There is a middle ground between angst and glory. I thought A-Rod was great in possession and once again showed how good he is at finding a teammate when he's under pressure, but he was exposed defensively several times.
I hate the way on here you make a comment about one thing and people leap to wild conclusions which don't even reflect what was actually said. Criticise one aspect of one players performance and all of a sudden you are blaming him for the whole teams performance. Say FIFA rankings are BS and all of a sudden you are excusing NZF for their shambolic mess of managing the game here.
I think mostly it was Feverish, who seems to be head of the don't like A-Rod fan club.
One thing I'll say about A-Rod- has he got the same range of passes as Lia? Lia can spray those diagonal balls fairly damn accurately, and with the plan being to get wingers in behind on a counter and a lack of others (perhaps Ridenton?) who have done this consistently, and quickly after receiving the ball could be why Lia has been still around.
A-Rod got done a couple of times, but so did Doyle. Castelen was rampaging through the centre and right of the park(our left) and seemed likely to get through at least once. How many players would have been criticised for being chewed up by Burns last season?
The case for him being a replacement for Riera defensively is far from made yet, but I don't think being done once by a very good player in great form negates it either. Our defensive unit was very slow, and if he'd been working with a Boxall or defensive equivalent I don't think he'd have found things so tough.