R21 v Mariners | Fri 23 Feb | 9:45pm | SS3 | #AvoidTheSpoon

Good luck Auckland, you are welcome to have two bucket loads of that,  I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.

thank god that is over - fudge we were awful - sack the lot of them and start again!

We did not deserve to even get a draw

Hello spoon my old friend. 

The coach goes straight down the tunnel...

What a waste of time.

I'd keep Mateo and Roy. 

We were sharke, but I think a draw would have been fair. We had the better chances in the second half, AK / Krishna both should have done better with their chances.

I thought the second half was decent. Plenty of chances that a team with more confidence probably would have buried.

Also the defense is starting to play like a cohesive unit. I say this every game but Fox should have been starting two seasons ago.

Clearly we need to be part of the league.  They can all live without the boring relentless perfection of Sydney FC but they cannot get enough points without our consistency.

Perhaps he’s got a plane to Europe to catch. Here’s hoping.

Matija, Roy, Foxy can hold their heads high IMO. Galloway showing improvement. That’s about it really, i feel sick after that

Hey Dura - how about you admit youre defence is equally shark.

I really like that Dura doesn't ever try and sugercoat the bullshark we get served up, he tells it as it is.

Apart from one mistake from Doyle at the end of the half where he switched off and let his man get goal side, I thought the defence was pretty good considering the sheer volume of attacks that were steamrolling through our midfield.

If I was a crazy conspiracy theorist I might say that the team are deliberately underperforming to get rid of the coach. Unfortunately it's more a case of us not having a tactical clue, nor the slightest shred of self belief.

Dura doing his traditional post-disaster shoulder shrugging....

Maybe the coach could teach them to shoot across the keeper. We deserved nothing 

Good to see heart from ljujic, fox and Dura. Not too good from the rest.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/10...

Sack Darije Kalezic

Deep defending kept our loss down to one goal, but it also stretched the midfield beyond what it could carry. So maybe we could argue that it was lack of Burns' mobility (and a slowish Roy) that meant the midfield could not deliver them any good ball. Lack of possession (giving ball away) is a consistent problem too.

Good points to Tando. Let's keep him. And Fox. I thought Galloway had another decent game.

Despite being turned inside out for the goal (and why was he even there?) Doyle was OK too.

Didn’t stop them being poor

Maybe, but you are talking about a team that has scored the lowest number of goals in the league and almost a quarter of those have come against us.

Missed a sh*t tonne of action, like the cannon going off ? 

So is it official we have the spoon? Or can Glory sneek into contention?.

They’re ‘good’ enough, but they’d have to play super sh#t to wresleit from our grasp.

We're 2 points away from 9th. Glory's GD is -17, we're -18. Nothing to worry about.

RRRRR mate you got me going .... had to do a follow up... how's this as a first effort in about five minutes...

Hello spoon my old friend

I’ve come to hold you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds as I was sleeping

And the vision

That was planted in my brain

Still remains

We hold the spoon

In restless dreams I walk alone

Down Wellington Streets of cobble stone

Neath the hallo of a street lamp

I turn my Nix shirt to the cold and damp

As my eyes were stabbed by a neon light.

In the naked light I saw

The Nix concede 100 goals maybe more

Nix players kicking without hitting the ball

Nix players tackling without getting the ball

Fools crappy play like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might reach you

The words on skill are in Auckland now

And echoed in holding the spoon.

Gotta say your coach seem to be trying to play for a draw and in the first half in particular just sat back...

I was amazed how little pressure was placed on our back 5....

Puzzling TBH as thats were other sides have beaten us...

i feel sorry for the folks who made a special trip to watch that dross -you deserved better!

sad to have missed this game, due to moving place, but also...!

Just heard a rumour that the player of the year awards have been cancelled as there is no one eligible to qualify for any of them. Except Singh who picks up Young player. His award will be posted to him via NZ Couriers.

I did laugh at the game to Auckland quip but then, our next "Home" game really is in Auckland.

Next weekend if we lose in Australia, I would expect a crowd of about 4,000 up there to see our super stars in action. 

I am beginning to believe our club is schizophrenic. The good Nix and the Bad Nix. This season the bad Nix is the dominant personality. We all know that the potential of the team is great if the players lived up to their ability, but it is not happening. Maybe next season the good Nix might try and make a come back??

Can someone explain to me the formation and personal last night versus the first half tactics.

To me it looked like an attacking formation set up to press high and have a real go at the Mariners back line, but the tactics played were to sit deep soak up pressure and get a goal on the break. The tactics played made no sense based on where we are on the table, who we were playing and the formation. 

I dont think it can be helpful for team moral for the coach to be talking about natural selection all the time in the media. If your contract is up at the end of the season, you know it anyway, so having the coach harp on about it in the media, i would have though could create a me vs him attitude in the changing room. ie most of us are going to be gone at the end of the season, unless he is gone. 

What ever the situation actually is, from a fans perspective, things dont look good at present. Is it the coach, is it the players, is it a combination of both. whatever it is, this year two of the 4 wasted. Only 2 years to go, unless there is a radical change we are soon going to be entering the two year countdown to being booted. An independent A league may be our only hope of survival.

K guy name get out.

Not sure how many Aucklanders or Wellingtonians or any Nix fans will give up a Paddy’s Night on a Sat for that drivel, unless it’s on in the pub in the background 

Says it all.

Post match Kalezic press conference - he was happy with the 2nd half, first was not aggressive enough. Chances not converted in 2nd half

Happy with the second half? The whole match we were dire. He’s lost it.

Confirmed, Australia has a monopoly on crap games.

General consensus on our site is we where really really bad and you where awful.