R1 vs Melbourne City | Sat 8 Oct | 7.35pm | Westpac Stadium

Watto was also on the wing for much of the first half. Pointless.  Some real questionable tactics I thought. I'm not sure what A Rods defined role is either.

yes, weird all round.  I like Ernie but he is testing my faith.  Last year was bad and I am confused as to how he is planning to play this year

[quote=james dean]

Basically our central midfield was non-existant.  Luke Bratten made the much vaunted A Rod look like an amateur.  Lots of people on here say A- Rod does the stuff you don't see, as per usual I didn't see him do anything

[/quote}

That is because he is amateur, I would love to have the player of Bratten ( despite him being a cock ) and he looks like Jason Hicks

AWs is a good excuse but how do you improve our central midfield with our AWs??

That is because he is amateur, I would love to have the player of Bratten ( despite him being a cock ) and he looks like Jason Hicks

http://www.wellingtonphoenix.com/stats-centre

A-Rod attempted more passes per minute than Lia, Roly, or Finkler, and was much more successful at it than any of those other mids. He had a pass accuracy rate of 88% - Roly's was 75%, Finkler's was 72%, and Lia's was 68%. Definitely not a great game for him or any of our players at all, and yeah stats are inherently limited in terms of explaining contribution, but clearly he is getting through work that people don't notice for whatever reason.

You can't tell a thing about his performance from those stats.  I'm still waiting for him to take a game by the scruff of the neck.  

luke brattan was class. plays like chirs james, but probably a lot better

For me the issue continues to be one of team shape and tactical approach. We are far too narrow and we shift the ball too slow. We don't play with wingers. Our forwards tend to drift wide but not wide enough to stretch the defence, only wide enough to pull themselves away from useful areas. Our fullbacks are expected to bomb forward but we don't have wide midfielders to cover them and our central midfield is too immobile to screen the wings as well as the middle, so we're vulnerable to counterattacking football. We move the ball to slowly and take too many touches in the middle of the park to be able to create space centrally either. It was exactly the same last season and in the last third of the season before that too.

Kosta coming back might help with width but he alone can't be expected to solve this issue.

thank you for explaining it to us ;-)

great post

I don't think either of those players is good enough.  Lia is way too slow and A Rod is not up to it

a-rod could possibly be slower than lia

we start with 4 central midfielders, all standing in a circle. we struggle and the solution is to add another one at half time

10k looked accurate from where I was standing, was a decent crowd.

Rather dispiriting performance though. Even with the AWs to come back, bar Kosta, I can't really see a huge difference being made.

Parkhouse struggled, Lia is Lia, Rodriguez was anonymous, Roly seemed off the boil, and Finkler was average too.

Plus points were that Moss looked good, Tratt did OK, and Rogerson looks pretty enthusiastic and fearless. A bit worried that another season of inconsistency is ahead though.

We were simply not good enough after they went to 10 men. Did not seize the initiative AT ALL.

I guess I had hoped to see something different this season - that just felt like more of the same.

Lia as captain in any circumstances is a joke. He will NOT improve (quite the opposite) and has been horrendous for years. Now that Riera is gone, he's our only holding midfielder, and that is a major worry.

Lets be positive to start with .

Moss was great, Khrishna worked hard and posed a threat, Rossi looks a good player, Lia still worth his place and the blond kid Parkhouse looked sure of himself the whole game.

But my oh my...

Roly was diabolical, Rodrigues not much better, Finkler apart from his generally good dead ball kicks did next to nothing and he fluffed the one decent direct kick he had.

And playing against 10 men, we couldnt dominate.

As for the ref, well he failed to clamp down on Melbourne from the first minute and let them get away with murder.

The problem is that given our depth, one or probably both of those two will probably be playing the whole season! It is a worry.

then thread the ball though the eye of a needle staright down the middle again.

He looked badly in need of a left foot I thought.

Ernie had tactics tonight?!

Apart from having issues with running, passing and shooting we look like a side ready to challenge for the title

Sky TV are going to have to show the kids at half time and shot of the Fritz's Weiner stand if they want to fill the half hour highlights show.

I thought Fritz Watson was facing the other way in that half time shot

Durante and Doyle were both missed.

I thought Alex was good passed well but was let down by a lack of movement around him. His passing stats by far the best and for those that say otherwise are clueless. Football fans usually = clueless

Youd have to hope McGlinchy would do better than the lot we had in midfield today.

I thought our youngsters looked really good. Bodes well for our depth.

Bonevacia has always had those games where he doesn't look interested, don't know about ARod though, normally I'm a fan but not today. 

Anyway, I'm still confident of a home semi, it's a long season and we have quality.

A-Rod will always have a higher pass accuracy then players who play higher up. The real question is how does A-Rod compare to Riera last year? Those stats don't tell you how effective those passes were either.

The real question for A-Rod is that he needs to play every week. If he can't start ahead of Lia every week then that is a problem. In the past people have had a problem with A-Rod, not because he isn't good enough, but because Ernie thinks he isn't good enough by not picking him regularly enough.

Well after watching Syd Fc thrash the wanderers at least we are not bottom of the league

That was about right for the crowd, there were a lot more over and underneath where the match cameras are based. What is with all the negativity? 

We had guys making their debuts against a sharkty side whom were missing who? Codhill? Considering their dept and our young guys newness I thought we did ok.

Sure I am not happy at a loss, not happy at not taking advantage of 10 men but I saw saw glimpses on occasions that showed some grwat interplay. Our full backs did a lot of work on and off the ball. Stuff I guess the cameras didn't show.

Nice to see so many turn up considering the crap conditions. I hope the Mission collected a lot of groceries. Good to see Matt leading the charge on that. Good to see the samba drums there again. 

Not a great result but a good day to catch up with old friends and football is again happening at Westpac.

But it was a poor performance from everyone really - I just posted the A-Rod stats as a counter argument to the "he did nothing" crowd, because he clearly did at least his share of work relative to the guys around him, if not more.

I don't know about the effectiveness of his passes. It depends on what you're looking for. Obviously he didn't create any chances but neither did Lia or Roly as far as remember. I think he's the sort of player who is a workhorse and that's fine, not everyone needs to be a creative playmaker. Teams need players to do unglamorous jobs.

When you've been watching for going on 30 years, you acquire some knowledge.