R14 v Perth Glory | Thurs 5th Jan | 11pm | SS3

No stats man but playing in Perth:

Played 16

Won     5

Lost     10

Draw   1

07/08 W   08/09 L L   09/10 L   10/11 L W   11/12 L L   12/13 D W   13/14 L   14/15 L W    15/16 W   16/17 L L  

he seemed to be communicating well enough with the midfield last night. Couple of times I saw him barking orders and dragging players back.

Is Rossi only allowed to help organise the defence if he's wearing the captain's armband?

We played the 442 ok. The front two worked reasonably well, one would press a CD the other would look to cut passing lanes into midfield. When Griffiths (who had a fantastic game) dropped to receive the ball Krishna would normally be the one to work a bit harder to get goal side of him. The attackers could have dropped a little bit deeper to compress the space between defence and attack. Roly and A Rod did a decent job, A Rod a few brain explosions though - passing to the opposition like they were a 'Nix player, passing to space where he thought a teammate was but wasn't. Our left side had a tougher time with Risdon and Harold, Tratt was mostly ok with Castro - though Castro had licence to roam and Keogh would often take up a high position on the left. There were times when you can sort of see that the team was not as well drilled in a 442 as Perth, at times we used the wings well with more direct play or balls into Smeltz or Watson's feet to play off but other times we were still more intricate with our build up. Perth very physical, not much change from the ref and a bit inconsistent. Roly overall had probably one of his better games this season, Rossi very good.

With Krishna's red we first went 432 (Ridenton, ARod and Roly) then subbed of Roly with Fenton and was more 441/423. 

To get our best players in the team would necessitate a switch back to something Ernie would play but Des/Greenie seem more intent on wingers so Gui or Weemac as an AM or WeeMac is up against Krishna or Kosta as a winger.The deeper CMs Roly, Lia or ARod - Roly and ARod should be first choice, but Roly has the tendency to overplay when in a position now his role is to move the ball to attack, which he did better last night. If Smeltz is starting, WeeMac behind could be a better choice for workrate alone.

Most of our games are worth watching this season, in fact, many have been the best games of the round.

Surely this team's going to start a winning streak soon? We'll be finals bound for sure if we do. The middle of the table is so congested, and there's some average teams there.

Apart from getting some consistency going with our results we also need the confidence-boost of knocking over one of the big three: Victory, MC or Roar. According to Graham Arnold, Sydney aren't within reach of any other side this year, so we'll forget about beating them.

http://www.a-league.com.au/video/wellington-phoenix-rd14-press-conference/1jfgf6t0pdmqt1scxtz4ub18ma

http://www.a-league.com.au/video/perth-glory-rd14-press-conference/csxr1bf9v0dm1o0v5r226a2bg

I might be wrong but cannot recall Kosta anywhere else but the right side, practically hugging the sideline all night. He performed OK but nowhere near what I thought a marquee signing should (at least against Glory, a competitive but not Sydney FC - class opposition).

Hypotheticals are dime a dozen but I thought we were good enough to get away with at least a point against Glory last night, had we built up enough buffer in the first half.

Kosta did switch with Parky about half way through the first half but it was a shortlived change. He did like to cut inside though, which might make you think he was playing centrally.

Ah yes, that explains.  Did he take over Parkhouse' position then?

Goodness me and I thought football was a simple game. If you shuffle the deck like that how can we ever expect to get a result?

Score more goals than them ;)

So Roy got a 1 game suspension, does that mean he's out this week? or has he served it by being evicted from the game?

And more importantly did anyone see the replay?  As the MRP clearly thinks its pretty serious.

He will be out this week. On replay it didn't look serious to me. If it was the defender wouldn't have got up and happily played on!

I think most of them have been worth watching but I think maybe only one at the most was the best of the round.

I'm sure Adelaide and Wanderers fans have been saying the same thing about their sides starting a winning streak.

I think pretty much everyone that has seen the incident (including neutrals) universally agree that it shouldn't have been a red card. Of course the FFA are going to double down on the stupid and give him a one game ban, just to increase the injustice. Now that the suspension has been handed down, can we appeal it? Is there even such a thing as an independent panel in this mickey mouse comp? I'd have thought the video footage alone should have been enough to dismiss it, but maybe we should do what Victory did with Berisha and turn up with a still photo showing there was no contact because apparently that's a thing.

The real ridiculous thing here is that Keogh didn't get a retrospective ban.

Keogh is just a thug. He is worse than Matt Simon when it comes to dishing it out.

I thought it was a red. Does anyone have footage of the Keogh headbut cos strangely enough I guess the Fox cameras can't have picked it up.

The cameras picked it up and Mike Cockerill said Keogh was lucky to have stayed on the field.

Probably because Rossi, a real gentleman, shrugged it off instead of collapsing and writhing on the ground.

No way that was a straight red, Conan. Again this comes down to a consistency thing. Admittedly I watched the rest of the round with a pretty biased and jaundiced eye but as my outraged posts in the match threads suggest there were tackles in later games that were as bad or worse that were punished with just a yellow or a free kick. Nick Montgomery absolutely butchered a Sydney player right in front of the ref but got off scot free, which doubly pissed me off because even a yellow would've seen him suspended against us this week!

Guess we'll just have to wait for the karmic wheel to turn.

Reality is that had it not been a Nix player you would be most likely  to ignore it.

Yes, he defends like a f- legend. 

oh, and this:

Also asking about footage cos I crashed asleep and haven't seen the incident...

The very definition of shark cod.

Just lucky Siggy wasn't playing

It seems odd to me to complain about A League refs being inconsistent when they've made the right call. The fact that worse tackles aren't punished properly is the problem, not that this one was punished.

As a casual football fan it can be tough to remember where the line is between rules that exist but aren't enforced consistently or things that are/arent rules.  So your comments here have been helpful thanks.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the red isnt contingent on actually naking contact right? So fi anyone challenges like that, hit the player or not it should be pulled up in the same way.

One thing it says is that a tackle which endangers the safety of an opponent must be considered serious foul play, and any player who is guilty of serious foul play must be sent off. I think Krishna definitely endangered the Perth guy therefore red card. Of course others don't agree with me though.

And yeah technically contact isn't necessary - it's whether it was dangerous or not. Just because you miss doesn't mean it wasn't dangerous.