Nix vs RADelaide - Back @ the Backbencher

ok so ive gone and thought about todays game, while it was on I wasnt exactly happy about what we were doing for the first 30-40mins we didnt seem to have a midfield and leo and lochy were being caught out position regularly. very sloppy the reds looked serveral divisions above us in passing and movement. however we really took the game to them just before halftime and again in the 2nd half. ok we didnt finish our chances, and our crossing was pointless. however at least we pressured them and looked like we wanted to win. that was refreshing. we havent shown intent like that in many weeks if not months. finsihing is a lot about confidence and other than corey our boys in the final third look timid and lacking a the spark. on the whole i think it was a good result and could have easily gone either way.

bring on the jets. and hopefully more people getting along

Oh, please. I love the phoenix. I've been a member since 07 for Christ sakes. I suppose I'm just rather pissed off that we haven't won the thing. Ohhhhh Nufc is a bastard or whatever. No. I just want to win. I'm competitive in nature. So excuse me for having such high standards.

I do not dispute the quality of the finishing - no one has. No one has disputed it for the context of the season.

The ACFC reference was more to the point that you are about as delightful as the majority of their fans.

The league table does not lie but today, but the point I am actually making if you could read is that we were worth more than a load of bullshit negativity that is coming out of you and nufc. At least for once this year, you can acknowledge that that was a better performance than anything else in the last 2 months, irrelevant of the result.

We deserved to win today. We didn't but that does not excuse the fact that we played well enough to at least have been in the position to do so.

Tough love. I'm a fan of it.

Fair enough, I think i misunderstood some of your earlier posts. Though my comments weren't exactly aimed at anyone in particular anyway, more at the general sort of tone of the forum. 

I actually agree with you to an extent. We wasted opportunities and blew a good chance to win through poor finishing. I'm frustrated by that but am also choosing to be more positive about it because I thought we dominated long periods of that match. There are 2 sides to a coin I guess. 

I walked away entertained but also a little frustrated as that was a game we needed to and should have won, given how we played. 

It's also the second time recently we've failed to really capitalise on having an extra man, which is annoying.

EG made a point about a month ago and I've felt that way this whole season in that Adelaide have been top table pretenders. I had them in my bottom 4 and the last two months, they have played like it. I think their luck has gone because they pulled a few results out of their ass in earlier in the season. I kinda put them in the same category as the Heart and the Jets. Not really a football team I take seriously.

I think without Vidosic, they would be in a shyte sight worse position.

Come on mate, stay on topic.

 Bencher.  Yays!

I love the new area where the kitchen used to be. Very nice! 

Yeah, yeah, we know #passionisnotacrime etc etc

Just try putting your opinion across in a slightly less arsehole-like way sometimes.

And you show about as much tolerance towards ACFC's mostly decent loyal fans as a constipated ferret JV. You can hardly keep bitching about one Phoenix fan's alleged negativity towards the team he's supposed to be supporting when no-one bitches more about NZ football as much as you - albeit with the odd lucid burst of reasonableness.

Yes the Phoenix attacked and that was a positive. But they didn't put away enough chances, much like Chelsea at the moment.

 Anyway - "can't finish a sandwich" has always been the curse of the Nix. I'll support SACKING RICKI if we get a coach who can teach Boyd and Fenton how to put the ball in the back of the next.

I coach my 6yr olds to use both feet equally. Shame someone doesnt seem to have done the same.

Can someone explain why pros arent spending all day every day developing their 'wrong' foot? After many years of practice, my 'wrong' foot is better than my 'right' foot!

That won't get you a trial mate.

Still can't complain about $4 pints. I was happy :)

+1 

Not to mention the two wins the ref gifted them at our expense.

Take another 4 points off them and they're only 4 points from 6th.

yeah they came out of the ACL with a lot more game time under the belts compared to the other teams so early on in the season they had an edge for a while until everyone else caught up.

Also think Carusca has scored quite a few stunners that have given them points in games where they may not actually have dominated

 I cant get over how many of you seem to be accepting of yet another below standard performance.Were we better than we have been yes but really that dosnt take much..Still way below the level it should be and i for one dont understand why people get hammered for saying that,our performances for most of the season have been mostly below the level required to be competitive at a decent level in this league.

While it was good to see Ifill try some stuff,it certainly did not come off as often as what some of you seem to think it did.

Havnt had time to look but has anyone mentioned about Rickis subs.Here we were down in the game they have just had a player sent off and true to form we wait till the 73/74th minute to make a sub.Must be in his manual that you cant use subs before this mark as it surprising how often he leaves till this point before making a change,was interesting to hear how many had noticed the same thing where i was standing yesterday.

See ya all wednesday but shit its getting hard to motivate ones self.

Agreed that it should have come earlier, but it was a pretty (surprisingly) attacking sub with Waffles (striker) coming on for Lia (DM).

 yeah I would have thought Sanchez was the obvious choice, and the sub had to be made as soon as the red card was shown not 10 minutes later. We looked heaps bvetter on attack but as we have all season very poor in front of goal.

Not a season defining game by any stretch. Quality of passing still poor. Work ratio for some players still intermittent. A number seem to switch off quite regularly during the game, eg. Lia, Durante, Lochhead and others. Ifill still way, way too slow or lacking confidence with dribbling and passing. Defensive midfield still not covering the ground or the runners. Young players still not making consistently good decisions. 

But from previous few games we are inching forward in the right direction. Better level of commitment & energy from most players, Ifill made a lot of good contributions too. Huysegems looked good for his brief burst. having Leo back in LB was (amazingly) generally effective. Gameiro showed being direct can be a good decision. if nothing else it rattles the opposition defense. Moss looked good.

Overall, improved. Tick.

Will we beat the WSW with a performance like that? Not by a long way. But maybe the Jets.

I think many of us are trying to take, or try to find, some positves out of it. In comparison with most of what we've served up this season, it WAS a better performance. It's not about accepting "another below standard performance", it's about seeing that it was well above what has been dished up recently. So we can either wail and gnash our teeth after every game and continually bleat about how shit we are or, when we actually show some improvement (no matter how small that improvement may be) we can take some positives out of it. Every performance at the moment is going to be below where it 'should be', we're low on confidence and we've been shit all season.

I thought Ifill played well yesterday. Yes, he is nowhere near his old self, but he's digging himself out of a major drop in form and there were glimpses yesterday that he's begining to turn things round. I don't think anybody is saying he is going to win the Player Of The Year trophy on yesterday's preformance. If it wasn't for a great save from the Adelaide keeper, today we'd all be raving about the great goal Ifill scored.

Agree with the subs. I think the subs worked for him, but he left it late. This was a game we had to win, a draw wasn't any good to us, and I'd have been happier if he'd made those changes earlier

Think i must have been at a different game to the one Ricki was at and some of us on here get accused of wearing eye patches.

"I thought, especially the second half, that there were real good shades of the old Phoenix really," said the coach.

"Totally comprehensive, well in control, the only team that were going to win the game."

He really does make one just shake their head at times and go, really

 "Totally comprehensive, well in control, the only team that were going to win the game."Really.

Just shows how the one game can look so different to the different people watching it i guess.

Don't think Sanchez would've done much - hasn't all season. Stein helped a bit when he came on.

I see light at the end of the tunnel, especially if we hang on to Gamiero who looks like Pav with an end product and better mentality (e.g. not crazy). Actually reminds me of a younger Greenie.

Stein, Gamiero up top with Hernandez in behind could be great.

Am trying to take a step back from all the angst lately - in the big scheme of things; we have done well since our inception and we've got Hernandez to look forward to (and hopefully a few more like-minded reinforcements) next season. Every team goes through patches like we are at the moment.

It is also easy to say bring on  a sub. We really had them under the kosh for quite some time before sub was made. Subs often totally disrupt the flow of a game and I thought leaving things was the right approach at the time.