R1 vs Newcastle Jets | 7pm Sun 11th Oct | 12pm Backbencher

Compared to last year we had a lot of shots into a congested box it seemed, even from inside the box. I think the stats make them seem much better than they were. I don't remember that many howling misses (peno aside) , but I do remember a lot of shots into traffic, and a couple of weak-ish headers. That said I don't think Krishna had that bad a game, just that he isn't Burns.

Shouldn't have spent half an hour practicing on it last week, obviously ruined the surface.

I am sorry but that is just meaningless. Please put it in the context of the number of shots on goal saved by the keeper (for both teams) and you might find that way more of our shots were on target. The Jets had so few that, in context of winning 1:2, they suddenly look like clinical finishers. But we do not, and that is my main beef. Powell may be decent buy, but he did not look like an "untouchable" striker, like say Ifill or Burns, who always managed to create sufficient empty space around themselves for a clean shot on goal from close distance.

What I am saying is, if there was no deflection off a defender, the shot from Roly might not have gone in. Yes he is a great guy and a brilliant player, and worked his arse off yesterday, but even he was hardly on target (saved or otherwise).

I was posting that more in response to those who say we didn't shoot enough, not how clinical we were (both sides shooting accuracy was 50% btw). 

Per minute of possession we shot more often than the jets did.

We also had 14 shots (10 in the box), which also doesn't really fit with the "we didn't shoot enough" line. 

10 shots in the box also suggests we had quality shots, instead of speculative shots from outside the box.

That's all very positive. 

You can say we weren't very clinical in only scoring one, but being as it has just been one game I am more willing to put that down to bad luck at this point. 

What happened to Damaskos, I was hoping he would offer more variety than that dross yesterday

And I just don’t like having Lia in there,I think albert is much better when he sits deeper on his own

I actually really liked Riera in that role slightly further forward. He was very busy covering in defense and creating options in possession, and provided a great link (with Roly) between attack and defense (which is where we often struggled last year).

I thought Riera had more involvement in that game than most games last season. He was very good.

pfft! Not a fan....

Someone who hasn't seen the game now trying to tell us we had 10 quality shots on goal - heard it all now.

We had about 1 decent shot on target near the end which the keeper saved. Clear cut chances? I'd say we created maybe 1-2 at best.

actually I said we had 10 shots in the box and that would suggest higher quality shots than if we had 10 speculators from outside of the box. 

What more do you want? 10 clear cut chances from inside the 6 yard area with the keeper already beaten..?

I think Steve-O and Tegal should have a duel. I'll be Tegal's 2nd. AP you up for this?

I'm usually up for anything to do with Tegal

The thought of having Steve - 0 in my team is however bringing me down a little

Tegal how come you didn't watch the game?

I haven't read past this page but why are you telling people they were quality shots when you didn't see it?

I had to work.

And once again, I didn't say they were quality shots, I said 10 shots in the box suggests higher quality shots than if we had a bunch of speculative shots from outside of the box. 

a) we had 14 shots

b) 10 of them were in the box.

These are both positive statistics, and don't match up with the comments a lot of people are making that we "didn't shoot enough" 

Great.

Cocks at dawn!

You should come and work at my place. We have Sky

ha that's quite funny. Well played sir. 

a number of those shots on target were off balanced low power kicks..and some were high wide and not handsome.

Plan B needs to be how to get past a team with 10 players ahead of you and most in the last 35m.  Four or 5 trying it will never work.

Steve-O and Boro4eva are right from my impression at the game. 

We were generally playing around a packed box with eight, nine or ten in front of us.  Most of our shots were more a case of having to try something after waffling around for ages, rather than having a really good opening.  McG got free and went pretty close with one, and a couple of headers were from fairly close but both were weak from floating crosses with competing bodies around.  Roly had the best of them I think, straight at the goalie iirc.

If we had six more shots from inside the box I am struggling to think of anything you'd describe as a good chance.  Maybe we beat the first player a few times but there were still defenders in the way and mostly angles were pretty hopeful.  And I'm thinking the stats can't be right on shot blocks.  We must have had several goes at shooting/stabbing at the ball through two or more players. 

Powell's attempted chip was from a narrow angle and I don't think he had any other options to square the ball or lay it back to anyone at the top of the box.  And (apart from the cross for the goal) the crosses and the organisation (and height) on the end of them were pretty poor. 

The sense I had was 63% of possession was almost an embarrassment as we rarely looked particularly threatening or able to get in behind.  Plus we still have little going on from free kick and corner action.  Jets largely but not totally had us under control I thought.

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Like most everybody else I'm gobsmacked Ernie took us into the season with no specialist CB cover and with two older CBs starting to get injuries more often.  If we can avoid giving away leads like we did on Sunday we're going to spend less time hammering at parked defences. 

But we've got a bunch of not a strikers who are a new combination and surely will only get better. And hopefully few sides play as defensively as Jets.

I didn't say Steve-O was wrong, I said he misinterpreted what I had said. 

edit: I'm just repeating myself now.  

Ernie in the post match interview said he was happy with how we played. Dominated, etc.

I wonder what he says behind closed doors!

God I've missed the season.

funny, he looked mightily pissed off on the sidelines

twice as much possession and twice as many shots seems to indicate he is right. 

I really have to watch this game, so I can understand all of the angst. 

Is it one of those games that is frustrating, which makes it seem we played worse than we actually did?

Not entirely untrue.

Without two defensive cock ups we might have scored first, had Newcastle chasing the game and cut them up on the break for any easy win.

Just our Plan B is a fudging pain to watch. 

I've said a couple of times now that we had 63% possession and I suppose in a loss that's not something we're going to get excited about.

But have we EVER had 63% possession before?

Absolutely. If some of those shots had rattled the crossbar instead of disappearing in row Zee, then perhaps we could count them.

I wrote a long reply, but that one work just sums it up.

I miss the off-season already.

1. Blake Powell through

2. The goal.

3. The penalty.

4. The one at the end you mentioned.

Plus a fair few half chances.

We didn't have a lot but we certainly had enough for 2 goals atleast. We were the better team. Bad luck. We will move on

Real lawyers never stop working.

Had we scored the penalty and gone 2-1 up the game would have been different and we would have won

The Krishna header right in front of goal was a clear cut chance too.

We were pretty close to getting a second penalty for handball as well, haven't seen that mentioned but I guess that doesn't really count as a chance for us.

Fenton seemed to be labouring before being subbed. Is he going to be back for Perth?

I don't buy the argument that the team which has the most possession and/or shots necessarily deserves to win or has played better or dominated. Sitting deep, ceding possession, and counterattacking is just as valid a way of playing football as Spanish tiki-taka . If you're playing like that and you take the lead then there's even less reason to commit men forward, so you'll have even less shots (especially when you're predicted to be much weaker than your opponents and you're playing away like Newcastle were). Of course a team playing that style will then have less shots and less possession than the team who they're playing because they don't need to keep chasing goals but it's overly reductive to say that means they were dominated. 

The Jets had a clear plan for how to play us, and they took the chances they did create. Sure they had a bit of luck with Durante's injury and some lenient refereeing on their constant fouling, but that's just the way it is. We also had a bit of luck ourselves with the deflection for Roly's goal. We also could have minimised the impact of an injury to one of our ageing CBs if we'd signed some specialist cover there over the long months of the off season - so it's partly bad luck for us but also a large amount of poor planning that created that situation.

Despite the possession and shots stats I still think there were some major issues around the shape and pattern of our play, and we shouldn't just write it off as a game we dominated but were unlucky to lose.

In fact, I just went and had a look at the match stats:

http://www.wellingtonphoenix.com/matchcentre/Welli...

9 of our shots came when we were losing the game, as opposed to 5 when scores were level (scores were level for about half the game in total). After 32 minutes the Jets had had 3 shots and scored a goal, and we had had only 1 shot. The Jets scored their second goal in the 69th minute and we didn't have a shot after that until the 85th minute. We then had 4 more shots in quick succession before the end of the game. 

So we might have had a lot more shots, but we had them when we were chasing the game, and a big spike in them right at the end when obviously we were throwing everything at them to try and get a point. It wasn't like we were constantly peppering the Jets goal throughout the game though.

I agree that we should've done better with the ball we had. Many, many times ok positions were opening up but we weren't effective enough in setting it up to score, and a couple of times didn't finish well enough. While that's a bit of a concern, it's also hardly unusual in this league. Hopefully we can improve from this first hit out of the season. Being able to control possession as we did is a positive sign, games will be won from that.