R25 vs Melbourne Victory | Sun 2nd April | 7:00pm | SS2

I recon the best recruitment the Phoenix can do in the off season is hire a top sports Psychologist. It's clear this is a top team that is mentally fragile.

Hurry up Saturday

Our 8th clean sheet, second to only Sydney and we are outside the top 6... just goes to show when we are good, we are good, and when we are bad, we are woeful!!

So has Italiano replaced Moss as our number 1, or is this a sign of Moss' impending departure?

Italiano seems a lot stronger in the air which I like - not sure if his shot stopping will be as good, but I'd take a keeper who dominates his space any day over a reflex stopper.

I love the Victory fans complaining about their teams performance.  Makes for a nice change doesn't it.  

Good game good win. This has to being the most frustrating and infuriating season in nix history. So many great games, so many bad games. so inconsistent. 

Fingers crossed those 4 games have been saved for the finals run. Toilet Seat, here we come.

What really, really pisses me off is Roly deciding to play to his natural brilliant ability the minute he's signed a fat contract with WSW!
I know Ernie subdued him by by threatening to amputate anyone who shot from outside the box but he should have come up with goods after he left!

Good to see that baldy prick looking so miserable at the end of the game!

Why ?he didn't have to make a save tonight,a couple of decent punches fair enough and a two or three pretty good throw outs but no real saves to make and that is the real test of a keeper!
I would give him a half against the Champions elect and then we will know if he's the real deal or just a young pretender!

Why? Because we kept a clean sheet two games in a row. Goalkeepers are usually responsible for organising their back four. Why drop a fairly young goalkeeper after two clean sheets back-to-back when Mossy looks to be on his way out in two weeks time? 

On the multitude of chances at the end - we would never have won 4-0 or 5-0 or 6-0. The moment we scored from one of them, the game would have been over and Victory would have no reason to push players forward like they did. The chances only came about because Victory were chasing a goal so they could then chase an equaliser.

This stopped as soon as Smeltz scored his goal. No more chances. Would have been the same thing if it was chance 1 in the 80-ish minute that went in, not chance 7 in the 89-ish minute.

Who cares,he's not one of us anymore and evidently hasn't been for a while apart from tonight's charitable gesture good as it as it was!
Hopefully he will do the decent thing and help us spank the minor champions next weekend but really depends if he's in the mood or not!
Just hope Green/Buck hook him quickly  if he's not showing enthusiasm for the challenge!

The main reason for the dropoff in Roly's effectiveness over the last couple of seasons has been that teams have realized you can't give him space in your own half. MV obviously didn't get the memo. I'll be sad to see him go. He can be a frustrating player but is capable of the amazing and has always seemed like a sweet dude off the pitch. I'm not concerned about what it means from a football perspective though.

Gutted about Ridenton, that looked pretty bad. What's with our promising young players always getting major injuries?

He was the worst player on the park in the first half.

Italiano has not disgraced himself, not only showing ability to cover his area but he actually passes out from the back instead of the constant big welly up the field straight to the opposition and two of his yhtrow outs last night set up petfect opportunities for our forwards. He might be crap at reserve level but in his 4 games he has not embarrassed himself. The last two have been good performances.

Fortune telling nonsense

Another version. The moment we scored another Victory would have lost heart and we would have walked all over them, scored 6.

His distrubution was so much quicker than Moss's. As soon as he recieved it, he was looking for an outlet and found it.

A bit of a dilema for the coaches but in my view Italiano should keep the spot, based on the fact that he has done everything asked of him in the two games he has played. Tough to drop a keeper after keeping consecutive clean sheets.

Agree, especially if there is any truth to the possible move for Moss to South Africa next season. 

Italiano may also be paid more money next season under the loyalty scheme (outside the cap) so it would be silly not to give him the first spot next season if Moss leaves.

I thought his kicking was much better, he seemd to actually try and find players not just boot it asd fgar as possible.  Not a very testing afternoon for him but a safe pair of hands

The commentators just couldn't get their heads around the fact that we were giving Victory an absolute towelling.  That was a proper hiding

And a well won header! Although I did have a bit of a panic attack from that one, he does come out strong to win the ball. Just ask Doyle!

That was one of the single most dominant performances in recent memory. If we weren't awful at finishing that could have been a cricket score.

Victory certainly didn't turn up, but we didn't even give them a sniff - the midfield was fantastic, Roly has come right just in time to leave and Lia and Rodriguez have formed a very good partnership. Krishna was an absolute menace and the defence was almost untroubled. Fox did a great job out of position, Doyle was a constant threat down the left and I maintain that Rossi is one of the best signings we've ever made - he's head and shoulders our best player and is on another level to almost every other player on the pitch, week in, week out.

McGlinchey impressed me when he came on as well.

Victory were strangely shark, credit to us. Oh and Geria had some comical touches.

yeah I don't really care if they were crap, we completely dominated a team away from home whi we never beat and who don't often lose at home.  COme on, that's a huge turn up for the books!

The results under the Green-Buck combination has been really weird, but I am almost coming round to giving them another season

there is plenty of self-appointed experts ready to deride any Phoenix victory

Fact is last night we smashed them. 

Oh yeah I agree, I did put 'credit to us' ;)

Seemed to be a more intensity, especially at the back that has been missing a bit this season. IIRC, the first time MV got near our goal (Troisi?) we almost instantly had 5 players between him and the goal, all inside the 6 yard box.

We played very well I thought; which we usually do when there isn't a whole lot of pressure.

Was a cold night in Melbourne, though, so was nice to see a win. Not often I see a win for the Nix at AAMI! (that's the second time against the Vuc, I believe?)

Not good enough . especially when it was one on one with the keeper or maybe a simple pass was needed to score a goal.

Hopefully this form carries over to the next game 

2-0 down with 80 minutes gone and they were still talking like Vucktree were favourites. Of course, one of them was also talking about how Roy Krishna could be a Socceroo, so maybe they'd been on the bath salts or something.

Next thing they'll be claiming Phar Lap and Russ Crowe!

Suprised no one else has pointed this out, but you're right - his kicks/clearances actually end up with players in useful positions, rather than being 50/50 every time.

Ruining my subjectivity with cold hard stats. Who are ya?