R25 vs Melbourne City | Mon 28th Mar | 9:30pm | SS4

Soooo sick of us.

This is painful

So we're trying to buy better players. Having better players than the opposition does tend to help. What should we be doing?

Well this is rubbish. Again.

Yep, there are some (very few) games they change the result of.  This isn't one of them.

Commentator - "The Nix second half has been an absolute catastrophe this season".

The other commentator - "Well, they've lost to CCM twice this season!"

A different plan?  

Don't understand why Roly would want to stick around - he must be sick of getting smashed every week.

Even if Beath was a decent referee we would still be getting shat on 

Jesus lil Mac is terrible.

So we have worse players than every other club in the league, other than CCM who we can't beat?

I think James is stating that we always play the same way. And he's right. 

If Garruchio was on a yellow early in the first half we'd be able to put much more pressure on him. With Krishna on the park to do it.

But seriously, when you look at the state of our squad right now you wonder with the surely limited cap space we have available, what we can actually do even with 3-4 new players.  We are a class below teams

Has a contract, doesn't have much choice.

It's frustrating to watch, we have no width going forward, I'm not sure if it's the full backs fault for not getting forward quickly enough or if it's just bad tactics. By not using our width we're making the pitch smaller for ourselves which is easier for the defending team. We beat this very same team a few weeks ago 5-1 even with Mooy. Looking forward to the off-season so I can  attempt to mentally recover from this season.  

Just fudge. Fudge fudge fudge.

Fornaroli is under the cap. We are signing Gui, a player who has been found out in the A-League already and isn't as good as he used to be (post major injury), as our import marquee. It's a bit worrying, really.

I think if anything our penetration was particularly poor today, apart from the excellent play by Mb City up front (Novillo actually better than Fornarolli tbh)

We have lacked width all year (and last year) which has not helped.

I think our biggest issue though has been our inability to hit the final pass, we always seem to over hit it and the chance goes away. Hopefully Finkler will solve that.

We do get in good positions, but then nothing happens.

To be fair Muscat got done all ends up by Fitzgerald in the build up. Love the fact that the crowd were giving him a bit of stick though - Do they even realise he'll be there next season?

Great strike by Fornaroli, he's a class above anyone else in this league at the moment. That's the type of striker we need...

Well, for all I hoped he would become a class above, I think we need someone better than Fenton at right back, considering how much we are using him to start attacks.

Tough to play in Melbourne against this team with deep pockets and resources at 9:30 at night.

surely if that's no foul it's a yellow for diving in the box?

When we do the EOY review on players I think I some of the "awards" are so clear cut.

Biggest Underperformer: McGlinchey

AWOL Award:McGlinchey

Worst beard: McGlinchey

Fornaroli has kind of blown up out of nowhere.  But players we are expecting to be part of a starting XI next year like Fenton, Durante Rodriguez, Riera, Powell, Doyle - they just don't look up to it.

Fornaroli -Hamish Watson -Grand Canyon 

Finkler and Kosta will help, but we're sorely lacking in other areas.

Durante is possibly past it, Muscat going, Fenton just not good enough, Riera on a downward spiral, McGlinchey a total passenger and the likes of Powell and Watson just not good enough either.

Some of our defeats have been embarrassing this season, that was another one. They've completely given up.

4 day week guys! Go watch Jamie Vardy's goal against Germany

1 shot on target in 180 minutes of football... 

Ernie Merrick adamant Wellington Phoenix will make A-League finals

Coach Ernie Merrick calls this 'the best' Wellington Phoenix squad he's had

There is no point bitching about the salary cap, its a known quantity.

A great question to ask is, who the hell was Forneralli before the A League? Where do we find more players like him.

We could start by sending scouts out of Aus/NZ once in a while.

Prior to Melbourne he played...109 games for 23 goals.

Probably wasn't that expensive, good luck fitting him under the cap when his contract comes up for renewal.

You would be surprised how affordable Uruguayan or Argentinean players can be, as Europe is open to the best only. Manyend up in Middle East or China.

Even five - six years ago HAL had little opportunity for players with good ball-handling skills and intricate, fast passing. Hell, we even managed to get into playoffs once under Ricki Herbert!  But players like Fornarolli have far more opportunity in the A-League of today.

I think you are almost 100% correct.

Our midfield was passable but our defense and strikers are embarrassing .

I know we have "contacts" in the UK, but do we have any in Sth America?

Obviously our luck with Brazilians has been hot and miss, but the potential is huge... Forneralli came in as a free and would demand at least 2 million.

And I only say that low because he's only on a 2 year contract otherwise he'd be worth a lot more.

All 3 seasons under Ernie we have finished the season absolutely terribly...completely limped home

Our UK contacts suggest kids from the U21 league - that's not where we need to be looking

Riera is struggling with the added pace this year.

Roly would be a lot more dangerous if he had wide players to hit, he turns on the ball well and looks to move it forward but can't because everyone is bunched in the middle. I really hope Kosta brings a shift in how we play.