R16 vs Melbourne City | Sat 26 Jan | 7.35pm | Westpac Stadium

Could have wrapped it up there Roy and you missed a pen earlier this week - Not Happy Jan

Filip De Gea

KURTO.................

Kurto by far MOM today

Kurto MOM easy, Williams 2nd.

The greatest keeper in the league! Legendary performance. 

wtf is Dura doing

Ref is going to add time on for that Durante silly thing to do

blow the whistle ref 

flip -that was a hard fought win

Wot don’t they know about +4.

Huge huge huge 3pts!!!!

Turned out alright in the end..but we need to sortout that defending a lead..and scoring more goals. Thankfully Williams nows how

Jesus wept, that was an ordeal.

Good that we got the win but getting a little tired of the team not being able to put a 90 minute performance together. Feels like a tough criticism considering our record in the last 10 matches, but it's frustrating watching the inconsistency within a game.

Just realised the plan to get the 5th yellow was runnning down and had to do something like that to get it.. Can now put his feet up instead of long Perth trip.

Well, I'm very happy to have been proved wrong.

But the timewasting in injury time was disgracefully unprofessional and the ref was right to drag it out. That's the sort of thing that will get people saying #NixOut again.

Was that by Durante the most obvious intentionally getting a yellow card to get suspended or what???

Unclear why he was even taking the goal kick, then after taking the yellow for obvious time wasting he didn't even take the goal kick anyway.

Felt like the ref was trying to make up for last week there. 

But another win, phew. 

Think this is a bit tough. This team has limitations which Rudan has managed to skillfully paper over but a win like that is priceless, and sometimes you just have to do it ugly. A lot of very tired bodies out there hanging on for dear life but a fantastic reward for them - and us!

Did Taylor remind him a few minutes earlier..

Best result in football, 1-0! Well in boys!

Valuable 3 points, doesn't matter how they come, sounds like they were all over us in the 2nd half so am more than happy to take the points and run. Now for a week off and a trip to Perth. 

Hope Rudes gives them 1-2 days off of trainings after that run of matches too - Caught the end of the match and a few of the lads were out on their feet.

As if no other team would do exactly the same thing... your cynicism is off the chain recently.

I think my criticism is more for Rudan than the players. We look at our best when we play with intensity and press the ball high. That's a tough ask when it's our third game in a week ... which is why I don't understand why Kopa is coming on with less than 10 minutes to go and Burgess with time basically up. Krishna and Fenton in particular looked cooked and City were bringing the ball forward far too easily in the second half.

That's very tough. It's not all about the flashy performances, banging in three of four goals and walloping the opposition, sometimes you just need to show some determination and grind out a performance to get a result. Have a look around the top leagues in the world, very rarely do you see one team dominate for an entire 90 minutes - that is part of the ebb and flow of this game. It's what makes football the great game it is, and a compelling watch for the fans at the ground or watching on TV (even when your team isn't playing so well...) 

For mine, it's just good to see we can hold on and get results in these close matches too, in season's gone by we would've conceded late and dropped points or been completely overrun in the 2nd half and conceded 2-3 soft goals and lost convincingly.

While City dominated most of the second half, last 10 minutes we actually came right back into it, and were very close to scoring. Had the ball for a fair period a couple of minutes into injury time when ref gave a free kick against Cacace for I don't know what.

58 - @WgtnPhoenixFC keeper Filip Kurto has now made the most saves (58) and has the highest save percentage (75%) of any goalkeeper this @ALeague season. Punch.#WELvMCY pic.twitter.com/0UtRj16Ems

— OptaJason (@OptaJason) January 26, 2019

For those who thought we were wasting an import slot on a Goalkeeper. 

He's gotta rank up there as one of the best signings we've ever made.

8,554 people at Westpac and a grounded out 1-0 win. The Nix keep trucking on!

I wonder if it was discussed in advance that he'd rest the next game? Kurto ran up to him towards the end of the game to say something. Even though he got the booking, not only is it against Perth, but it means a clean slate.

So, that is what a 10 out of 10 performance looks like for a keeper. Kurto v Melbourne City it was for about fifteen minutes.
The other ratings would vary wildly from the first half to the second. Everyone was great in the first half....

100% Deliberate

I'm not asking for "flashy performances, banging in three of four goals and walloping the opposition" or for us to "dominate for an entire 90 minutes".

But it would be nice if we didn't keep playing 45 minutes of a game with intensity, pressing high and good ball/player movement and the other 45 minutes playing at a lower tempo, sitting back and being forced to play more direct as a result.

Previous couple of games it's been the players who have sat back/dropped intensity. Tonight it seemed like a few players were absolutely cooked and it boggles my mind that Rudan expected anything to change without subs.

Go on, revitalise an old Oi Oi tradition. You know you want to!

Quite simple really. 1st half we were tremendous. Second half Kurto was tremendous. 

Wowzers, that was a rollercoaster.  Great first half, and they were deservedly applauded off the park.  We really should have gotten at least a second but we looked comfortable.  Then the jekyl and hyde act came. Not sure what the plan was for the second, if it was to sit back and put Kurto under stupid amounts of pressure, it was a success. Had we had either of the keepers of the previous couple of seasons, we'd have been horsed. So many basic errors. And what the hell is wrong with Fenton and Libby not hitting the line?  So many opportunities to do it and they passed it .  And please, FUCK OFF with those short corners.  It NEVER works. Not once. Again it put us under unnecessary pressure at the back.

That being said, I think it was Colvinator said it, we came back towards the last 10 and the ref was an imbecile.  He was deservedly booed off the park.  Well done to the team for grinding it out, I'm very pleased with those 3 points.  Can't win it in style all the time, but please, at least do the basics to keep me in some sort of calm :D

Fever were a bit quiet in the first half again, whats up?  Nowhere near as quiet as Wednesday, but didn't seem as bouncy.  Changed in the second thankfully!  It really makes a difference to the rest of the crowd when they're at it.  Shame we couldn't get the 10K figure 

MOM was Kurto by a country mile. Second was Willo.

Some pretty negative interpretations of the game here. From the view from the stands it felt like we were pretty much in control of the game. No doubt Kurto kept us ahead with some awesome keeping but he is part of the team doing what he is meant to. From where i was looking Melboune weren't running all over us at all. They were just having chances like a good team should - and so were we. We were a bit unlucky not to pick up a second from what i saw. Not too sure why the ref didn't at least use VAR when Krishna was through on goal and had beaten the keeper. If that wasn't a time for a bit of a look I'm not sure what is. Overall we played better and we won. There is a much stronger backbone to this team now with some key signings definitely paying off and a new attitude that is as well.

Define "worked".

Melbourne's defence was fantastic in that second half, Singh and Roy were playing well but going up against a brick wall.

Agree about the short corners. Park em permanently or at least maybe only one or twice every other game.

I forgot that Cacace is 18 because he's so impressive, he's getting better with every game. 

Kurto was obviously incredible too. Hard to believe he couldn't be starting for a higher league somewhere, but very glad we have him.