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

Both FBs clearly asked to get forward.  Fenton managed it well, Manny struggled [to do that and defend]..

Looked better overall, but the front three and Bonevacia are all trying to win it by themselves.  It's a team game fellas.  Fudge all interplay and defense unlocking passing up front.

Greenacre ....

I'm pretty sure Arsenal was taking the piss? If not, I would ask a mod to remove my "like".

Yay we didn't lose.COYN!!

Penalty should be in, and we kept a clean sheet by some Moss heroics.

Most of their chances in the first 5 minutes would be all in in the last two games. I see some progress. Don't get me wrong, we played not very well, agree to most of the stuff said her. Manny is pretty bad since few weeks, he looks very lost.

Lets face it-- we have played a lot worse and overall I enjoyed the game. Both sides were committed to going forward and for the crap finishing it could have been 3 all. Agree with some about being greedy- Burns, Krishna amd Mac all guilty. Was waiting for something to happen but it never did. It was a strange sub with a few mins left, not sure if there was a reason or just running down the clock. Interesting comments from the boss after the game.A draw was a good result all things considered.

Riera was seriously top class, I would even put him above Moss today. Muscat had a shocker. Couldn't keep up at all...

Going in 1 up at the break would have changed the whole game,  penalty miss cost us the match

For us Moss was MOM and for the MOM for both teams was Mooy - I thought he was outstanding.

Also i reckon WeeMac's performances have plummeted lately. I cant work out what it is about him though..
Good away point nonetheless, one more point then the dreadful Victory got this week

I think he's a bit lazy.

I though Mooy was good too,  every time he was on the ball they looked dangerous

The problem is both Burns and Krishna are best employed moving forward, at pace into gaps. But tonight it was all too static and too disjoint and individual. The combinations are missing amongst the front three. Weemac did not pick up on the runs or movements of Burns and Krishna. Many many times in this match balls were played into the box and no body read the play or appeared to know what was happening. Classic example late match when Fenton whipped in a couple of good crosses and we had one guy in the box against four or five defenders. Also Krishna seems to be down on confidence. He had several opportunities to knock the ball past a defender and back his pace but he passed infield. 

Ernie has some work to do to sort it out. Lots of this has to do with late season pressure. The up and down results are showing that all teams are feeling the effects of such a tight group at the top. Who would have thought Victory would go down to the Jets. Whoever keeps their nerve will make the final....its that close. 

Just frustrating to think of we could've turned two 0-0 draws v City into wins, we'd be 3 clear at the top.

I guess I just don't understanding why you should score when you miss a penalty but why you shouldn't score when you miss ten other chances. I think at the end of the game we were happier that it was ending. Anyway, I don't think that is very relevant.

The real positive to me today (outside of Moss's obvious brilliance) was Fenton. I think that Fenton finally looks comfortable as a right back.  Fenton's crosses have been accurate the past few weeks (we just don't have the tools to score from them) and he has been often able to beat his first marker. I would be interested to see him take the corners.

Are we really 0/140 in corners? That is shark. Are you telling me that if we had a whole game where we just lobbed corners into the opposition we still wouldn't score a goal?

The most disappointing thing today was that our players were not on the same page. We only had Sigmund missing so you can't use that excuse. We basically rolled out our best team and they looked like they didn't know what the other was going to do. There were a lot of risky passes given and we were woeful at keeping the ball in the middle of the park. I actually thought Burns had a very good game but every good thing he did, he did in isolation.

Boxall is a good defender, probably as good as Sigmund at tackling and positional play actually. The problem is that he just can't pass the football. Sigmund has become a lot better at it this season. Boxall is still at square one.

MODS

Please remove my "like" from Arsenal's post. I feel disgusted with myself. I thought he was joking FFS. Codsticks.

I thought Mooy was outstanding, especially in the last 20 minutes. He has a skill which is lacking in The A league and that is  to regularly hit 20 to 30 metre balls and open up a defence.

I feel Krishna is an excellent playerto have agianst teams playing a high line. When he has to make small little diving runs between plaayers I feel he loses his mojo a bit. Some terrible decision making from Weemac and Manny tonight. At one point Weemac had time on the ball while out on the wing around the halfway line and rather than take his time and play an unmarked player he puts a bending screaming lobbed pass into A-rod who is in between three Melb players. Why? Manny much the same. Looking for burns with a flat pass through the midfield? never going to come off. Easy counter for melb.

Moral of story:

We can't afford to hope the other team is going to play a high line against us so we can simply turn through weemac and place through balls through for Burns and Krish. When a deep cover type defence is played we need our players to put a foot on the ball, show some composure and look to slowly break them down. One glove does not fit all in this comp

Very frustrating indeed.  I miss us scoring goals and bloody well winning!  

How did we mac stay on the whole game he was terrible never tackles and gave the ball away just about everytime he got it!

A good player is Mooy. However his shot on goal consistently went 15 rows over the crossbar thankfully.

Actually have to agree. Would say both Boxall and Fenton better players at the moment.

nah fairly confident it's a pisstake

Roly when Burns was offside? Just didn't happen today, but thankfully we didn't concede

At least we're not the only team near the top of the table getting the wobbles. Last night looked very scratchy, but hopefully it was just some residual nervousness after 2 heavy losses, and knowing we would go top if we won. Now we know we've got a home playoff locked in hopefully the guys can breathe a bit and find a rhythm against CCM on Friday.

I felt more depressed about Burns' Penalty than I did about Dadi's v Perth.  At least you could laugh at Dadi's.

But anyway , just one of those games that things did not quite click yesterday. We have had them earlier in the season and pressed on to return to form.

Fenton finally starting to look like a fullback but we now have a problem at left back. I see Doyle was on the bench again. Is he now getting close to pushing Manny out?

Moss made some very good saves today and deservedly MOTM, but by god was it good to have Riera back again.

I thought we looked nervous and bereft of any confidence in the first 15-20 then we really started to get back into it and play our game. Did have a bad feeling Burns would miss though.

The biggest change has been our reluctance to pass forward quickly - we look a whole lot more cautious. Roly kept getting caught on the ball.

Its funny that Merrick does not like talk about momentum and prefers to talk about confidence. 3 goalless games of which 2 are losses and 1 is a draw and we look a bit lost for confidence. Perhaps the playoffs are weighing a bit heavily on the players minds.

Merrick press conference

http://www.foxsports.com.au/video?v=wellington-press-conference_1227300829708

Thought Ernie was going to do a dowie and say bouncebackability.

Was easily Moss, and by quite some margin i reckon too. 

Where was the intensity?