R26 vs Melbourne Victory | Sat 2nd Apr | 7:15pm | RoF

Krishna, yes. Powell, jury's still out.

Given urgent defensive recruitment will happen, the worst part of another lifeless home display is how the interest in the Phoenix is dropping off round town.

I left after Mac missed the penalty. Seriously I really don't think I'll even go next week.

At the start of the season when the licence was barely an issue, he told us it was the best squad ever. Since the licence issue was resolved, we've been terrible, even with a limited squad. He has to carry some of the blame.

A brief look at some stats suggest this is already our worst ever season, and still one more game to go!

Thought the penalty was absolutely shocking.  Some good play by the Nix for the 10 mins up to that point.

christ I know we are crap at the moment but

I know there's no obvious replacement in the current squad but Riera has really been found out this season. He's just too slow and resorts to stupid fouls way too often.  He did a job for a couple of years but no longer good enough

Durante stiring shark presumably telling the sook to get up, berisha kicked him, yellow for Durante and red for berisha.

That was all kinds of diabolical. If any of those players havent yet been re-signed for next year, then they should be very worried.

Can't handle the truth I guess.

Yea, lets bury our heads in the sand. COYN !!!!! 

Watson is rain man. Jumped Powell in the pecking order?

Seems that ARod is being trained to take over, challenge for or cover the position. Riera has been immense for us during his time here, but the first challenge after the Victory guy had already been warned and booked was silly.

You and your little fan club complaining about people complaining is more than a little tiresome too. 

Edit - FYI there were people on here just last week stating we are merely 'inconsistent' so I do not believe there still aren't people out there who don't think we're too bad.

3 out of 4 years we've been last or second last. It's shark and no wonder I'm frustrated about it.

Agreed. Very similar send-off to the one he missed a game for, just a short time ago ( a few weeks ago). Once in the season or so (months apart) may be excusable / coincidental, twice and so soon after previous one means you're either too rough or not skilful enough / not fast enough.In Albert's case it is the latter, and not because he loses speed, but because the opposition speed and tactics have improved / changed.

So why do you need to go on and on and on making multiple posts about how crap we are?

well there seems to be less and less posts on here fullstop, so I guess without people complaining there wouldn't be many posts at all, which seems to be what a lot of people would prefer, Game thread - 3 pages....

It's fair enough that people are frustrated with the result, and feel the need to get on here and vent their frustrations.

Completely understandable.

But, it would be nice if those same people got on here to say positive things sometimes too.

Constant negativity has the effect of bringing everyone else down.

So with the rain and crutches and a sore knee I decided not to go last night. I scrambled around for ages online looking for a stream. I eventually found one, saw 20 seconds of the game including Melbourne's second goal, then my antivirus software went nuts blocking multiple threats. Then Chrome froze when I tried to exit and I had to bring up task manager and kill it. So I ran a full system scan and that was fine, but I didn't see any more of the game.

Anyway, sounds like it was a shambles. I agree with Tonya that it's going to be hard building interest in the club again after next season. I feel like we wasted all the goodwill we generated with the save the nix campaign. What was the crowd last night? From what I saw it looked like maybe 4000? 

I also think this just rams home how much we need to sort out defence. I still see people on here saying we need a striker but by all accounts Watson was impressive again and we've just signed 2 more attacking players. Our attack is already better than our defence - we've scored more than 3 other teams, and only 8 goals less than WSW, who are second. On the other hand our defence is second to worst and we've conceded over 50 goals now. None of the 8 teams above us have conceded over 40 (some have a game to play though, but there's still 13 goals between us and the next worst).

I hope like hell that Riera and/or Krishna get kiwi citizenship because I think we'll really struggle to get the 2 or 3 quality defenders we need if we can only pick up kiwis and Aussies.

Having said that, if we do get 2 or 3 quality defenders then I think there is a lot of hope. Good defenders make the rest of the team play better too - midfielders get better service and don't have to focus on defending as much, which means they can create better chances for attackers, and so on. Not to mention just the confidence that comes from being solid at the back. And we definitely lack confidence right now.

Long story short, this season is a write off. The focus now has to be on sorting out our defence. No excuses next season - if we are shark again then it's curtains for Ernie.

this is why i think a vent thread might be a good idea after we lose - people can choose to avoid it if they like, while others can vent for catharsis, hopefully avoiding posting the same kind of posts in the game thread.  Win/win. Although that might be seen as too negative as well.

Edit: in response to Bevan

just watched the highlights now, jee mcglinchy sucks shark at penalties. he honestly should be nowhere near the goal because he cant finish or take a free kick/penalty to save himself.

Missed the first half as I overslept, I was even planning on going to the match, but I usually wake at 16:30 but didn't wake up till almost 20:00. 

Second half, in the middle of feeding cats, washing up etc, Watson was good but definitely feels like a plan "b" type of attacker. Put him on when the opposition is tired well into the second half. 

I can't say how bad we were in the first as I didn't see it but the defense and Riera looked very poor and slow. Not sure what has happened to Riera, he's only 32 but he's lost something somehow.

 I've not seen many matches this season due to work so what do other people think is up with him?

Riera was at the tail end of his ability to play at this level when we picked him up. We squeezed a decent season and a bit out of him but he's now gone beyond his usefulness and is now a liability. Not sure why Ernie is still playing the likes of him, Manny and Siggy this season when they're either gone or should be gone next season. Can only be sentiment. Give McGarry, Singh etc more game time I say.

the top 6 teams are all so even - it's gonna be an interesting finals series

There are a number of reasons why we were shark this season.

Merrick is very lucky that he still employed.

Just over 5k.

As far as Riera goes, maybe signing of A-Rod makes sense now, A-Rod as the starting DM with Riera as his (NZ citizen) backup.

I think Ernie is hoping like hell that either or both Krishna and Riera get citizenship as well, he said its hard to get quality Australian defenders.

Not sure if a few good defenders is enough! A fully fit Krishna is the only real attacking hope. Watson, Blake etc just not good enough. The midfield cant string a few passes together and McGlinchey has been appalling this year - Just the odd glimpse of what he can do.

as for the 'future' McGarry, Ridenton etc are not really players to get excited about. I think a complete overhaul is necessary and it needs to happen in the off season or the Phoenix will be bottom this time next year. Having said that Costa and Finkler are good signings although I'm a little confused about Finkler! Why has he chosen to come to Wellington? Its not for the football, last night would have proven that! And, if he is so good, why has the Victory let him go?

Watson did quite well in that game and is a good back up plan. I feel also he might be the kind of player able to smash through and score goals against opposition like CCM and the Jets. He brings something different to the game and the number of fouls on him show that the defenders were struggling to contain him. 

I'm not sure on Powell. He's had one fantastic game, a couple of decent ones, but a lot of performances where he hasn't made an impact. 

I'm not sure if we can have both Powell and Watson in the squad. It doesn't seem very ambitious. They won't finish the way Berisha did you would think. On the other hand, with better service, perhaps they'll both start knocking them in.

I don't agree that our midfield can't string passes together either. In fact, we've dominated possession in most games this season. What we have lacked is the ability to translate that into goalscoring chances but Finkler and Kosta should help us with that. The other issue with that is tactical I think - it's not necessarily that the players aren't good enough but that Ernie has them playing in a narrow box midfield which makes it hard to open up defences.

And, as I said, if you sort out the defence then the midfield and attack should improve to.

I get that it's frustrating to watch us suck so bad but we shouldn't throw the baby out with bathwater. This is still the core of the squad which came 4th last year and was the best team in the league for a while. The margins in the A League aren't great and teams can shift 5 or 6 places between 2 seasons with just a few changes to personnel.

What has frustrated me with Ernie has been his persistence with one tactical approach. With the exception of our smash and grab away at WSW we have stuck with the same shape and approach despite it clearly not working. Even in the last few games we haven't changed it and tried something different even though our season is over. I'd like to see a bit of experimentation and to see how we handle a different shape and approach against A League opposition.

I wonder why Ernie wants to stay on when his players produce such a poor performance. Most of their goals were from defenders / midfielders diving out of position. Roly 2 good passes and that's it. Krishna showed nothing. Lia and Riera struggled. Agree only Watson and Mossy played well.

Yay, only one week to go.

how bad to miss the entire goal with a pen?