R1 vs Perth Glory | Sunday 12th Oct | 5pm | RoF

Roly Bonemuscat LOL

We've had the same backline pretty much since the '08 / '09 seasons.  Seamonster, Durante and even Muscat aren't the players they were.

That tackle that Manny did after the whistle went reminded me of the other, dirty Muscat.

Our defense was shocking. Siggy huffing around. Our team though just can't connect.

Nice to get the first game out of the way.  We were pretty nervous/mistake ridden.  Reira too deep, and line too deep.  We all sat off too much.  Ref let a lot of perth bullying in the midfield go. Roly not right sided midfielder.  We looked unfit.

Oh, and this squad is by far better than 09/10.  Just need to chill, compete, and play.  I'm still real excite bout this season.....

The Positives.

Bonevacia. Watching him off the ball he covers a lot of ground like Reira and really gets involved. He also has a truck load of passion and A little bit of class as well.

Burns: just the player we needed, pace, nice touch and a lovely turn.

Negetives:

Gorrin.. What a waste of space. Never have I seen a midfielder be so invisible. I tried to watch him off the ball but even that was difficult. Having Lia come on to replace him says it all.

Brockie: I'm not even going to comment on him as it has been said all before.

I would immediately drop those two, replacing them with Cunningham wide, placing burns in brockies role and wee Mac back into the midfield.

As for the crowd what gives there? A big pre season, good coverage, new signings and a lovely day. At this rate we will be down to 4k if we lose a couple.

I thought this was a let down after what we saw against West Ham and Newcastle. Defence is still shaky and there isn't enough up front to finish chances. 

That's a poor result. Perth hardly ever win here and most people reckon they will miss the six. After such a long off season you would expect the players to come out and gel a lot better. It just didn't happen today. I was impressed by Bonevacia and Burns (needed a finish though). Most of the rest were poor. I predicted that the Phoenix would get 7th this season but I also thought we would win this game. 26 games still to go but a disappointing start.

well done! Welcome to supporting a football team!

Another thing is we conceded 51 goals last season and are conceding more goals each and every season. Most of the preseason angst centered on our strikers but I have always been concerned about our defence. Most people thought the defence would be fine with Reira + Bonevacia screening. However, a lot of the goals we conceded last season happened like that 2nd one today. Reira's screening isn't going to protect against basic defensive errors we saw today and saw repeatedly last year. 

Once again, I know there are 26 games to go but it's hard to be positive after that.

Thanks for the welcome. 

Crikey your post makes sense! Not sure you can blame Lia  - it was well over when he was bought on.

Welcome to my world

We are sooooooooo close to being a great side.

Wasn't Lia at fault for Perth's second goal?

Dissapointing way to start the season. Fucking annoying that sigmund was yet again involved in which was a late equalizer. That goal felt very football kingz-ish (gaining a goal and then giving one away soon after). Jeremy Brockie was shit. Nathan browns was very exciting but he missed a chance my great grandma could have finished off. Roly looked good if not sometimes risky. Need to just get rid of sigmund and durante with anyone else we have in our squad and i think we will all be better off for it!

I thought ht gave the pass to Siggy too. I thought that was more Lia's fault than Siggy's. Honestly, I think Ridenton offers more as a defensive midfielder than Sigmund. Boxall too.

jeeesus christ it's always Lia's  fault but at least I think he gave a shit when he came on. (and lost us the match probably)

I like to think that all of our players give a shit even those ones who played poorly or were invisible.

bollocks to that. each side had its chances, but only one side took them.

Glad mcglinchy got a goal.. We should have taken our opportunity when we started dominating in the first half. Merrick should have subbed roly and Brockie earlier. 

!!!

We did not deserve any points, simple as that!!

I thought they were getting away with a lot of niggle off the ball.  Ref was way too lenient or unaware of it.

Signs of a good team - but need to try some passing instead of dribbling around everyone just for giggles.

26 games to go - we can do this.

Are you sure about that?  Roly made the goal.  He played well all in all.  WeeMac was average, was A Rod even at the game, the less said about Jeremy the better.

Merrick was poor today too, questionable subs at questionable times and when it was clear that 4-3-3 was not working (it didn't work for us last year either), there was no attempt made to change the formation.  

I would have been happy with this loss in Perth but at home, we're going to have Knights sized crowds soon.

Hopefully this loss will have shown Merrick etal that the result against West Ham* should be completely ignored and a good hard look at the front line and defence needs to happen.  Might be time to give to give Boxall a run in place of Durante or Sigmund. 

* West Ham have actually done OK so far in the Premiership following the tour downunder.

Ernie. New Zealand can spend money on New Zealand coaches to develop their experience. If we overlook those people we expect better. You have now had a year of NZ football and selected your own players. You have not done the job. Dont ever think that as a foreigner, continuing mediorcity at the Westpac Stadium will surfice.

Just had another look at that 2nd goal.

Both Siggy and Lia looked stupid in it.

Siggy actually was the one who called for the ball but in my opinion should've directed Lia to pass it BACK to Durante, instead its passed ACROSS the field which is suicidal cuz it catches the defense flat-footed and that's what happened.

The pass wasn't great, Siggy misjudged it and the rest is history.

I think it's becoming obvious that this defense can't be fixed.

Next time I'd like to see Cunningham and Fenton from the start instead of Doyle and Gorrin.

Also Brockie is not A-League class but I'm sure that's been said before. He's far too uninvolved.

Weemac man of the match. Dont agree with that but atleast the season has kicked off

Not sure if this is Australia not respecting the Phoenix, or we need another rally to freeweemac, but I missed the game, so went onto foxports.com.au match center to see the goals, and they have clips for both of Scotland Towns goals, but no mcglinchey clip. Why dont we get to see Phoenix goals

FFS

that is all

Poor pass from Lia, got to do better, he isnt good enough at this level. Game over

Disappointing thing for me is that all the major problems of last season have been repeated today:

- Inability to take our chances

- Defensive errors leading to goals

- Conceding late to lose the game

- Inability to win precious home games

On today's performance there is not a team in the league that wont see us as a fairly comfortable three points, home or away.

Didnt see the match. Was cooking our kai on the BBQ.

Way tooo much doom and gloom in here already. 

We lost, yes but we've only played a grand total of 1 match this season! Also, having read the last few pages of doom it seems that the same people who were calling for more strikepower up front are now blaming the defence for the loss...

People need to relax a little. Its a long season ahead