designed to score.  And we lack quality in the final third which makes it more surprising that we aren't playing the one guy with goal scoring pedigree - and who has actually scored goals this season in Huysegems.  Plus, we are almost guaranteed to concede goals.  You look at the whole thing in total and wonder whether there is an actual plan here to win games and score goals - what does a typical phoenix goal look like? I'd love to know what the players are being told before they go out there.  

These are all coaching issues...player quality may be what is stopping us from being a top 2 team but the difference in squads between us and 6th isn't what's holding us back

 

Um, well we should have scored at least 2 goals. And had a another 3-4 decent chances to score.

But we didn't score and we've struggled to score all year even in games or halves we've reportedly dominated.  And there has to be a reason for that...

A-League keepers are quite good?

And Jade North made a defensive stop for the 1st time in 3 years....