R12 vs Sydney FC | Sat 23rd Dec | 7:35pm | RoF | 12 Pubs etc....

We don’t seem to have much of a goal scoring plan other than to cross it in and find the head of K9.

Hopefully that’ll change when Krishna is back.

I think 'we' have known that for sometime.  Its our manager that doesn't seem to agree, and as a result of this and other strange positional selections that I cannot fathom, and clearly aren't effective, I really think he has to go

Positives:

- Singh did bloody well considering

- Its xmas eve tomorrow

Negatives

- Shark, shark and shark (we were)

Noooooo, you cannot be serious. 

I have seen the Nix play a heck of a lot worse and win. No lack of effort as well despite what some of you muppets say. Watch players individually for a while and then tell me they are not putting in 100%.

Not saying there aren’t problems but some of the negative comments are ridiculous.

The rumour I heard, and hopefully it’s just speculation, is that Krishna is one of the players that Kalezic was referring to could depart before Jan 1st.

Been a fan of the Phoenix since inception  and I usually don’t do social media but I finally thought I’d give my two cents. 

- There is no doubt we played better football in the first two or three games of the season. Was this Rado’s influence?

- I really want Kalezic to be the answer and I’m sure he knows more about football in his little finger than I do but I’m not convinced by his tactics. Playing players out of position (Parkhouse is not a right winger), playing too deep when we have a lead (Brisbane), etc.

- Apart from K9, who has been impressive, are any of our imports worthy of an A league spot. Rossi is the goods but does’t seem to care anymore and Paracki has been in my opinion very poor. 

- Finally give Singh more game time!

spoke to Roy last night - He is about a week away from be back. 

If we played so bad why did a team of the stability and quality  of Sydney not score 6+ 

It was still Sydney's second biggest win in the league this season. And our equal worse lost. And the 6th time this season we've conceded 3 goals or more.

1st vs last on the ladder.

We got the result I expected and looked so close to scoring so many times.  Singh was awesome.

I disagree and I don't like to pull the stats, but it was and even game when you look to pure data. We created chances but can't convert them because our players are just not as good. Sydney press more effective, when the got the ball they now where to pass after one touch our guys move the ball left right without a clear plan. They converted almost every chance into a goal, we lost the ball in the middle of the park and invite them to counters. 2-3 goals could be stopped by Italiano because he just stops moving and waits on his line, maybe we should bring back Smith.

So just from the pure effort of our players the performance was good and should be the base of what we should expect. And yes, more Singh.

We have certainly played worse football this season. 

So Italiano is better than Smith????? really??? Smith could develop into a really good NZ keeper. Italiano will disappear into football oblivion once his Nix term is over. 

If we are going to finish last then why not give some of the kiwi kids more game time. Could they do any worse? Why do some Aussie journeymen keep getting game time?

Isn't the development of NZ talent somewhere on the list of objectives for the club? Could they do any worse? People have called for more Singh, for weeks...he plays against the top A-League side and looks OK. Rufer, with more game time could do a job. Ridenton is developing nicely

I am about at the end of my days as a avid follower of the Nix. I would however tune in to watch the development of the likes of kiwi youngsters like Singh, Smith, Rufer etc. 

So unless I'm mistaken, they didn't announce the crowd number last night...

Just keep Roy and for Rossi fit would be a good start...!! Can we clone them for when they get injured?

So missed the game due to car theft (grr!) and no wifi, despite being promised wifi...

any extended highlights? 

We lost last night due to School boy defending and shark goal keeping.

Singh and Rogerson looked great on Saturday, yes, okay, I would be happy to keep them in for another week. But we're here in the professional Hyundai A-League to win matches, not JUST develop NZ/Aussie youngsters. Our season is not over yet and I don't expect Nix Reserves in our first team 11 for another couple of years. That is what the ASB Premiership team is for, to develop the kids and get game time. We need our best players on the park!! 

Plus same thing with Paracki. Plays well for a couple of weeks and then gets marked/kicked out of the game after that. 

Still looking at the highlights we should have at least been 3-2 at one point. It seemed from the highlights like we were definitely in that game. Just need to hit a run I reckon.

Rogerson is not.

We lost badly because of our own errors.  But overall, we lost because we were playing Sydney FC.

Watching our second half performance I was wondering if we would have lost as easily against any other team except Sydney and the Jets, if we played like that. I finally saw some better commitment and urgency, which was missing in the first half, despite the disparity in results (first half 1:2 to SFC, second half 0:2 to SFC).  Sydney was also not trying that hard in the first half, in my own biased opinion, and must have got a talking-to by Arnie at half-time.

In the second half we got easily exposed to a counterattack because we committed ourselves forward and did not have enough skill on the park to counteract it. I actually did not see much evidence of the claim that Kalezic is allegedly "ultra-defensive", on that second half performance.

Still unsure about Parkhouse on the right, and I would have still liked to see Dario Vidosic on the park, but hey.

We missed Krishna but Singh was a good sight to behold. Not sure if it is fair to expect a kid to play week in week out though, he is slight and I would hate for him to be injured (like when a man-mountain, Jordy Buijs, decided to simply foul him instead of winning the ball).

Finally: poor passing accuracy is going to cost us games, and it has been our feature rather than a momentary lapse.

fourfourtwo form are going off about wellington hiding crowd numbers. Another #Nixout campaign. I just hope we start winning soon.

fixed

After watching that, we miss Moss. You cannot tell me either that Italiano is better than Smith. Smith might be more jittery but I believe we would have seen a better effort from him on some of those goals. 

Italiano is just a shark goalkeeper and just confirmed that was he produced on the highlights of the ASB League is exactly what we get at this level. Shark.

Who is the best keeper in the ISPS Handa League and can we have him to temp fix the goalkeeper issue?

Probably Scott from Wellington?  Zubikarai is pretty good but wouldn't be a kiwi.

Who decided to not offer moss a 2 year contract! Bloody hell.

a bit off topic I know, but did anyone else scratch their head at the much heralded “half time entertainment” at the Sydney game? A decent enough prize - a gold season ticket (or maybe punishment) - but the ‘competition’ was bizarre in the extreme. Ball dribbling relay shuttles pitting two teenage brothers who were obviously decent enough footballers against two other teams with people - one presumably a mother - who looked like they’d never kicked footballs in their life. And of course it was all over in about 90 seconds.

Totally bizarre. Makes me wonder who is thinking up this sort of crap. Sort of symbolises the entire experience at Westpac.