R2 V Central Coast Mariners | Sat 18th Oct | 7pm | SS4

The low ball cut back across the defence has looked promising for us in both games. Our midfield seem to have a good understanding of when to time runs into the box. Roly especially looks likely from those plays

http://www.a-league.com.au/matchcentre/Central-Coast-Mariners-v-Wellington-Phoenix/753794

Some good stats there which show we were effectively playing a 4-2-3-1 with Bonevacia further forward and Rodriquez further back. I wouldn't drop Rodriquez yet but he has seemed very quiet. Almost all of his passes were on about the half way line - he did not complete a pass in the final third. I think perhaps a solution is to play Reira and Rodriquez back a bit and allow Bonevacia to play centrally in front of them. 

I'm not in the hate on Brockie club but is he really offering more than Cunningham right now?

I agree that McGlinchey needs to be able to pop up on either side which is why I would be tempted to play him in a central role which would give him the freedom to do that.

Cunningham spent the entire pre-season offside so based on pre-season form Brockie offered plenty more.

Generally that is the role of deep lying playmaker. he isn't a Carlos replacement. Roly has been given more reign to get forward by making late runs into the box, which has almost worked twice so fare this season.

Unfortunately I think Rodriquez isn’t going to get the kudos he deserves for the donkey work he gets done. His job is to help win the ball back, receive the ball off the CBs/Riera, and get us going forward.

i think that Roly was initially pegged to be the more defensive of the two, but the performance in the first half of the Perth game showed that Roly was more comfortable going forward than A-Rod, and Ernie changed his tactics to accomodate.

I don't think A-Rod is doing the 'donkey work' that well yet - his first touch is off and he seems to get in the way half the time. I thought he showed some promise when we were on top but shrunk back into his shell a little when we were under the pump - Perth were getting through the middle with ease until Lia came on.

Think he has potential, though, and will only get better. He's only played a handful of games at senior level.

Looking at those stats - interesting that we led interceptions and successful headers by a wide margin.

It's just a bit strange though. As was mentioned Roly was signed as CB cover, Rodriquez was meant to be box to box. It's almost like we have got the opposite. Is Gorrin really what you would call a deep lying playmaker? When I hear that term I think of Iniesta and other such players who offer a lot in terms of assists. It seems to me that he is playing more as a defensive midfielder. It's very difficult for me to assess Rodriquez because I haven't seen him play live yet. I will do so this weekend against Newcastle. 

There are some stats so far this season down below. I think they show that Gorrin has won us some ball but has been less effective than Reira in that role. The question for me is can we play 4-2-3-1 with two defensive midfielders? It seems right now that Doyle gets forward but Muscat doesn't. I think we need more numbers in attack to break teams down.

Shouldn't the question be, do we need to play 4-2-3-1? Seems to be working pretty well so far.

Formations are pretty fluid anyway. On attacked it is currently more a 3-1-3-3 (or 3-1-3-2-1) once the full back pushes on. Whereas on defence, Rodriquez tends to sit deeper to Riera.

I think you need to give ernie a little more credit than that... I very much doubt he changed the make-up of our midfield three based on the first half against perth.

Roly was the more advanced of the three right from kick-off and that was what I expected based on what Ernie had been saying. He talked about Roly's ability on the ball from when he first got here.

Roly's had a couple of seasons in the Eredivisie before this, whereas A-Rod had never played a senior competitive game before last week. It's only natural that he'll take a little longer to find his feet.

He said he changed the midfield setup at half time in the Perth game in one of the pre-interviews for the CCM game. I remember Roly being far deeper at the start of the game against Perth; though I could be wrong as I only watched it once. I do remember on 2-3 occassions him losing the ball (had a nervy start) just in front of our back 4.

Anyway, I think people are placing A-Rod into the 'tough invisible battler' category weirdly fast. I think when he gets more confidence he will be pushed forward more.

For me it is more about how the midfield as a whole operate, which on Saturday was very well. I don't really care if he is invisible if he allows others to shine and the midfield to dominate. 

Fair call valeo. And completely agree with your last sentence there. 

Agree with Tyler as well.

Rodriguez doesn't do enough rainbow flicks and step-overs for my liking.

Rabonas are where it's at these days

Hahaha holy shit that's wanky yet quite amazing!

Roly doesnt look like a midfielder to me at the moment....more like a converted CB.

That's how he looks to me.

Having bagged the Nix for the poor show against the Glory, I'm elated to acknowledge a great away win.where even the Aus commentators stated that the Phoenix deserved to win. Hopefully we will use this result as a spur to re-build our home fortress. COYN!  

What is she holding in her right hand?

Williams eyes look down and he thinks shit no wonder she is smiling.

It looked to me to be 4-2-3-1. I cant say I like that formation and it aint attractive to watch. Maybe it will do a job away from home, I really want to see a wider formation at least at home. Id have to put WeeMac in at the centre of the 'three' , and Id have Fenton as Right Back to give us more attack down that side.

Because of our history in centre midfied I think we have quite low expectations there.

If he's just going to get it and pass it, which is fine, I think we need to see him distributing a bit more quickly, more balls that find guys in space and more balls forward in transition, starting attacks etc.  Overall I think he's done ok but a lot of his passes are just shifting the ball across the pitch.  Both he and Riera are kind of doing the same thing with the ball currently

Steady start but no more really, not a lot of penetration.  I expect quite a bit from our imports so I'm not hugely wowed by him so far, I think he'll need time to get up to speed.  In time, I'd like to see him break forward with the ball at his feet and affect the play a bit more because he looks like he could do that.

Horseshit.

Roly made Bozza's team of the week!

IIRC, comparing to Lia last season, when playing alongside Riera, Lia was more forward thinking with his passes than we are seeing from Alex at the moment, Alex is keeping it fairly simple and maintaining possession. Unfortunately the pass charts for last season is no longer available on the HAL or 442 websites. (Lia was 7th for total passes in the league last season.) 

Alex is more mobile, our whole midfield is, and we are seeing less chances from the opposition through the centre of the park in the past two games.

If you watch the Perth games and CCM games side by side, I'd reckon there isn't a whole of difference between our performances.

Also Rodriguez is more composed on the ball than Lia. In my eyes thats a huge improvement. Lia has already cost us 1 point this season...

I knew Roly was a defensive utility, but thought he was happiest at CB???

I agree there were similarities from the two games.  But passing accuracy was up 5%->80%, with the in their half stat stable at 67%.  So we were safer in our own half.  That matches my impression of the two games.

And we nearly halved the long passes from  17% to 9%.

Crossing accuracy was up from 21% to 26%.

Overall I thought we shortened up our game, turned it over less and moved a bit better off the ball to help that passing accuracy, plus maybe got weemac on the ball a bit more and he made better decisions on when to hold it up rather than play a 50/50 ball.  Just an impression on that last bit.

Credit to Perth though, perhaps; they physically seemed to bustle us more.  But that maybe a combo of us being a bit more nervy and them throwing their weight and height around.

We just seemed a notch better v CCM for mine. 

I still think we'll need to keep improving to get past around mid table, but it's better to watch than the last two years already and certainly shows more potential.

Still to play the quicker teams so that will be a test. 

Enjoying it.  COYN.

I thought we were playing decent footy for a while last season until we lost our CDM and our back line rotated every week.

Merick said he can cover a wide range of positions including CB, pretty sure he is a DM by trade.

Yep, that's fair.  Apart from that purple patch we are looking better.  Maybe on par with that, but with a lot more ammunition on the bench. I'd still say that there are three or four teams it will be hard to get ahead of and Burns and McG staying injury free may be a big deal for us.  But if we keep up the goal production and survive the defensive test against the faster sides - THEN I'll get more confident about finishing higher than 5th.  I'm thinking it's possible but watching with interest and enthusiasm to see how we develop.  COYN

I think it depends on if Burns and weeMac can equal Stein/Carlos' output. Hopefully weeMac keeps up his goal scoring form and Burns gets a few (10) more.

I am all for WeeMac continuing to scare at a goal a game rate, but I am picking Burns to end the season with more goals than WeeMac.

Me too. I'd be surprised if weeMac gets 10; but we kind of need him to.

Must've been a small package.