Phoenix v West Ham | Wed 23rd | Eden Park | 7:30pm | Faltering Fullback

Gorrin & Riera looked like long lost brothers out there. Did an amazing job in the midfield. Vince Lia should not play another game. 

Happy for Lia to come off the bench if we are up by 3 goals

I think Real Madrid have signed the wrong Rodriguez LOL

What a classy goal!

Can't wait to see him play in the A-League soon.

Burns also looked promising.

Gotta be better than last season!

A good game, great result and a RvG-esque inspired GK substitution by Merrick, which saved the game for us.

This could be the season for all those GK bench-warmers out there to shine.

only negative was how poor we were down matt jarvis' flank/right defence, too much space left open to get balls in, I also think we can't really have ridenton, rodriguez and albert playing all at once the midfield becomes too slow and doesnt flow as well.

also brockie wasnt bad and actually worked really hard, a very good omen. 

Well, for the first ten minutes Brockie was awful. He really needs to stop marking himself sometimes. He doesn't seem to understand positional play at all :/ 

Granted, he did get his A into G and put in a solid amount of effort. Just really needs to work on that positional play.

"They've got 31,000 empty seats,

They've got 31,000 empty seats,

They've got 31,000 empty seats,

Aucklanders are massive fans,

Are they sh!te!"

Cheers. 19k there?

Carlos who?

Well done Nix ... you did the A-League proud ... 

If CCM let weeMac play against Newcastle we can make you even prouder!

Tis in the hands of the legal folk and me thinks the weeJudas issue will not be settled for a while ... 

That's McJudas to you matey!

Alex and Albert. I am in love. What a pairing. We're gonna win the league!

Now if can only give Brockie some Spanish language tuition, his positional play would improve!

An we'd rip the league apart this season.

a few points i would like to make

1.sick of people trying to take the gloss saying we played a baby team and the likes.  They had a pretty strong team out there and we had a few trialists playing as well remember. (note this is mainly from radio sport callers not on here)

2 It's only a friendly.  my response is who gives a shit, ofcoarse it is but its not like we can play them in any more meaningful game and by the sound of Sam he was pissed and they are getting a roasting, we are 3 months out, they are 3 weeks.

3 Its great to see some optimism here and wow who ever thought we might one day have one of the best midfields in the league. ( maybe little over excited)

4 WE ARE GOING TO WIN THE LEAGUE (or most likely tease us nad then crush us like every other wellington sports team)

Agree with above. Every single player in that West Ham squad should be better than everyone in the A-League, even if they only end up on the bench for most of the season. Why do people seem to forget this?

What would you think about letting him play even if he ended up going back to CCM? Is there a problem with that?

Exactly. Chris Wood would walk into any A league team and probably carve up but will struggle to see any time at all this season for a newly promoted Leicester. The standard even for fringe players in epl teams should be way above us. That was a great result for us.

The problem is that the radio hosts (as one example) are either clueless about football or EPL devotees who have no clue about the Phoenix.  They seem to embracing this view, ignoring the Phoenix triallists, ignoring the fact that we are much further out from our season than West ham are.

yeah its no win in their eyes. 

We lose and they go "yeah A league sucks" 

We win and they go "oh west ham were under strength" even though they weren't (not any more than we were anyway). 

Best just to ignore. The problem is the casual fan or critic eats that sort of thing up like its gospel and as if the hosts actually have a clue

Carroll aside, it was pretty close to their first 11 wasn't it? The casual fan or critic here doesn't understand that even though it was a friendly, it's still probably equivalent to someone like Stevenage or Tranmere beating them.

This. It also wasn't as if we didn't deserve the win. We were the better side overall on the day and we won by playing positive football rather than parking the bus and hoping for the best like some would've expected. West Ham had their moments but there were some periods where we were dominant and like I said, we looked the better side overall. Also, was it Nolan that got absolutely skinned at least three or four times? That was great to watch.

And to put it into some perspective, a Newcastle reserve/youth side swatted Sydney aside without breaking into sweat.

Full match here on You Tube - it's on the official Premier League channel !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6UeEpXG_A0

Good publicity for the Nix and A-League. Good they've made the full match available to all on You Tube. There are several other uploads of it.

Highlights from the West Ham forum:

(Mate, if Mossy got signed by a Premier League club we'd all be impressed :)

Hey so with Manny at rb and Fenton starting further up last night does that spell the end of the Fenton right back experiment? Anyone got any insight into that? Seen a training or anything?

Hey so with Manny at rb and Fenton starting further up last night does that spell the end of the Fenton right back experiment? Anyone got any insight into that? Seen a training or anything?

Argh! These double posts are killing me.

Is that the first time an A-League side has beaten an EPL side?

No Gold Coast have managed it

I think that at the start of the season the plan was Manny left and Fenton right but Doyle's performances have freed up Manny from left back and you'd be foolish not to play him at Right Back if you have room there nd no room in midfield.

Was with you almost all of the way through that bench listing... almost.

So yes.

To anyone who suggests it was just a friendly and West Ham didn't really care - I say nonsense. They were really trying, they just weren't good enough and the Phoenix gave it their all. WHU have relegation written all over them.

PS - any truth to the rumour that a certain rumple-faced EPL manager has applied for political asylum in NZ?

If Ramon gets All Whites job, he will the the Gaffer at Kiwitea St :-)

Much preferable situation. Doyle was superb; hope he can keep it up.