R1 vs Western United | Sun 13th Oct | 6:00pm | RoF

Ok, for my part from standing in row C ailse 21..... I thought Fenton did well. He played in 2 key positions, RWB and right Midfield. I say this because I hardly ever saw the right hand side Midfielder during the game. So I assume Louie had to play both positions. In the second half I was watching Libby staying way way out on the wing but he received few passes. I felt sorry for him. A young fella with so much talent. Perhaps we should move him into the middle to be more involved.

Waine did well on a brief Cameo. Surely, he has to start instead of that invisible striker Sotorio? Waine did surprise me though with his defensive effort. I watched him sprint from up front at one of our corners, all the way back to make a crucial tackle just outside our own goal area, then sprint all the way back and make himself available up front. Fantastic little effort.

whilst not looking brilliant we did not look as bad as we have in the past. No heads dropped throughout thje game which is good. And towards the end, I think it might have been Devlin, trying to gee the crowd up before taking a corner. It showed passion. I won't write this team off. There were some hints of a decent side. Fine tuning and a Berisha type goalscorer is what we need. I really dislike that guy but in the A League, he just keeps on scoring goals - grrrrrrrr

Surprised by the small crowd, looked like heaps on the walkway into the ground, but as the game started, it looked about the 8,000+ stated.

Lastly. I took my receipt for my girls ST to booth 3 and 30 seconds later, walked away with a ticket. No issues. Car parking, showed my paper e-ticket and $20 note, in no problem. Just waiting now for the packs and plastics to arrive. Jesus, $5 for a small coke and $5.50 for an even smaller hot chips. Donuts now $7.00 for a small bag. I did even bother checking out the Bratwursts. Once they went over $8.50, I gave them away. 

So some good things yesterday, some not so good but the season has started at long last. Come on everyone, let's make a difference and get behind our guys. 

Thought both Cal and Ball looked very good. Cal in particular - still has a bit to learn, but he looked so confident, you wouldn't have known it was his first A-League game. Good link up play with Libby and other players, most of our best attacking moves he was heavily involved in. Having followed him when he was at ACFC, I was really pleased with his performance. 

Our right hand side - Fenton and Devila was poor. Devila rarely helped Fenton defend.

The tactics were off - we gave WU a lot of time in the middle of the park and sat deep. 

Subbing Ball was confusing when seemed most likely to score. 

Our Plan B towards the end of the game, was pass it to the right hand side, then hoof and hope into the box. 

We retained possession well, then played an ineffective long ball regularly. 

I appreciate we have mostly an entirely new squad, it wasn't the worst performance and we'll gel with time, but overall it was concerning.

The Booing went well ! 

the bloody TAB had it right.

Bloody hell I would hate to be  Nix player the way some ofyou carry on. Yep it wasn't an ideal start but there were signs that there is plenty of room for improvement. If Ball had been able to put that chance he created away it would have been a cracking goal. He reminded me of Greenie with his leads if our guys can read them he will score some. Not sure how Devila gets the blame for Fenton giving Paine a shark load of room yes he could have tracked back better. Surely someone with Taylors experience should have spotted what was happening and instructed someone to fix the damage Paine was causing.

Think many have expectations higher than the players have the ability to deliver.

Personally, I think it's because we were all desperate to beat the cod. And then Berisha scoring? That just rubbed salt into the wounds. Revised tactics and a striker, and we should be ok

You can not leave BirdShark in His Hair  unmarked anywhere in the box.

Lesson learnt but never heeded at each teams pearl 

At least it was a little snake at the beginning of the long game.

Is Taylors yellow rescinded as an offence happened before it?

(#FFA Rules apply)

So we lost our opening game and didn't manage to score. Totally gutted but not all the surprised. It's easy to make excuses, like lack of quality pre season, team rebuild, need for a striker. Young and in-experienced etc etc. But we were poor in attack, our build up was far to slow and gave there ageing players far too much time to set up there defensive structure. Up against it our attack ran out of ideas by the end of the game. Best chances came when we tried to get in behind, but that was rare as crosses and long balls seemed more popular options.

I was totally suprised how often there midfielders just strolled through the middle of the park with the ball. We seemed to drop off to quick and too far and let them come at us. So I'm not sure the 4-2-2-2 structure suits the players we have all that well. Or our players didn't implement it the way our coach wants it played. We gave away the middle of the park far to easily. Early days though. And even with that Marinovic was untroubled for most of the game.

But It was good to see some NZ players get there A league debuts in McCowatt and Payne. Thought they both played well along with Marinovic. Looks like Piscoppo is still getting up to match fitness, and Devilla needs to harden up a bit, gave a way possession far to easily at times. Sotirio was pretty anonymous. Really surprised he played the full 90 and Ball was subbed off. Would have liked to see Waine come on for Sotirio much earlier in the game.

We will be better for the hit out. And there is potential in this young side. But a tough run of games coming up. Can we score some goals in the next 4 games against the potential top 4 teams in the league. I fear that if we don't start scoring confidence will drain from this side. If we can start hitting the back of the net against the main contenders then we can have something to build on for the rest of the season.

Big challenge for Talay to get us firing up front.  

The 4-2-2-2 has to go IMO. I'd like to see a 4-3-3. I think part of Davila's defensive problems were because of that 4-2-2-2 shape leaving him more isolated out there because there wasn't an extra midfielder in the centre to slide across and help cover. There's a reason 4-4-2 (let's face it, it's just a variation of that) went out of favour when other teams started playing 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. It's too hard to control the game and your passing lines are too predictable when you overlay the formations on each other. Some teams can pull it off but I don't think we're one. Especially without a target man.

We really do need an outlet up front though, regardless of formation 

. Overall, not a great result but given how much our squad has changed and our typical undercooked preseason I think there's hope there.

This result was so disappointing for a lot of reasons already stated on here, but i think now the most concerning thing is where we will be on the table in four weeks time. Following this we have Sydney away next week, Perth at home and then both City and Victory in Melbourne. They are arguably the four best teams in the league, and with only one home game in there it would be easy to see us pointless 5 games in. We had to get  result last night because our next four are bloody tough

I am not one for bagging referees, especially when we lose.  I didn't think that this one had a good game but not a bad one either.  We can grizzle and groan but he did not change the result IMHO.

However, there is one stupid little thing that annoys the pants off of me.  Have noticed in overseas leagues as well. I am sure I read/heard that substituted players must leave the field by the shortest route or something like that.  That appeared to be in the ref's mind as well because he indicated the route he wanted the WU layers to take at substitution times. It has always been the case that the winning team will try and stretch the time as much as possible while a losing team subbed player will do the opposite.  Yet he allowed them to take the long route and walk slowly.  #22 was in the six yard box when subbed at their end and he was clearly told to go over the goal line, yet he walked to the sideline. The Assistant Ref, clearly told him to go over the goal line yet he continued to walk to the sideline.  McDonald was on the far side of the field when he was subbed.  Again clearly told to go to the far sideline, yet allowed to walk to the bench.

If I have heard this change correctly, what is the point of having this rule if the refs are not going to enforce it with either action or sanction?

Did Talay do a presser after the game?

Milicich had a point on twitter that 4-2-2-2 only works if your players are mostly better than the opposition, man for man - hence why it works for Sydney, and won't work for us. 

I would rather see us switch to a 4-2-3-1, but that will be hard without a target man. I think Davila struggled out wide and doesn't have the pace, I would rather see McCowatt-Davila-Ball in an attacking 3 behind a target man. Ball has got a lot more pace than Davila and is stronger on the ball

The Jeremy Brockie of Aussie footballers in that he's scored heaps of goals at club level but not even one for his country.....

Was class at Celtic where he knocked in dozens of goals.

But didn't even make the squad for World Cup 2010 in South Africa at the height of his goal-scoring feats in Scotland.

Bit of an enigma... 

think we looked ok in parts - story of our existence. We made plenty of chances, just lacked the killer shot. Krishna could have scored two or three. Think we need a striker fast!

If someone could explain for me how the 4-2-2-2 is supposed to work, I would appreciate it. I think I'm reasonably knowledgeable with football tactics but I look at the formation, and I just don't get it. For example, what are the roles of the wide players supposed to be? Advanced Wingers or Inside forwards or wide playmakers? Who is expected to fill the gap in the middle of the park between the two up-front and the dual pivots? If it's one of the wide players, then I assume it is expected of the fullback on the same side to look to overlap? But that would mean the defense needs to spread out to cover the space and they remained narrow the whole game. Confused.

Yep, on their youtube.

was there a fever tifo? if so, any photos of it?

What surprised me the most was the lack of change in tactic by Talay. It should have been clear to him at half-time that things were not working and players looked sorely out of position.

I think with the players we've got a 4-3-3 is most effective, Steinmann and Rufer are decent holding midfielders and although he was not great in this game, Davila is better suited to being a pure CAM, a couple of times he did drop in between the lines and got on the ball. In his defense also, I noted when he picked up the ball, players were either automatically running away from him or just standing still.

This also gives Fenton and Cacace more room to work down the outside, as we know they love getting forward. 

TALAY

VISION

Screenshot from https://www.myfootball.com.au/video/wellington-phoenix-v-western-united-match-highlights-hyundai-a-league

Unfortunately Talay has stuck with 4-2-2-2 throughout pre-season and, as a new coach, I seriously doubt he will change it all come game 2.

nice one. it took me a while but i got there in the end. 

A few quick thoughts on how the 4-2-2-2 is (not) going to work. Certainly isn't my preference for the players that we have.

The attacking midfielders are clearly being asked to defend outside of the fullbacks, then expected to act as 10s when we're in posession. That's partly the reason for the slow build-up - they have a lot of distance to cover before they're back in position, effectively tracking from a WB position to an inside forward role - its a massive ask.

It means Fenton and Cacace are defending tighter to the CBs than last season, as we don't have a "spare" CB to pick up runners/space so they need to help more centrally. Our CBs and midfield are both marking (or should be) man for man so dropping that fullback off creates a spare player and a bit of a safety net in the middle.

Davila did a good job of dropping as deep as instructed early on but then did an awful job of actually defending the winger and let him run straight past him meaning Fenton couldn't act as the spare player. If we're gonna ask players to drop that deep to defend then they have to do a proper job of it. When Davila cocks up there, he's just tracked ages back to do nothing and is now out of position, which is a worse outcome than him not tracking back at all.

Thought this also restricted how far forwqrd Libby and Louis could get. Also very clear that we didn't have any width up front, which is very important when trying to break down a back 3 like WU had. Starting Sotirio wide right and plugging the corner would have caused Gulum all sorts of headaches. Instead, we kept our attacks tight, playing into the hands of their back 3 and in the second half we didn't create a lot beyond the fullback lumping long balls into the box, which Payne did better than either Fenton or Cacace.

I still think we'll score enough goals this year, we opened them up a few times and WU were going out of their way to put 11 behind the ball for the full second half and they really struggled to create opportunities even before they started doing that. I thought we defended really well, bar leaving Berisha free that one time and I think we'll fare a lot better when the teams we're playing don't have their hearts set on negative football. McCowatt, Ball, Steinmann, Rufer and Payne all looked good, imo. Was a better perfromance from us than I was expecting first up, but a long long way to go.

Come to think of it, with two decent hiding MFs and the plethora of AMs we have, we could just as well play 4-2-3-1.  Need a target man of course but would probably go ok up top until we recruit a FW and Sotirio could probably play as I one of the 3

I don't think we will come good until round 6, or the game against Jets. Meanwhile we'll be a easy 3 points for all clubs.

There is a difference between saying "we did not stick to the plan" and saying "this was the wrong plan with the players we have".

I am not expecting miracles in the next game, but I am looking forward to seeing Talay's possible changes in formation (if any) next weekend.

I think our season can be summed up by Greenacres half time interview. "It's ok, we're only trailing by one" 

Tells the whole story ffs.

Ufuk seemed pretty flexible to adapting formations. When asked if three 10's could be played as a starting formation he replied with "depends on the opposition that we play, well set up differently against the opposition we play."

I see four of the WU players made the A League team of the week! Must have been an impressive performance to the neutrals.

As someone said a classic case of yellow for being a Phoenix player. And we haven't even had a special intervention from our NZ only VAR yet.

Is that an official record?

yeah good call- Davila is not a wide player. He looks like he wants to play quick “give and go”’s around the 18 yard box- as opposed to receive the ball out wide. We need him playing the balls in behind for the WBs etc from a central position.

The big thing for me is with the 4 lines (ie 4-2-2-2) we actually limit the space for ourselves between the lines and crowd ourselves out meaning the only space is a wingback out wide who then whips miracle crosses. The benefit with the 2 DMs is the WBs can push higher but I didn’t see enough from the CAMs to open up the space to enable the WBs to get in behind. So I think the problem was the lines the CAMs were running in part because of the 2-2-2.

Happy to give Ufuk a few weeks to see how the formation works but I think the CAMs need to start more centrally and drag the opposing guys out of their “blocks”. More movement off the ball. 

okay next week's thread! This was a pre-season adjacent hit out. Onwards and upwards 

Best part of the whole match.

(If someone can make a gif out of these guys I'll love you for it).

I was behind the goal - Ref ran toward Taylor pointed at him and flashed the yellow.

( will look for footage)  But good to see no card on Official site.