Phoenix vs Malben - Match Thread

i am beginning to hate that fat linesman we always seem to get. every game he calls offsides against us and mucks up the desicions on corners, free kicks etc 

Yeah, I saw that. There was quite a bit of that actually - us kicking the ball to them. But not having Sky and too busy yelling into my hat to see the replay I didn't see if my suspicions were confirmed or not. Looked offside, probably wasn't.

I did see a lot of "fouls" given and some genuine fouls not given - for both sides.

lol?

SIZEIST!!!

MORE BLASPHEMY!! 

What is it with these refs, do they do deals on the flight over or are they sh*t scared of the flight home if they don't be nice to the Aussie teams??

IF.

It looks worse on TV

Stevo2008-08-24 22:05:54

Moss was well below par tonight.

This is too much. Yet MORE blasphemy. 

Sorry Df, I'm a huge fan of Moss but I think tonight he didn't look his usual solid self. He dropped balls he'd normally catch, looked shakey when he came out and in general wasn't up to his normally high standards.

I don't think we played that bad. Up against a top side who play the best counter attacking football in the league we would have lossed by more if archie had played. imo our defense played too high and got caught out by the pace of their two strikers.

Hearfield  was our best player followed by smeltz. the midfield was better than last week.

Lockhead was in and out of the game but had a strong last 20. Kwasnik only touched the ball like 4 times and should have been subbed not Daniel.

The ref,  what can you say he had a shocker or the boys from Lygon st were going to kill his family if the victory lossed.

not blasphemy, its true unfortunately. Moss was nowhere near his best. Hope he isn't like this everytimes its wet. We should've gotten the message not to pass the ball round the centre swamp when we could avoid it. Kwasnik was just totally invisible, why in gods name did he not come off for Coveny?

Thought Coveny injected a huge amount of energy into the game for us. Really happy with his contribution and if he's got the fitness for 60,70 minutes should be considered as a starter. Hearfield really has immense potential, some great touches. Johnsons performance was MOTM for me, as solid as they came today when everyone else was being a bit silly. Smeltz also outstanding given the conditons, he couldn't have done anything more than he did.

Now the bad stuff...Muscat...just totally screwed over by Allsopp, and most of Melbourne. Christie would even be better than him I think. God I'm looking forward to Mulligan, really really hoping he'll perform for us. Lochhead got caught out up front a few times, should've stayed back more and picked up on the fact that Melbourne were pretty leathal on the counter attack, and also that our CB's had to pretty much play out on the right because Muscat was so rubbish.

Referee was a whole new level of sh*t, Ney Fabiano dived repeatedly. Everything just compounded tonight but hey its just one game and next weekend should be a chance for all the players to well and truly redeem themselves.

Another plus is the crowd tonight. Small yes but god were we loud! Heaps and heaps of chanting, way better effort than last week there. Really impressed.

I'd agree with that starting XI, but you're not giving Kwasnik a chance if he's not on the bench ...

Moss just showed some inexperience in what were some pretty horrible conditions for a keeper. Seemed to me that he over compensated for his first mistake by trying to stamp his authority on the game (rushing out, trying to catch that piece of soap) instead of concentrating on playing safe. He should learn a lot from that game - I hope.

Also, Why on earth does the Stadium insist on playing us the stupid Hyundai Ad and two dumb ZM ads which have quite possibly the most average song to reach No 1. in this country 200 times before, during and after the game?

My father and I left early because I was so sick of the cheating on behalf of Melban.  Seriously, the calls in that game were ridiculous.  They actually called the Nix offside in their own half!  Yes, we played like ass; we need to realise that in conditions like tonight we need 4 passes to the goal, not a bunch of dicking around in mid-field.  But honestly, the amount of bad tackles, shirt pulling, and everything else that was going on that was left unpunished just made me sick.  I'm the last person to blame the ref, but in this case it was just sh*t all round.

Hopefully it's better next week.

BTW, hi, I'm new!  Season pass holder hoping for the best this year.  Go Nix!

Probably the worst Phoenix home experience I've had.

Fever Zone, why are all of our songs still British a year later? There are some great ones, true.
But we're Kiwis, remember?!? How about some of our own culture in there?

Netball bangers are annoying ...
And music after the goals are scored, say what?

Too many stadium announcements telling people how to behave, that really binds my goat...
Outside before the game, then inside before the game starts, then at half time too.

Security need to tone it back, they're impinging on the fun. Don't really know what they're afraid of; it was seriously unlikely people would misbehave in the rain; everyone wanted to stay under cover.

To counter the whinging, at least it wasn't cold
And also the half-time entertainment was hilarious!

I thought singing Rain by Dragon to the tune of Jon Mckain was a good one...thats a kiwi song ofcourse..(bugger the aussies trying to steal Dragon from us)...but Jon Mckain was hardly worth singing about tonight frankly

I'm gutted I didnt here that. That is an epic song, should be our club anthem.

Right on both counts ...

Their 2nd goal was well onside by at least 3 yards. Wasn't even close

To be honest I thought we gave away alot of dumb fouls in dumb places which just shows a lack of discipline. Why is Ferrante lunging at a player up in their end of the pitch near their 18 yard box? I can understand in our half trying to stop play but up there????? Their penalty was more deserving of ours and its an ironic karma that McKain went down very easily to get one to be the one lunging in at a player in our 18 yard box and conceding one. I would have thought an experienced defender would have known not to make that basic mistake of leaving your feet...

Only thing I can agree with was they got away with alot of shirt pulling not being cautioned and I'm guessing thats why they kept doing it. We just gave away too many dumb fouls. Thats the difference between quality sides with discipline and us at the moment. As someone else said above, Melbourne executed their plan to precision - in those conditions that requires discipline......
Agent 472008-08-24 23:08:13

Thought the ref was ok personally. sh*t conditions, players sliding in all over the joint, shirts being pulled by both teams and players from both sides going down quicker than <insert name of slapper> at the slightest touch, he could have gone nuts with the cards, but the ones he paid were there I reckon. Shame the crowd was so low, but that looked like a pretty terrible day so hopefully they come back when the sun does.

I'd like to hear from our resident blood nut ref on his opinion of todays officiating.

......playing in an Australian competition, with an Australian CEO

Kwasnik, Durante, McKain, Muscat and Moss seem to have some problems in coping with the wet weather game. Especially Kwasnik, Muscat and Moss. I feel that Paston in for Moss, Convey in for Kwasnik and Christie in for Muscat would have been the right mixture for the Wet weather game at the start.

Also we are not really using the whole of the attacking half on possession and the midfield and the defence was not combining well for the total build up and keeping possession. The midfield was open but lack the compact with the defence sitting 5 metres back than neccessary. The high ball over the defence was not going really on so they must have more confidence and step up more and tighten the line through the middle. The attack down flanks was a worry on the RB tho and so this is were they lost a bit of confidence and organisation from the central defence.

The passes were predictable medium range as it would be for dry weather game and so it seem good for a while but really it makes it easlier for their defence because of the wet surface slows it down in the mid range type pass. (speeds up by skidding for the long ball tho)

In wet weather, the players has to be close by and available more than normal to get close passing to feet and to cover the mishaps and non-movability of the ball among the teammates. And after a couple of simple short passes, a decent medium pass to a player who is free to direct a long ball immediately to switch the play unit for a another series of short passes (or direct long ball attack) not a series of medium passes through the midfield in which the opposition could intercept and spoil.

Of course the receiver of the long ball has to behind the ball and double check for the quick skid off the wet surface. Again accurate passes not anticipation of teammates movement to help the receiver's control of the ball in less time. Careful of the pop up by being behind the ball and also able to shield the ball first up by the receiver was average and need to be worked on in the wet.

Ferrante and Johnson were doing well but one of them should have been subbed off for Convey not Daniel. I would have allow Kwasnik on even if he was lazy in the wet just to open attacking options. Basically I would sub Ferrante because of his occasional poor passing decisions and so to strengthen that area by eliminating this weak point but placing Johnson to step up in the DM to provide passing distribution for attack. Johnson along with Hearfield to launch Daniel, Kwasnik, Smeltz and Convey forward made better sense to me as we were behind most of the game.

AllWhitebelievr2008-08-24 23:21:16

Personally I thought we had a good game, and were brilliant in the first half with all of our counter-attacks.  Muscat was simply dreadful, but on the bright side Mulligan should be fit soon (let's hope he does well), and Coveny did very well.  He seems to only run in straight lines though, is he capable of turning?

Nope - picked it before it happened as well, good to see Herbert make a sub earlier than he usually does, almost got us back in the game before we gave them another for nothing. Daniel can surely play better than he has been, he hasn't performed to potential this season even if his fan club can't see it. 

Really disappointed in Durante and McKain. Very limited in winning anything in the air[Melbourne strikers seem to win everything they went for], both never got tight enough,both look very uncomfortable right from the start,[McKain looked very slow when exposed 1 on 1 ] Probably missing Dodd playing in front of them who won so much ball last week,  [ but then kick it away].We looked far better in" defence" with Dodd on the pitch and Dodd in those conditions may have been a better bet. -  ChopperHarris2008-08-24 23:29:43

i don't want to say this but i think we missed dodd running around like a headless chicken closing down every1. I think thats where we lost it Mckain and Durante were never going to be able to keep up with alsopp and i think we needed to apply more physical pressure to stop those through balls going through the backline.

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After watching the first two 2 games of this season, I think we are missing Aloisi. I never really rated him too highly last season but he has the skills that we are lacking. He was a leader of the team and got fired up when things were going dire, I don't see this from Durante yet. Also he was a decent passer, could tackle well, and even managed to shoot on goal which takes the pressure off Smeltz to shoot all the time. We are too predictable this season. Our attacking players didn't give good options in the first game (apart from Smeltz, and occasionally Daniel). As for the earlier comment re Felipe, he would have suited this season's formation a lot better than last but still he was lazy on defence and he was really only a central player whereas Kwasnik, Bertos, Gao, and Daniel are probably a lot more adaptable.

Royal2008-08-25 08:45:26

I think this year our great goalkeeper could be found out. He was very very poor yesterday and remember how many goals were let through last year!!!! I thought we had soughted out our defensive problems.......Also I know our CEO loves Victoria but is Muscat really up to it...Smacks of jobs for the boys

A very angry

GA Jnr