Phoenix Ownership - Rob says FTFFA

'Playing' 'football' ? 

 not sure that's how buying a player would work, it might coiunt as an investment I suppose. I'd be keen though $100.00 per season is easy.

I'm wondering if we could make a claim under the fair trading act/ consumer guarantee for our Season Tickets AND Club Membership, due to the owners, in the preseason, talking about this squad being able to win the league. Now Gareth is saying that playoff football is not high on the agenda. If you want to win the league, you have to make the playoffs. 

I'm sure Gareth didn't go to the playoff games we have had here, if he had, he would know that they do more to get new fans along than anything. 

STFU Gareth, you are becoming a liability.

You've obviously forgotten about Brisbane Roar's 2009/2010 season then. They found themselves in almost exactly the same position (finished 9th) while implementing a new style before going on to win the title the following year. A lot of the same growing pains are evident with us, including rumours of players not wanting to buy in to the changes. If you can't see ANYTHING good coming out of this then you just don't want to look.

I find those comments by Morgan and how dare he make those very stupid comments about the Phoenix the playing sh*t.I hope FFA fines Morgan a massive sum of money.A big up's to Yellow fever for attacking Morgan .I stick with the lads though the good and the bad times yellow fever for life.

Folks have to remember what the big message is here and get some perspective.

Its not that some big meanie owner is calling us names or that the Phoenix is falling apart or that a football-dumb owner TOLD the coach and team to change style mid-season - its none of that. So lets just try and get over all that and do our bit to stop feeding the gossip machines that aren't doing us any good.

The real big message is that the Nix management team - comprising owners AND coaches - have a long-term plan for the clubs success and sustainability that they've all worked out together over time and are implementing. I think everyone will be learning about the ups and downs with it as they go. What alternative is there?

Obviously a lot is also getting lost in translation and the glaring lack of media management for Gareth has undermined the real message. Losing games isn't helping right at the moment either. I usually like a lot of Gareth Morgans style and thinking, but nobody is perfect and he's certainly got his foot spectacularly well into his mouth a few times in the last week - he could probably start a good circus act with that ability. But if we beleive in the success and sustainability of the Nix and NZ football then he is definitely on our side (along with the rest of WELNIX) - even if we don't always agree on some of the ways things get done or talked about (or stuffed up).

See you at the Newcastle game!

 Has anyone mentioned the mischievous role that the D**Post has played in this? Sam Worthington has been made to look a fool by his editor Jonathan Milmow. I don't believe that it was Sam's idea to run that 'beat up' story about Gareth being at training. 

Further, some fans were pretty 'gullible' and 'unsophisticated' for taking it at face value.

Beautifully put.

Time to rise out of the mire of pettiness, get the big picture, appreciate you have a professional team to follow with committed owners and look forward to Sunday's game.

Relieved to see no further Gareth Morgan articles/blogs/interviews today... Please just stop talking!

I'm sorry but this blaming the Dom shit has to stop. Did Milmow/Worthington/Bidwell hold a gun at Gareth's head and force him to call us pathetic? This is Gareth and Gareth's fault alone.

The Dom have written negative stories about the Phoenix, boo fucking hoo. Go and read the stories they write about other Wellington teams when they are doing poorly, exactly the same. Get over it.

Certainly haven't forgotten it - in fact it provides quite a good comparison to what we're doing.  Here are the players released by Ange during that season at the Roar left from the Farina regime.  He unceremoniously shipped out the old guard who wouldn't respond to his changes and brought in his own players the next season and went on to win the league.  In the next off season he signed 12 new players.  Are we prepared to do the same and would Ricki have the balls to get rid of guys of that standing - basically half of their starting XI?  Gareth has already ruled out drastic off season changes (for what it is worth)

Liam Reddy

Craig Moore

Charlie Miller

Tahj Minniecon

Chris Grossman

Ben Griffen

Seo Hyuk-Su

Bob Malcolm

Danny Tiatto

All we have to show for our change of style are a lot of goals against and a couple of halves where we knocked round some niceish triangles in games we lost, and didn't score in.  It's not a lot to cling on to is it?

We have 9 players off-contract this season (10 if you now include Cernack). That is more than enough to reinvent this squad. Don't know how the money side of it breaks down, but there's a mix of old hands and newbies in there.

Our off-season recruitment will be the acid test, definitely.

Are you buying it though?  Watching us play do you see signs of things positive things to come?  Or just a pretty ordinary football team?

The thing is it doesn't take 3 years to teach a group of players how to play a certain style.  Ralph Rangnick, Schalke manager I saw interviewed on this and he thinks a good coach should be able to get their style across in 6 weeks of full time training.

I can understand why you need a 3-5 year plan for the football club as a whole.  But I don't get a 3-5 year tactical plan for the first team on the pitch.  I mean as Frankie says, who knows what football will be like in 5 years - they might have outlawed tackling, who knows right?

I think it is a fair point about Brisbane roar and putting up with short term pain for a better long term. If we knew that was coming, or even thought it likely, there wouldn't be this level of angst. The question still remains, is Ricki capable of getting a team to play this way? Is he even trying to do that exactly? Although this may be unfair, and I can't be certain, I have serious doubts about it. You don't have to adopt an extreme possession based approach to go through training drills which put 3 or 4 passes together in and around the oppositions box to create goal scoring chances. (What value has Greenacre added in this regard?) I just don't see evidence of that in games, and if that can't be executed almost ever, how is a team supposed to reliably patiently transition the ball down the entire field all game?

Sure you have more room and fewer players than the oppositions goal area but there is also higher risk if you lose the ball. And once teams become aware that is how we are playing it becomes more difficult, you look at how things have got worse in the second half recently when the opposition became aware of what we were doing and started to press more aggressively.

Part of the problem is communication. Morgan reads the forums, speaks to the press then reads the forums again. We don't understand what he is saying, he doesn't understand what we are saying, he probably doesn't understand what Ricki is saying, while the press love it, sitting in the middle, twisting words, presenting things out of context which makes it all sound even worse. 

I think Ricki has done reasonable job, often in extremely difficult circumstances. Hiring a new manager would be difficult, you could very easily do a lot worse. We don't really know for sure what Ricki is even talking about with this new approach. Even though I have doubts about his ability to implement this, I wouldn't be adverse to him sticking around for another season. Everyone would be able to make a more informed decision then and I can buy the argument that he deserves a chance at doing it. I'm even less convinced by the assistants, we need some fresh ideas and appointing Greenacre, who came directly from inside the group hasn't provided that.

Morgans comments yesterday annoyed me but I can guess I can understand some (not all) of his comments. I really do think he should stop commenting for a while though. Leaving aside the inaccuracies of some of the things he has said, for morale of both the fans and players, we really want more positive and supportive comments.

I agree. Ricki is no Ange. Which is good in some ways but he's not gonna get the same results with the same style.

This chart shows Nix passes attempted and completed this season:

Average passes completed/attempted per game first 5 games: 200/283 71% completion

Average passes completed/attempted per game next 5 games: 249/341 73% completion

Average passes completed/attempted per game next 5 games: 340/420 81% completion

Just one measure I know but there is a definite upward trend (apart from one blip in round 14 against those ball-hogs Brisbane). I tried to correlate this to something more meaningful in terms of outcomes, like goal attempts, but it's quite hard. Goal attempts really do fluctuate from game to game and don't seem to have a high correlation with possession or number of passes.

However, the facts are we were attempting less than 300 passes per game at the start of the season and are now regularly getting up around the 400 mark. That is a definite style change and a definite improvement. Where we are still lacking is turning that into anything really meaningful in front of goal (though worth noting that we had a season high 26 attempts at goal last week in Sydney).

Take from that what you will, but it does give me some hope.

*all stats from the Sportsmate A-League app

Really interesting chart. It suggests there is an established trend of increased passing developing over the whole season, but also that we're not getting any relative improvement in passing efficiency. At least we're not getting any worse at, but we need those lines to get a lot closer.  Also for those who beleive the 'Gareth-made-me-do-it' mid-season shift theory - it does suggest this trend was established much earlier on......

As for shots at goal - well we seem to have been having plenty most games (at least compared to our opposition) - but they are just not going in as much. Dang!

Actually our passing efficiency has improved but only recently. In the last 5-6 games it has gone from the low 70%'s to up around 80%.

Ah yeah - the passing completion % - didn't look closely enough. Well that is actually positive if it stays up at the higher level - it would suggest we are getting a little better at it. It would also indicate that if we can get our attack mojo working that we'll at least have more controlled ball to work with - maybe its just our penultimate passing in the front third that we need to nail from here. Of course we have to not leak goals at the same time of course.....

Love your work!

Hang on. So Gareth morgan calls fans pathetic,fans get outraged,then Morgan writes a blog to explain in which he calls fans pathetic AGAIN? 

Yeah thanks Termy - interesting stuff.

But it was straight from his mouth. There has been no word twisting here. 

Exactly Tegal.  My original comments were straight after the radio interview was played, nothing more had been said, there was no media interpretation, it was the very next second after the interview was first played.

His points may be valid but were lost in him claiming that a lot of supporters don't know anything about football.  As I've said his message may be right but his wording was patronising. 

In fact many people have suggested our straight bat and attempts to lighten the discussion aren't anywhere near vitriolic enough.  We've been thanked by people involved for NOT getting abusive and throwing Gareth under the bus, we've also given him a chance to backtrack on it and as Tegal says he's pretty much re-iterated it.

Calling some fans pathetic, is still calling fans pathetic. Just because he didn't mean every single nix fan, doesn't make it any better. 

As a season ticket holder from day 1, I'd like to give a heartfelt apology to the owners for being emotive about football, I have realised the error of my ways. Perhaps I could buy Gareth Morgan a ticket to see Cat Power at the Town Hall in February so that we can make up.

Exactly. Where did he call 'US' pathetic? I didn't take that to mean me and I'm a Phoenix supporter.

My take on what I've read about it was he said in a wider interview - along with lots of other good points , that SOME attitudes held by SOME fans about SOME PARTICULAR issues were pathetic.

The impression that he said "All Phoenix fans are pathetic" comes from a misrepresentation - led by the media and merrily thrown about by many others.

Say if often enough and loud enough and it will become truth...... 

The media or anyone has not said he called "all Phoenix fans pathetic" they're saying he called "Phoenix fans pathetic". Which he did,quite clearly. 

He said the fans that care about the league table above everything else are pathetic, and that includes a fair few of us, including myself. Yes, I would love for the Nix to play attractive football, but above all else I want results, and the league table is a very fair reflection of how the results are going. This means, that by Gareths definition, I am pathetic.

Whatever he said he didn't say it about any individual - anyone that wants to personalise it to themselves and take some sort of secondary offense about it is welcome to. Why does there have to be such a song and dance about it? Its like watching that awful ball boy in Swansea.

Can we agree we all want the same results here? The 'attractive football' phrase is meant to be a label for finding a way of winning more games and more titles more often in the A-League. The Phoenix have had several seasons now and have only got close once. Plus the club was (and still is) a financial loser. Like it or not changes have to be made not only to perform better but to survive at all. They are working on that. Are you in or out?

AFL is hardly a "gimmick game". It's a remarkably well run, self sufficient league that has seen increasing crowds sustained over an entire century. A-League would do very well to take several leafs outta their book.

AS for the Gareth Morgan debacle - it boggles my mind that a man bemoaning the dearth of paying fans coming through the gates sees fit to label some of them as "pathetic". If a section of us were making racist chants/throwing objects at players/starting fights in the stands, I'd agree. But pathetic because his overbearing manner and ham-fisted man-management skills see a capable side at the foot of the table? History is littered with clubs that suffer due to an ownership that thinks it is the be-all/end-all.

/end rant.

No one is arguing with that.  For the 5th time Gareth's message is valid but the way he's phrased it was ill-thought out and was only ever going to get a reaction.  He was given the opportunity to retract it and basically re-iterated the same patronising comments.

The problem is the validity of the message is lost in the un-needed vitriol.  If he wants to make money from this club then making statements that can very, very easily be seen as a slur on the supporters is quite frankly fucking stupid becuase as you can see on here and on every bit of social media the numbers who don't think it was aimed at them is about 2% odf the total respondents..

Exactly - it's not so much the truth, but the perception that matters, unfortunately.

It's like people saying Jacob Burns is a great player.  He may be but to see that you have to mentally get past the diving, fouling, cynical whining and cheating and you just can't see it.