Mariners got their tactics bang on IMO. I didn't believe the hype prematch that they were going to be easy. They are a Championship winning side, they are third on the table and even though they have lost a couple of players they have plenty of players who know how to close out games. Plus we always struggle against them.
Tactically they looked like they knew we were not going to hurt them out wide. Boxall and Muscat are OK players but they are not going to skin you on the outside....as long as their defenders stayed goalside then they were sweet. As a result they could pack the central midfield. This is where we struggled. We just could not get anything going in this area. Carlos was heavily marked and tended to drop deeper and deeper to receive out of the traffic. End result we were building our attacks from too deep. We were also not going wide at the top end of the pitch and resorted to playing centrally trying to hit the front guys with 30 metre passes.
Normally Ernie is great with his subs....this time he screwed it up a bit IMO. The Stein/Boyd combo has been great for us....also Boyds pace and skill out wide would have been real handy earlier on. As it turned out our most potent combo did not get on the pitch at the same time....which is bizarre. Surely Brockies time for starting games must be over. Boyd was instantly more lively and threatening. Why did Stein come off? he's just had a weeks rest....and he is our best scorer. Hard to say if Carlos was shit or they made him shit because of the heavy marking....will have to watch the replay. However one thing I have noticed is we play Ernies style a whole lot better with the nimble quicker guys like Boyd on the field...Carlos looks ponderous at times.
A draw is a fair result but with Victory and Roar to come getting points is not going to be easy. Certainly we will have to up our game bigtime next week. Victory won't be as slack on attack as CCM were.
I think the one error we made in the first half is when we did not have possession, we tended to pressure the ball to a great degree but forgot about the man that they they left so the quick flick ons out of coverage left us scrambling. I think we need to be careful with this. Organised sides will get out of that quickly. Against the Heart, they would crumble. The goal Simon scored was when Durante ran at the guy that flicked it on with his chest to Simon (whom Durante left) and bang.
I picked a 1 goal win and I remember a lot of people picking a win by 2 which was always going to be ambitious. They didn't have a midfield so they sent the ball out wide, around it and invariably, Matt Simon dropped off a bit and played a play maker role. I can't stand him but I would not object if he played for us. Just a gobby cunt. Phil Moss can take a bow for adjusting the team cause they still looked useful. They do miss Zwaanswijk at the back through as at times, they just panicked.
I was really surprised that Carlos was not dragged instead of Stein. This year, Carlos, while not look like a massive influence, has been heavily marked because he is the only play maker we have hence mark out Carlos, kill the Phoenix attack. We look better with Stein there because he does not get as much coverage. I think this is where a tactical adjustment by Ernie would be good in using Carlos as a dummy man at times and get Stein to drop and push Carlos or Kenny on. We become very predictable on attack and easy to mark when Carlos is the one expected to do it all. Use him as a decoy perhaps, then he may free up more. He has not looked great by his own standards, but its not like Lia, Brockie or anyone else is getting marked hard because they sag off those players so why not try Stein in there and use Carlos as the dummy man at times.