Wellington Phoenix Men

Phoenix vs Victory Mon 5th 9:30pm SS3

586 replies · 26,128 views
over 13 years ago

2ndBest wrote:

But doesn't that mean he's a dumb footballer for continually doing that?  Still don't remember seeing him beat a player yet.

I'd much rather have a 4-3-3 with Lia, Smith, Manny in the middle, and Fenton, Huysegems and Ifill up top.


That is exactly what I would be playing.  Then when Sanchez is fit you play Manny and two of the other 3.
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over 13 years ago · edited over 13 years ago · History

Problem being, with Ricki loving wing play with this team so much, the other 2 'strikers' would essentially be attacking wingers. 

2 problems:

a) leaves Hyusegems isolated, effectively being a lone striker (not effective for us in the past, certainly not when our main aim is crosses into the box)

b) Our wide defenders cant push up as much, and make overlapping runs. This has been something of a strength at times, especially now with Bertos at the back. On the other hand, if they do push up as they normally do, it'd leave us terribly exposed on the flanks (see last night).

78% of people agree with me by the way.


Allegedly

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over 13 years ago

Tegal wrote:

Problem being, with Ricki loving wing play with this team so much, the other 2 'strikers' would essentially be attacking wingers. 

2 problems:

a) leaves Hyusegems isolated, effectively being a lone striker (not effective for us in the past, certainly not when our main aim is crosses into the box)

b) Our wide defenders cant push up as much, and make overlapping runs. This has been something of a strength at times, especially now with Bertos at the back. On the other hand, if they do push up as they normally do, it'd leave us terribly exposed on the flanks (see last night).

78% of people agree with me by the way.

IMHO we have played our best football when we have had a 4231/433. Just who do you drop from our 4 attacking players to fit in the extra midfielder?
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over 13 years ago

i think I'd drop fenton if it was a front three. However I guess it depends on Ifill's form for me.. because at the moment he's not exactly ripping it up


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over 13 years ago

Tegal wrote:

Problem being, with Ricki loving wing play with this team so much, the other 2 'strikers' would essentially be attacking wingers. 

2 problems:

a) leaves Hyusegems isolated, effectively being a lone striker (not effective for us in the past, certainly not when our main aim is crosses into the box)

b) Our wide defenders cant push up as much, and make overlapping runs. This has been something of a strength at times, especially now with Bertos at the back. On the other hand, if they do push up as they normally do, it'd leave us terribly exposed on the flanks (see last night).

78% of people agree with me by the way.



lols
Our 442 was the totally expected train wreck against a skilled and quick 433 and if you don't think so then think about this, as others have described, Melbs playing out, pass around Smith and then take on manny the same way, or thread through behind our high backline with Marco or Archie running on.  Manny and Smith had no chance.

  0  0  0  0
        M
0  x  S x  x  0
     x  x  x
      0 
  x   x  0 x   x

X's vs 0's (0's = us) with Manny(M) and Smith(S) as our CMs

I think your point a) is somewhat valid, but disagree with your b)
leo and lochy would have more wide space and more defensive cover to get forward in a 433 than the 442, partly because the cover comes from specialist holding mids adjusting, not brockie and fenton trying to get both forward and back and wide and narrow in a 442 handling an opposing 433

I really think Ricki (and Trani?) had this all wrong and the players were being asked to do the impossible
as someone said, it looked like the players didn't have confidence in our formation from about minute 3

had to be 433 or 4231

98% agree with me, so you might as well join the crowd



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over 13 years ago

playwithFire wrote:

i think I'd drop fenton if it was a front three. However I guess it depends on Ifill's form for me.. because at the moment he's not exactly ripping it up

I wouldn't be dropping Fenton. He has been one of the more consistent players, more mobile around the field and he is also likely to improve the most. If we switched to a 4-3-3 it would be tempting to keep him in as similar position as possible given his age but I think he looks quite capable of playing in the central midfield. Either as an CAM or even back deeper when Sanchez gets back from injury. I don't think Smith or Lia have done enough to warrant playing both of them.
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over 13 years ago

Can't rember who posted it and too far to stroll back.... but whoever is asking for Bertos to move back up, please, please cast yourself off to the darkest hills.

Last night he was woeful at rb, last season he was woeful at RM all year. I'll take a bad game over a bad season. And if crossing is his best attribute as stated, then how bad must the rest of his game be, because his crossing is generally shite!!

Woeful game, woeful performances, woeful management.

But i still think this is our best ever squad and think they can turn things around.

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over 13 years ago

I thought he'd done really well at RB up until last night. I was hugely skeptical preseason,but have been more than pleasantly surprised at how he's done. 


Allegedly

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over 13 years ago

patrick478 wrote:

That was the first time he passed the ball after one of his runs, and look what happened! I'm guessing that he's been able to run through defences for his entire footballing career so far, but now he needs get his head up and look for other options. Any player worth his position in an A-League defence will be able to stop a player who just runs directly at goal with the ball.



Marco does that pretty well.

If you are old and wise you were probably young and stupid

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over 13 years ago

Tegal wrote:

78% of people agree with me by the way.

Did you know 57% of all statistics are made up on the spot?!

"Yellow Fever are fantastic – I have to say that"

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over 13 years ago

asmodeus_82 wrote:

Tegal wrote:

78% of people agree with me by the way.

Did you know 57% of all statistics are made up on the spot?!


And the other 43% are made up on the dash. 


Allegedly

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over 13 years ago

A further 18 % don't understand statistics.


"Phoenix till they lose"

Posting 97% bollox, 8% lies and 3.658% genuine opinion. 

Genuine opinion: FTFFA

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over 13 years ago

and anyone who claims 98% is clearly taking the piss

at 78% it's harder to tell lols

I just like the idea it was a formation/tactical problem, cause that is easier to fix, so long as Ricki(/Tranni) can suck it up and change

if the players were hopeless, well, we've got most of this squad for a few years

COYN

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over 13 years ago

Leggy wrote:

patrick478 wrote:

That was the first time he passed the ball after one of his runs, and look what happened! I'm guessing that he's been able to run through defences for his entire footballing career so far, but now he needs get his head up and look for other options. Any player worth his position in an A-League defence will be able to stop a player who just runs directly at goal with the ball.



Marco does that pretty well.

Marco beats defenders frequently, Totori doesn't.
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over 13 years ago

el grapadura wrote:

james dean wrote:

On the positive side Herbert has acknowledged that 3 in the midfield changed the flow of the game.  


On the negative side it took us going 3-0 down for him to make the change when it was too late.  


He had to change it at half time, he has to take a lot of responsibility


Disagree that the 3 in midfield changed the flow of the game - Melbourne took off Finkler, Flores and Marco and that gave us some breathing space on defence. Even then they still passed the ball around us in the midfield without any problems (with Lia on) but just didn't have two of the best attacking players in the league to pass to in the dangerous areas, and we were able to mop up more easily. Archie also became completely ineffective after those substitutions.
We looked to press them very high, and this proved our undoing in the end. I can understand why we did so - the same tactic worked exceptionally well for Melbourne Heart, but we simply don't have the kind of players that would have made the tactic work for us. Huysegems and Ifill aren't used to doing that and don't do it very effectively, and every time the Victory transitioned the ball into midfield our high defensive line was exposed as we simply don't have the speed in the back 4 to contain Victory's front 3 40m away from our goal. Thought that was obvious in the first 10-15 minutes, so we really needed to do something about that pretty early on. To be fair, the high pressing tactic did cause a couple of mistakes from the Victory defenders and put us in good positions on attack that we failed to capitalise on, but even if we had, I think we were giving away too much in return to make it a fully viable tactic.
Not sure why we simply didn't stick with the same way we approached the game in Adelaide, sitting deep and letting them play the ball in front of us, which worked very well in the first half over there. The downside of that is that it isolates Huysegems too much, but if we can get the ball to him in a decent position even only 3-4 times a game he can make something out of that, and I think it gives us a better base to work from in the away games (even though there'd probably be angst about us playing unimaginative and boring football, but when there isn't angst on these forums).


Basically agree - my point really was that to come out for the second half with the same approach and tactics as the first was borderline incompetent.  I thought with 3 in the middle we actually retained possession a little better but the subs changed the game and our defensive approach was basically a failure.

I think we have a basic problem that 3 of our forwards (Brockie, Steyn and Totori) all want to run off the shoulder of the last defender.  We've no-one with enough ability in the final third to play that ball in for them and we continue to throw the ball in to them out wide when none of them is strong in the air.
Our attack isn't really functioning.  We continue to have one type of attacking move which is get the ball out wide and throw crosses in the box and it's not working.  I checked our crossing stats on the 4-4-2 chalk boards, in our past 3 games we've had no successful crosses but we've had the following unsuccessful - 9 against Adelaide (although a goal was wrongly chalked off), 13 against Melbourne and 14 against Brisbane.  
We only had 6 shots on target against Brisbane, 4 against Melbourne and 2 against Adelaide.  With Ifill not at his best creating goals out of nothing we look like a team without a plan.

Normo's coming home

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over 13 years ago

Also, I'm sure others have noted this but what was up with the referee?  There seemed to be about 5 or 6 clear fouls that weren't given and then no replays?

Normo's coming home

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over 13 years ago

james dean wrote:

Also, I'm sure others have noted this but what was up with the referee?  There seemed to be about 5 or 6 clear fouls that weren't given and then no replays?

FFA pay back

  Supporter For Ever - Keep The Faith - Foundation Member - Never Lets FAX Get In The Way Of A Good Yarn

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over 13 years ago

Have kind of resigned myself to the fact that terrible refereeing is just part of watching the A league and the Phoenix 


Allegedly

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over 13 years ago

They also got several offside decisions wrong.

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over 13 years ago

el grapadura wrote:

They also got several offside decisions wrong.

With no TV analysis to condemn the officials. FFA talk to Fox - Fox say no problem

  Supporter For Ever - Keep The Faith - Foundation Member - Never Lets FAX Get In The Way Of A Good Yarn

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over 13 years ago · edited over 13 years ago · History

el grapadura wrote:

Leggy wrote:

patrick478 wrote:

That was the first time he passed the ball after one of his runs, and look what happened! I'm guessing that he's been able to run through defences for his entire footballing career so far, but now he needs get his head up and look for other options. Any player worth his position in an A-League defence will be able to stop a player who just runs directly at goal with the ball.



Marco does that pretty well.

Marco beats defenders frequently, Totori doesn't.


Patrick's comment that 'any player worth his position in an A League defence will be able to stop a player who runs directly at goal with the ball'   I never mentioned Totori, I just said that Marco does that pretty well.
His  comment was BS.

If you are old and wise you were probably young and stupid

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over 13 years ago

+1 

made little sense


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over 13 years ago

I think we'd all like to see Totori get his head up a bit though

Normo's coming home

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over 13 years ago

Does a current player want to see him get his head up more?


Allegedly

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over 13 years ago

Watching the replay now. We actually played some decent footy when we got the ball.   Obviously looking at the positives, but stein links well with the midfield and plays it on the deck. Ifll with some decent passing but just wasn't getting enough ball to be effective. Fenton delivers some quality balls. 

The ref from Victoria is horrible 


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