I am very disappointed with the display yesterday by the Phoenix. What I saw in the pre season was promising but that is fast fading.
Smeltz was clinical and well done Hearfield for tireless work all day but often the final ball was not good enough. Moss was woeful, must have left his brain at home because he was out of position and even out of his box on 3 or 4 occasions in the first half. Defence didnt help much at all and were often too high and caught out. Muscat for the first time looked out of his depth. Allsopp is a very strong player with a good touch and great finish so to give him such space was unbelievable and we were lucky not to concede more. Lets face it it could have been 7-2 and we did not adjust to the wet conditions at all.
Unfortunately for the most part our attack was ponderous and slow, passes for the sake of passes while Melbourne got 9 men behind the ball and defended then hit us with a counter time and again after a number of lazy passes lead to turnovers. Conditions maybe had a part to play but this is a professional team, we go to work and they train to play football rain hail or shine. Not acceptable.
Often in fact when we looked to go wide we ran out of options due to poor runs that ended with a player with his back to goal....blind alley's that lead to back passes and then to the long ball approach. Ugly, especially when we only have one lone striker. When we did get wide which was not often enough our delivery (with the exception of Lochhead's ball to Smeltz) was woeful. Always deep to the back post and not very accurate. Its wet weather footy boys, low and hard to the near post gives us a lot more options and is very hard to defend!!! At least some variation would be nice.
Melbourne played very inteligent wet weather football soaked up pressure and waited for that wayward pass which came all too often and turned them into counter attacks time and again.
For Adelaide next week we need Gao back in and playing out wide and using his pace to get into space behind the defence and get balls into the box. Bertos to come in, lose the attitude and same again, get wide left and deliver those quality balls we know he can when he takes it to the line. Balls to feet or to head because Smeltz is a great target but we need some inteligence in the runs that are being made off him. We have great centre backs but the need to sit deeper.
If we dont concede soft goals through schoolboy errors then we only need to score once.
Have a good week at practice.
Ryan
