R25 V Melbourne City | Sunday 12th April | 7:00pm

Riera back. Hopefully Lia and Sigmund too. Safe to say the Griff won't be.

Fingers crossed we rediscover that winning feeling. We can do it if we all believe.

If there has ever been a must win game, this is it, for the points and probably more importantly the confidence.

Who are MVC, Perth and Adelaide playing? Be good if they lost to lower placed teams or drew if they played each other...

Griffs out, so any chance for Boyd?

Yeah. Nah.

Merrick said something interesting:  "I am working more on their heads than on their ball skills" , or something to that effect:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/676...

I think he is less concerned about our key players not on the field for us against Victory but about those who were on the field.

So while it is good to see Riera, Lia and Sigmund back for us against the Jamtards, improved performance from those others will be the key.

When you look at 'next striker off the bench options, there is really Cunningham (whom is more winger) Appiah and Boyd. I suspect that this is the team that will trot out with Rodriguez and Lia being interchangable depending on how Ernie feels. Considering we need to chase the game at Melbourne and score, Rodriguez would start for me as he strikes me as being conducive to attacking football vs defensive football option that Lia provides.

Interesting games for Perth and Adelaide. MVC will trash the Jest but I think Brisbane could do us a real favor there. Not too sure about Sydney, since they are Smeltz-less and playing away from home.

Perth will lose points because of salary cap. I'd rather have them win TBH.

Will they actually lose points though? I mean, the FFA is pretty Mickey-Mouse when it comes to those sort of things...

Most definitely will if the allegations are proven. Pretty confident it will be enough to chuck them out of the top 6 or FFA will say they can't make the top 6.

A win in Melbourne... we're doomed

Yep, bad look for the league if Perth ends up winning it after cheating.

Finding excuses to kick us out of the league is far more important to FFA at the moment

Fair call, but a game away in Perth is always a tough one.

I really hope that Merrick does start Rodriguez over Lia this week. Football-wise I can see merits in either option, but it would be a huge kick in the guts for Alex to be benched after playing so well recently, and then getting chucked in the frying pan on Sunday with little help against a dominant midfield.

Also hope that City don't park the bus and kick the crap out of anything in yellow like they did at the Hutt.

I doubt they will park the bus as they need the 3 points so they can  cement their place in the top six. On their day they are a pretty decent side.They have lost the same amount of games we have.

So looks like Siggy is out and Lia most likely will be.

Ben Sigmund (quad) will miss @WgtnPhoenixFC game v Melb City on Sunday, Vince Lia (hamstring) also unlikely to be risked

— Sam Worthington (@samworthingtown) April 7, 2015

Ben Sigmund again unlikely to play this weekend. Could play if it was a playoff game, but Merrick keen to get him right #ALeague

— Jason Pine (@pineyzb) April 7, 2015

Bit worrying but can understand why Ernie doesn't want to play them. I actually like Boxall in defence.

moss
fenton dura boxal muscat
riera
a rod roly
weemac
burns kushna

Bench: italy hicks kenny appiah? boyd? rufer? doyle? ridenton? What's the bench?

also I would just like to point out since boyd signed that overseas deal I knew we wouldn't use him for the rest of the season. and tbh it's ridiculous he's a far better player than krishna will ever be and boyd just hasn't had a chance this season. only time he got some game time was when he won it for us with a brace and then his reward was back to 5 minutes at the end of some games or nothing at all. boyd needa to be playing off our bench, even now!

You asusme that the reasons he is not playing are the clubs problem, not his.

Boyd a better player than Krishna? Nope. Nope, nope nope.

Riera back will help a tonne; right call leaving Siggy to recover at home.

Different. I would say Krishna is probably a bit stronger on the ball and more direct while Boyd has a better first touch and better at keeping possession in tight spaces. Boyd wouldn't have scored the goal Krishna did against Perth while I don't think Krishna would have scored the 1st goal Boyd did against Adelaide.

Agree with that, but I also think Krishna is the better all round player at this point. Boyd may be better in a few years and with consistent game time, but not yet.

Krishna is the 6th highest scorer in the league this season and has 3 assists, and as mentioned in another thread puts in an immense amount of work tracking back and defending. Claiming that we should have been playing Boyd ahead of him, even ignoring the possibility that Boyd's not playing for off-field reasons, is a massive call. Claiming that Boyd is far better than Krishna is an even bigger call. I think if you make that statement you should explain your reasoning.

This.

Krishna is several years of development ahead of Boyd. Boyd might become that great player in a few years time, but Krishna already has the ball awareness that Boyd still needs to develop.

It's a shame that it seems off-field reasons are limiting his playing time. Tyler has only played 62 min this season - Ridenton has played more minutes. Looking at this partly as an All Whites fan, it's always nice to see local players develop - hopefully that happens in Portugal.

Meanwhile this video has just popped up:

http://tvnz.co.nz/football-news/andrew-durante-bre...

Dura breaking up a training ground scuffle between Vinnie and Alex.

Little context given but from what can be seen Vinnie pushes Alex to the ground then Dura gives Alex a bit of a telling off.

Worst training ground fight I've ever seen; not even any chokeslams.

Its just handbags over a tackle that Lia has given out over the years. The headline in the article is total clickbait

http://tvnz.co.nz/football-news/scuffle-breaks-tensions-run-high-phoenix-training-video-6279153

Jeez Lia really is scum. Thats disgusting. Dont want my children seeing that kind of thing. I wont be taking them to anymore phoenix trainings now

Bah we have bust ups like that at times, someone tackles a player recovering from injury to hard etc and it happens, wouldn't read anything into it.