R12 vs Melbourne Heart, Friday 9.30pm SS4

Boyd on for Brockie - what magic touch this move from Ernie proved to be!

Gee, that felt good.  Bloody marvellous actually.  Take Broken-Brockie off, put Buoyant-Boyd on, result a goal, and a win. Fantastic!  Sorry Jeremy, loyal servant you may be, but, geez mate, we are better off without you.  Whooohooooo! We won two in a row.  

To be fair. if we had strikers roughly earning their money, no-one would be moaning about the Phoenix or the style of football.

We had to put the ball on plate to finally get one, even Brockie would have been struggling to miss that

Fenton would be so easy to mark. Always cuts in and trys to give it to Hernadez 

Yeah we struggle against fast teams especially on the counter. Perth game away was the same. We play at a slower pace over all but have short bursts of speed in the top third

fox sports gave man of the match to

1) durante

2) Reira

3) fenton

Fenton has had his wings clipped. He doesn't take on his man on the outside because he doesn't want to be dispossessed and end up on the wrong side of the fullback so he plays the easy option - square or back if not a cross.

Jeez Brockie really has lost his mojo. A half decent striker would have buried two or three of those. He needs to go see a sports shrink. Mind you his career scoring average is very very low, last year was an anomaly. If Ernie can find a forward recruit in January Brockie is gone-burger

Boyd was an inspired sub...well done Ernie. I thought Boyd has looked lively the last few times he's come on. He gives the team a bit of width and trickery. Certainly should start next week.

Great win...first time ever in Melbourne....and we played very very well in midfield in the second half. So happy for Ernie...he even smiled at the end. Must have been a shit first 10 weeks for him

The streak is on!

Riera top drawer. Cunningham woeful needs to be benched

Leave Brockie alone please!

you talking to Ernie?

If Boyd and Lia are doing much better under Ernie, then clearly Brockie is doing much worse.

Torres went through what Brockie is going through and he came right.

Is that fact or opinion Buffon? Because I can't figure that out for myself.

I like brockie last year anyway . sadly if he doesn't start firing he won't be firing for anyone come seasons end . or does he have another year on contract?

wsw on sunday can't wait

Merrick said heart were better team

...hes tripping

To be fair to Fenton he often had two players marking him because Lia doesn't drift out to the right to occupy the second marker like Cunningham does on the left. It's a little frustrating that Fenton doesn't take on his marker a little bit more, but at least he has the intelligence to realise how much he exposes us on the counter if he turns the ball over. For example, there was a number of times in the first half where Cunningham lost the ball trying to take on two players and, consequently, gave Heart some good attacking opportunities on the break. 

Conversely, Fenton looked more threatening to me once Boyd came on because there was actually someone trying to link up with him down the right flank. Maybe something Ernie should take into account ahead of our next game?

Yeah good points Richie but Merrick is playing a lop sided formation on purpose which is why that is happening on one side but not the other. The point is to limit how exposed we can be by throwing numbers forward. It would be more ideal if we could switch the formation from side to side though so fenton can have a crack for a while while the other side plays more conservatively.

good on ya nix.

brokie on the bench, boyd to start on the right giving Fenton support, brokie to come on when Boyd finally slows down, cause he will and we need someone to fill the hole. Aside from that keep the starting eleven the same and the subs as well. Bertos played OK, and Hicks held the ball well, few good passes, but he needs to learn to pull the trigger, he can not do worse than brokie at the moment.

finally broke the voodoo of victoria, now onto bigger and brighter things.

Crowd:  6,486

This is what you get when a team is without a win for a long time.  Will be interesting to see what 12 Jan brings, especially if we can sneak a point or three next Wed.

Great to win, and another step in the right direction. Only made it hard for ourselves because of the early misses again. Having to be exposed to the counter for most of the game in search of a goal is an issue the club is sure to resolve in the Jan window. But some defensive heroics got us thru.

Will double that figure with a point min. on Wed.  

Good times - off to bed with a smile on my dial     COYN   yahoo!!

NEW YEARS DAY. 

LOUD NOISES.