R19 v Heart Sun 16th Feb 5pm #FlushItDownTheDunny

I think David Williams is quite good and streets ahead of Brockie who'll be playing for Team Wellington this time next year, if he's lucky.

Everyone is upset and that's understandable after such a thrashing.

A few players let us and themselves down today for whatever reason.

Things like this happen from time to time in the A-League.

Apart from the Victory losing 5:0 twice this season I can remember teams like Sydney, Mariners and others getting completely destroyed, just out of the blue seeminlgy.

Not good of course, but it doesn't mean all that much.

Next week we might just return to winning ways again.

That's the league.

True, but I think it's the manner of today's performance that has caused upset. It was like an amateur team playing an EPL team at times.

Totally gutless and Heart looked WAY ahead of us.

Not acceptable.

Thanks Phoenix. Enjoyed this journey with so many memories. But I'm out of this, and sadly so are many. I have no interest in following a side that after 5 mins looked like they had a big night at Homegrown or wherever the hell they were in the leadup. Typical NZ thing. No guts on a day where things weren't right. But man, what a day for the Phoenix to explode. Great memories in the playoff year, but we have better things to do with our life. Have never missed a home game, but that's it !!  

Cheerio

Congratulations tonya for taking out the award for overreaction of the night. You fought off tough competition, but the judges couldn't go past your wild allegations, sweeping generalisations, and general craziness. You must be proud. The judges would, however, like to point out a factual error in you post. A typical New Zealand thing to do is jump off at the first speed wobble. So don't feel like you're alone. There are plenty of other pathetic people out there you can join. So shall I go ahead and deactivate your account?

Ifill has tweeted your message tonya: https://twitter.com/PaulIfill/status/435017779901517825

(in before backpedal). 

I saw Paul Ifill after the game in the car park under the stadium. Perhaps he was throwing up after witnessing that effort? Seriously, he looked in good shape. Better than some of his team mates, thats for sure.

WTF was that performance about? The one time we get a big crowd and the team failed to deliver anything. To their credit, the Heart played exceptionally well and David Williams lived up to his potential.

Next home game it will be back to 6,000 in the crowd. That 10k competition, what a farce. As per normal the winner came from aisles 25-28. Big conincidence of course, although we were spared the clown in the Zone and Aisles 9-20 were also spared him around there.

We had the weather, the fans turning up and we showed as much resistance as a wet tissue. Roll on our next game and hope we can banish this one from memory.

PS: I make today our 90th home A League game, am I correct?

Well what can you say about that? Sorry to use a rugby quote but I think Steve Hansen once said flush it down the toilet and move on?

To be fair, they played some pretty handy football, and if you watch the highlights (I haven't been brave enough yet) I'm sure you'll see some cracking goals. Engelaar was so good for them, as was Gerhadt, and I'm pretty sure that Moss is glad he didn't get a finger to that first shot cause it would have taken it straight off.

Time to point out again that we've been duped by hitting Adelaide and Heart most often now that they've got their sh*t  together?

Some semi-rants after a bit more of a think about things.

Sure Heart were good and had us sussed tactically.  BUT we didn't adapt at all to their extremely quick, pressuring.  Almost all of our play involved many touches before releasing the ball and by then there were either 2-4 Heart players around the ball carrier, or Heart were intercepting our hugely obvious passes.

This was the disappointing aspect - it is fine to be beaten by a better team on the day. It is frustrating and annoying to allow them to beat you.

Must say that although we stayed to the end (as always), we didn't hang around after the whistle as we usually do (saw Hatter and the crew remaining staunch - big ups).  We never boo the lads, but this time I couldn't bring myself to applaud them off.  Can't blame fans from leaving early - I've been disappointed when there were the mass walkouts before the end several seasons ago; this time I just felt a bit meh.   

However: We only drop one place to 7th and are still in the mix for a finals playoff.  We've had our major @rsewipe game of the season (and hopefully for much longer), so onwards and blimmin upwards boys.

Just don't play like that again, ever, OK?

Agree, that kit idea sucked and the kits to choose from sucked too. I think they reflected the teams performance.

Good post. I was just amazed at how they completely shut us down anywhere near their final third. They were on us like glue, but we gave them so much time to get organised.

I don't think any player was outstandingly worse than anyone one else  it was just a complete cloud over the whole team. Still think it lacked any sort of commitment from the boys.

I do worry that we could not adapt to their stranglation tactics. We had no way of countering it and I worry that other teams will pick up on that with our thin squad.

Turfmoore reckoned the strip may have played it's part - you know the extra second or two needed to for the brain to register that that bloke in the funy costume is one of good guys when passing the ball.

I think the Nix truely blew it and it will have a nasty effect on home games coming up. To be fair though it's raised the profile of the team as I all I got tonight from colleagues was "Your boys got hammered today".

Do Wellington deserve a team? Do Wellingtonians deserve a team that plays like that?

Can't remember a worse experience in the zone, even with "Shorts off for the Phoenix" etc.

pffft seriously? i walked out at 4 nil, mainly because i knew that was it, there was no way of coming back, and thought id save others from listening to my uncontrollable swearing.... but im over it now. Honestly don't know what you expected, we've been a bottom of the table side the entire season bar 2 weeks. Harden up and stop being a blouse. You say 'typical NZ thing' but thats exactly what youre doing, packing a sad at a team over one result, a team which youve supposedly supported for many years. Show some heart and some passion for fucks sake. If its this easy to walk away then i dont know, were you ever a real fan? Grow up, seriously.

i don't understand why brockie started again, I forgot he was on the pitch until he got called offside late in the second half! boyd gets involved and he works hard, husygyems didn't get any ball of worth to his feet where he is best attributed

Anyone reading this forum should take a step back and think about something..

You are alive this morning! You are probably able to afford things like the Internet which enables you to read football forums! You are possibly doing so whilst eating your breakfast or sitting at your desk at your job! I could go on...

Some people in our own communities do not have access to some of these, or in many case, any of the things listed above. Nobody likes to see their team get pumped but at the end of the day most of us have a lot to be thankful for.

Something must have jinxed the team, right?

Presumably it was the players not being used to the new strip?

Or it might have been the YF banner at the start :

In Vince Ible

OK, that was a tribute to Vince Lia, but without knowing that, it would have come across as cocky and overconfident about the team.

Perhaps we should've taken the Flight of the Conchords route and said:

We're Vince-ible

Everyone in Wellington would have got that joke, right?

(although it's probably not safe to say all the players have watched Flight of the conchords, and they would need to get the joke ...)

2 BIG areas of our game that we lacked yesterday:
-PRESSING GAME
-BALL RETENTION

Both stemmed from our midfield combinations. Hicks and Cunningham are both big sinners when it comes to stray passes. Hicks put the team under pressure a lot with his passing yesterday. I was in double digits counting his giveaways so subbing him was correct.

Our midfield can not handle those 2 and Carlos. Lia had way too much to do. He strays forward a bit too often to play in the Riera role.

The other obvious hole in our lineup:
BROCKIE STARTED?

Ernie has repeatedly stated that good performances lead to more chances. Boyd did his time on the bench and performed for weeks before he started. Brockie literally had don't nothing positive since his goal against victory.

Starting Brockie meant stein had less space. The beauty of Boyd and Stein up top is that Boyd runs off of waffles which frees him up a lot more to turn. Boyd also tracks his fullback incredibly well. The Newcastle game highlights the job he did on Gallaway at left back. Brockie also slows our transition a lot as he is lethargic when receiving the ball and slows the play down a lot. The pressing game was also affected by Brockie.

Definitely a blip but there are underlying issues that needs the be fixed. The hardest one is the loss of Riera

For me, I would be looking at Ridenton to come in. Potentially as the DM.

He is tidy on the ball and has quite a low error rate. May not be his first choice position but for me, he has all the technical and physical attributes to play that role when Riera is out.

Not sure if serious

Manny and Lia together - been there, done that. Epic failure.

I've got to reply to this one. Yesterday I saw our beloved team hammered by a superior team and again I acknowledge just how well the Heart played and they really did their homework on us. Yes, none of us enjoy being tonked like that but their football was actually quite good to watch. BUT at the end of the day people, we at least have a football team to go and watch in a professional league and for that I am very much still appreciative. After the 5th went in some of the humour around me was fairly entertaining and that lessend the shock of what was happening.

The five stages of loss and grief... I reckon we've moved pretty quickly (the proverbial dunny has been flushed).

IBTL.

Don't forget if you want a memento of the match last night:

trade.me/wellingtonphoenix

This.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_market

Do the Chiefs have a forum?

Funny the difference a week makes. Just last week after a win the depth of our squad was amazing, we had turned the corner, youngsters stepping up etc etc.

This week ...not so much.

"After the 5th went in some of the humour around me was fairly entertaining and that lessend the shock of what was happening."

Well said sir.

It was a rubbish performance, made somewhat worse by the recent run. Sometimes it happens. Hoping its not an indication of a bad change

The ironic applause when passes actually worked did nicely take the edge off.

We shall be back no matter what and hopefully the game will pick up again

We are a group of 10, 4 of us stayed till the bitter end to clap the players off. Certainly did not blame the others for leaving.

Does anyone remember a worse performance at home? I know we're had bigger loses but what I can remember they have been away games.

What I'm really disappointed about is they did all this good work to get an extra 2-3000 people and we have one of our worst performances of the season.

I got five extra people to come to the game an now I'm embarrassed I invited them. I'll still be going to the next home games but going to be hard to convince others to come back.

Not a good way to finish the weekend, a sunday game with a loss is really depressing. Was that our biggest ever home defeat?

I think Hicks and Cunningham should have switched sides if anything, Cunningham just seems to play better on the left which allows him to cut in and shoot more. We played a 4-1-3-2 formation right? I think we should go back to a single striker with two wide forwards. Bring Muscat into the midfield and Caira to left back. Brockie back to the bench.

My gran used to say "charity begins at home.."....we should have known it was coming.

All the way from Auckland to Wellytown and back..... At least you turned on the weather.