R16 vs Wanderers | Sunday 8th Feb | 7:00pm | SS2

So you wanted Hicks to come on an clog up the middle of the park even more?

Can't really have too much criticism. I said after the CCM game that our team isn't used to playing against a parked bus and that was the case today. A lot of our best bits this year have come from getting in behind, and wsw limited that a lot.

My only real criticism is with our midfield not chasing back. Often Roly / Burns / Weemac will lose possession or a pass wont make it to their feet and instead of turning round and trying to get the ball back, they either jog or simply stop. Often leads to big gaps around edge of the box or for fullbacks to run into. Roly for me sometimes looks like he's only giving 60% most of the time - but when he turns it on, he becomes unstoppable.

A-Rod came on and showed how he can add a different facet to our game, may not have the long passing game of lia, but knows how to move the ball and keep our rhythm. But he also is starting to see space and run into it, or play the forward pass - elements of his game he didn't show as much when he first joined. Just needs to keep building confidence and start scoring some goals for us

What he needs is a consistent run in the starting line up. 

I understand Ernie playing Lia - he thinks we need a leader in the middle of the park, a guy that talks and organises. But the last couple of games Lia has not done that, and his passing has been very, very poor.

A-Rod deserves to start next game. I thought he provided a lot of attacking impetus when he came on without really doing anything decisive.

I'm just generally peeved that we have gifted so many goals to a couple of lowly, misfiring, mentally fragile teams. I've no problem with losing to a good team from a well worked move or a brilliant strike but in the last two games our defending has been as incompetent as anything I've seen in the several horror seasons we've endured.

That's anything from 2 to 6 points we've blown that will have to be made up somewhere else if we are to get ourselves the home playoff I'm hoping for.

Having just watched the game, there are two things that played a big part today which no one has mentioned:

* The ball seemed to stick to the surface like playing in mud... was the grass to long?  Both Burns and Krishna use the ball skidding on as parts of their games so had that factor taken away from them

* The pitch seemed very narrow creating a congested middle, not sure the boys are used to playing so narrow.

It does seem too that Roly is being played wider, counter to how he was playing before the break.  Like Burns, he's great at running at players but now does not seem to be in a position to do that now.

Its also a bit of indictment when our best shot of the game cam from our RB, Boxall.  Not at any stage during the 90 did it feel to like we would actually score.  We may have had ridiculous amounts of posession but that's no good if you don't SHOOT AT GOAL.

I don't think Burns and Krishna were our weak parts of the game.

Are WSW any more familiar with playing on a narrow pitch?

Next game I want to see A-Rod for Lia.

Would have to criticize Merrick for not mixing things up in the front. Boyd should've come on around 70 mins.

Has this club ever scored from a dead ball situation? McGlincheys corner kicks are pathetic, even Dura shouted at him towards the end.

Very frustrating to drop points against bottom half teams. 

But like I said they all strengthened their squads and we didn't. Gonna be a tough 2nd half of the season.

If we don't win our next home game we're gonna start slipping down the ladder. The pressure is on

Dura needs to learn when to talk and when NOT to talk . It's a real time killer and precious moments aren't cheap when we're losing .

we're doomed. 

It's a 6 pointer next week, must win game, the seasons over, sack Ricki etc etc

It's bollocks.

The better team lost. WSW will to be glad to have first win, but the second half was just defending, I'm not seeing them win very often with this kind of football. I'm glad I don't have to watch that week in and out. We could not score and there was not enough dirty fighting spirit to win this. And I already thought that last week, but I wish we still had a Brockie kind of player (or the original) on the bench, a target man, that could turn a game with a wonder goal by pure will power.

All this 'we are second place' was over hyped in the last week, if you looked at the ladder, you loose a game and you're fourth place. We just need another good run an we stay in the final 4, the boys can do that.

Press conferences

http://www.a-league.com.au/video/western-sydney-press-conference/1128757

http://www.a-league.com.au/video/wellington-phoenix-press-conference/1128758

I don't see the doom and gloom that others do in this loss but I do see two trends that other teams look like they have figured out and we need to make adjustments on.

I think Ernie woke up quickly at the half to change Lia then Fenton. I'm not going to scapegoat them but they were changes that needed to be made and it made a difference. I think its pretty obvious that based on performance of the last 2 weeks, Rodriguez needs to start for Lia next week. 

Trend 1:

I consistently see us scrambling as teams have figured out to counter us once the FBs get high, pressed and turn over the ball (Fenton and Muscat).

As much as Fenton has been improving and giving us forward impetus, I would like to see our fullbacks be a bit more full back and less wing back and use our midfielders to get forward/wider if it is needed. They get isolated in the corner, force the turnover and then pressed hard in the gap behind them. That leaves Muscat and Fenton scrambling a lot more than I would like and while Lia had been the one covering in behind before the break, he is not doing that now. I know that's not what's going to happen and from where I sit as a keyboard warrior, Ernie is a far far far better coach than all of us but teams are picking on Fenton and we are getting punished up that flank. Polenz was shyte last week to really ram it to Muscat but its happening a lot and we are not adjusting. That then puts pressure on Sigmund and Durante to move at pace (and they are ok but not lightening). Do they stay or go to the on-ball man? Who is going to pick up the late runner near or far? The last goal, Sigmund went near for the intercept and left the late runner at the back an easy one. You don't want to expose your CBs like that and to a large degree, we are doing it to ourselves. We need to make that adjustment I think.

Trend 2:

I saw a team that scored against us and the run of play 1st. Then they parked the bus. The put a red and black wall on the edge of the 18 and jammed the box. No amount of 2nd/late runners was going to make a difference because they did to us what the Phoenix of old have done to others. 

The key is how to fix that and break it down and in cases like that, when you become a team that only scores inside the 18 (and think Brisbane from 2 years ago) you need some variety. We have been told that the guys operate under a 'no shots from distance' policy but once you start putting a couple on target, make the keeper sweat (and perhaps score) you then force the defence to come out to you because they wont like leaving potential threats unmarked at about 25y out. This then leaves the space in behind again for more runners and you can get into the box. I liken it to cricket. If the inner ring is jammed with fielders to stop the singles, hit over the top and force them to have to adjust the field for that. That then frees up the inner ring again to get singles and tick the strike over. Teams know we are not going to shoot so they just stay in the box and wait.

Am I concerned? No. We finished very strongly and dominated the 2nd half, in the heat which was a stark contrast to last week where we succumbed to it. They just parked the bus and most teams do not come out winners against that. Again, its football and it happened to us again. If they had dominated us and won by 3 (and lets not forget the last goal blew the score out to an unrealistic reflection) then I would be worried.

Few thoughts:

• 2-0 flattered WSW
• Wee Mac needs to up his game from corners, they were shocking
• Burns should have had a penalty, his salmon fall didn't help but that looked like solid contact
• We need to ping from distance more, fluffing about on the edge of the box doesn't help anyone
• Muscat/all left sided players need to have the courage to use their left feet...how many times were they in good crossing positions and they cut back in and lost the chance?
• WSW fans deserve a medal, sucking this season with a ridiculously hot day and they still turn on the numbers & the atmosphere well.
• it's not all doom and gloom, sitting 4th with plenty of time in the season to re-find our form

Thought the ref was poor too, bottled quite a few decisions. WSW having 20 fouls to our 7 or so and only starting to be carded in the 2nd half said it all.

Had a few obvious throw in/corner calls go against us too.

Not that I'm blaming the ref for the loss, mind you; just thought he didn't control the game very well.

Wondered what would have happened if Golec was yellowed earlier, as he should have been, when challenging Burns for which he did get a yellow. Either not given up the free kick or risk a red. 

yeah I thought we outplayed them but a few dumb errors and some lack of finishing rooted us. We have have skillful mofos in our team; lots of great touches and set up play. Our fullbacks were a bit faeces though.

I don't think it was a penalty. Looked like shoulder to shoulder. If Burns goes down, thats not the defenders fault.

We need a Striker!

We need Ifill as a 20 minutes deluxe premium impact player who can walk through a parking bus.

Totally agree shoulder to shoulder isn't a peno, but I thought that lead to him clipping Burns legs. Doesn't matter now anyway!

Was it narrow? How narrow? It certainlylooked like there was no space out there, I put that down to WSW’s size and wall-like approach.

Think it might have just been the camera angle.

Ernie's teams are renowned for playing narrow. We've been playing narrow all season. If anything it should suit us.

If McGlinchey had snuck that golden op in and Boxall found Krishna once he came on we wouldn't have been moaning. Just bad luck in that regard.

Seems to be the most over-used sentiment on these forums as of late. Pretty funny.

Yeah but its not like we were played off the park AJ. It's pretty much felt that the better team lost. When you get your ass handed to you by the opposition, no amount of fantasy scenario makes it anything different than 'you got thrashed'. In this case however....

Think this type of loss is harder to take than one where you have been battered. Hence maybe the reason for more angst not that I think it's been that bad at all. Have seen much worse over the years.

Yeah but still "if so and so did this, and whats his name finished that..." - of course we would've won. Should we have taken the points WSW fans might be saying the same thing themselves. Could've, should've, would've.

could have been given, wasn't playing the ball, wasn't anywhere near the ball, looked like he got a bit of his legs, but Burns did seem to be looking for it a little, but I thought it wasn't a bad shout for sure. Part of the reason for having Burns is to get calls from Aussies refs!

It was much easier to take than the Brisbane game, I thought. Against Brisbane we played much poorer.

The only thing that was really hard to stomach was Santalab of all people sealing it.

I'll only start manning the panic stations if we lose next week.

I don't think people are giving WSW enough credit - they obviously saw that we lack physicality up front, our fullbacks like to push forward, and our central defence is slow. So they played deep and narrow and looked to hit us on the break. Our attackers couldn't use their pace to get in behind the WSW defence because there wasn't any space behind them, so they were forced wide. But we lack size and strength in the middle so any balls into the mixer were easily dealt with by their defence. We played a much more attractive brand of football than the Wanderers but we struggled to create clear chances and didn't take the few we did create. WSW, on the other hand, took theirs. I don't think we outplayed them by as much as some people seem to think, they were just happy to concede territory and possession if it meant that we couldn't get clear shots. On that note, I think we were guilty of not shooting sooner or from longer range a bit yesterday.

I just wish that we would admit that we don't have either the players to aim at or the accuracy in our delivery to whip corners into the box. Given how our season has gone and the nature of our squad I'd rather we just did what Barca do and play it short and back out and try to draw the opposition out to create an attack again rather than just aimlessly hitting it into the first defender every time (this might not have worked yesterday because WSW were so deep and narrow, but even so it's not like it would be worse than what we are doing anyway).

I tend to agree with Conan Troutman on that one. 

We lost the last two games and people are now saying "you can't afford to lose against teams below you" etc. That ignores the fact that for these two teams (Roar and WSW) to be down in the doldrums is unusual. I would say that Brisbane and WSW are both decent teams that went through a bad patch. 

In case of Roar, this led to a coach change as Mike Mulvey lost his way. Against us, return of Broich and to an extent return of McKay helped them lift a bit and it was enough to beat us, especially as we did not play particularly well.  

In case of WSW, I think the key to their eventual recovery was their coach. I consider Poppa one of the best to grace the local benches in a while. They were due to start winning. If they lose their next few games, I will start worrying, as it means we were particularly poor. However, all those with a short memory should remember how close our previous game against WSW was.  We all (well some of us) said then that WSW will start winning soon.

When teams are parking the bus the key to attacking is speed. A couple of times we transfered the ball quickly down the park and it created a couple of good chances....one by Weemac in particular. THe rest of the time our slow buildup play just played into WS's hands. We constantly played it square 30 to 40 metres out. By that time the big WS defenders had lumbered back into formation and closed down all the space in front of goal.

Ernie's mantra is to be patient in front of goal....but like in the CCM game when sides park the bus your options are severely limited unless you have a Messi in your team. Turnover ball should be moved quickly down the park and then quickly hit(along the ground) into your front runners. If you do this often enough you have a higher percentage chance of one of your attackers getting space to shoot. You do end up holding the ball less but if you press in numbers and fight to get it back quickly then you can counterattack frequently. Burns and Krishna have the pace to play counter attack football. THey are better with the ball at their feet running at defenders who are streaming back to defend than trying to dribble past defenders who are settled in position back to goal.

Conceding 5 goals in the last two games is a worry. Dura and Siggy have lots of qualities but they are not the quickest CB's in the comp. If left unprotected they will get punished....and thats whats been happening. Ernie may have to reassess his high line and look at who is meant to be covering the CB's. A-Rod used to cover behind Fenton and Muscat effectively but there doesn't appear to be anyone doing it now.

Not too worried about this result. With our style its easier to play teams who are trying to play football. The Roar result was more disappointing.....they are largely crap. WS have good players for their style of football and are well coached....they got their tactics bang on. Would have love to have seen their approach if we had scored first. 

We are still one of the best sides in the competition 

With fluctuating form all around, I would say at the moment we are deservedly in the top six.

5 goals in 2 games is a big stab in the chest though .

Seen people suggest we should shoot from distance more. This grapgh shows why we shouldn't. The more you shoot from distance they lower your conversion rate.