R3 vs Jets Sunday 5pm McLean Park SS2

First half: We lost the battle in the midfield. We played a wrong formation with to many spectators on the field. Sorry to say but Ifill isn't fit enough to be a starter. I would rather see him as an impact player in the last 30 minutes. Huysegems is an average player who usually gives 120%. He can't play football style that Merrick wants Nix to play. Brockie can score, but if he doesn't, he looks very ordinary (like today).

Lia did put extra effort (I think he reads our comments), unfortunately not technically good enough. Every year, with more young and import players, the quality of the league is improving which makes more difficult for players like Lia to deliver. Same with Bertos. He looked lost on the field. Hernandez played OK, but still looks unfit for 90 minutes football. That is why he started making to many mistakes in the second half.

Riera actually had very good game, corrected numerous mistakes and (along with Hicks) made this game more balanced. Cunningham needs more space. Passing the ball to his feet, on the half way ,in a crowded area, there is nothing that he can do. What we need is a diagonal switch ball, so he can get "one on one". That's where he is going to be dangerous.

Jets played well, partially because of our wrong formation and choice of players who started, but also because they are technically good team, can play one touch football and create space that way. They did create a number of chances in the first half, and probably should score a couple of times.

The fact is that this is going to be a transitional year for the Nix. There are still to many players under contract, who are not suitable for Ernie's style of play. I am pleased with what Ernie is trying to do.

This is a formation that I would like to see. Boxall should be tested as a defensive midfield.

Moss

Caira Sigmund Durante Muscat

Riera Hicks/Boxall

Brockie Hernandez Boyd

Cunningham

Hope we don't get any games that bad again. Ifill shouldn't start. Especially in midfield, maybe in a further advanced role. The Jets pressed us hard and we didn't have the right players out to pass our way round, often resorting to long balls.

Hernandez seemed really off tonight. He didn't get on the ball enough, as much his team mates fault as his but he also uncharacteristically lost the ball a number of times. 

Really wanted a win tonight after the terrible spectacle of Jets vs Glory. Not sure where that version of the Jets came from or where the version of us that performed so well against Brisbane and WSW. Maybe we just really like being underdogs.

Feedback i've had from a couple of walkup fans is that they wouldn't attend another game again. Disasterous performances like that one are the death of road games. While it saves me an 8 hour drive, i hope they dont come back again because Tim Claudatos and co dont deserve to take a bath. I'm not talking about liking or disliking football per se but the game was boring. Congrats to Yellow Fever for bringing a fantastic atmosphere but even they had the guts kicked out of them with what was being passed off as football. I dont go along with the call that newcastle played well (sorry leggy) they were 2 poor teams playing poorly.

People I brought along to the game said the following positive things:

"I like that big banner those guys are holding up over there"

"Maybe there will be a goal in the next 3 minutes".

What about "that's a lovely shade of yellow" lol

What we have is a team in a work of progress. What happened first two games against Roar and WSW is that we played two top teams that played their own game and we were allowed to play ours....and looked OK at times. However the Jets set up to stop us....they packed the midfield, they pressed hard most of the game and we were not up to it...we were found wanting. And the areas we were found wanting were exactly the areas that many of us predicted preseason.

What let us down AGAIN was the transition of the ball from defensive to attack. The Jets pressured key areas. They put Lia and Muscat under pressure and they folded. They also squeezed us out wide. We got no joy from our LB/RB providing us with width on attack. Once our midfield stopped getting quality ball to Carlos our attack spluttered out and our front guys were always on the back foot and looked ordinary.

 In addition the distribution from our CB's was poor. For all Siggys heroics in defense he is NOT the sort of guy who can fluently pass along the deck from the back.....his first and second instinct are to welly it down field. Carlos was dropping deep to receive but Siggy spends so long on the ball that Carlos and other receivers were getting ball and defenders at the same time.

All is not lost IMO. But Ernie needs to sort out the starting 11 that is going to implement his game plan. We need more width and punch down the flanks....hopefully Fenton at RB can help with that. People are correctly pointing out that we can't start Ifill, Stein and Brockie....they just don't complement each other. My person opinion is Brockie is not going to work in Ernies pattern...he just does not have the workrate/movement. Ifill for impact later on in the match.

But what we really need to fix is the Lia/Muscat combo. How is the interesting question. I would start Reira for Lia and just hope he settles quickly into the A-league. And there is the rub for the Nix. We have loads of players who are still adapting to life in the A-League. Reira, Hicks, Kenny, Fenton at RB, Caira etc. With such a short season we need most of the firing straight away. I am still confident we can make top six but dropping points to crap teams like the Nix at home is not a great start.

Lots of good posts here. My expectations were too high after WSW, but as that last post correctly points out, the Jets were the first team trying to stop us playing how we wanted to, and several players came up short. All players that Ernie's inherited. Muscat/Lia combo is not going to cut it. A league has stepped up - and their technical limiations are exposed together. Stein was all at sea, Ifill (as everyone knows) is an impact player only. Bertos did nothing majorly wrong, but can't provide the overlapping attacking threat that hopefully Fenton will.

So its work in progress. Rufer and Ridenton back with them this week, so bench might be slightly different. Still hopeful of December's starting lineup being good value.

That was absolutely dire.

Refer to Top Lefts signature for my feelings

Muscat back to RB perhaps? I prefer him there now tbh.

Should clarify that my 'embarrassing' comment (after a few post match refreshments I might add...) was not really about the performance per se, but more about what others have said - I.e. People of snort saying they'll never go back etc. Not to mention unconvinced colleagues and friends of mine who will have a right old laugh about another soccer 0-0 and no Phoenix win. It's pretty frustrating when the team churn out crap and almost prove these doubters right!

People of snort?! That said Napier before!

Edit post facility needed on app...

*cough, cough*

As you know I only watched the first 35 minutes, but what I saw over and over again was our midfielder getting dispossessed over and over again and I was shocked to realise that that was Manny, not Lia.

I still reckon this game will happen again next year in Napier, especially because its already a football weekend. People may or may not turn up, but the crowd of over 9k is going to be hard for Welnix to ignore. There arent many places in NZ where you could beat that. I think the numbers will largely depend on how well we finish this season, or how well we start next.

Just got back to Hamilton now. Enjoyed the weekend, the weather was relatively good, the beer was nice and Napier was a cool little town to visit (Not that I will hurry back any time soon). I have to admit, I was disappointed by the game. I expected us to play like we had in the first couple of games and perhaps get more than one goal. I thought we were slow on the attack and failed to take advantage of most of the breaks in play we had, our players were a little too long on the ball and often lost possession cheaply and unnecessarily. We may have trouble scoring if we can't transition from defence to attack seamlessly. I thought Durante and Sigmund had great games and Sigmund and Moss share my MOM for both making last minute tackles/saves that kept us in the game. Going forward Ifill should remain a second half sub, Kenny Cunningham is turning out to be Totori 2.0 (albeit not as bad), our wing-backs need track back a little better (far too many dangerous balls coming fro the side of the goal box), The Lia - Reira straight swap is starting to gain some legitimate traction and Stein should be used as a wide player and Brockie as a central striker (He can't actually perform any other role).

Unfortunately I don't think Napier will be worth returning to in the near future. The turn out was good, the stadium was fantastic and the town (The station) coped well with the influx of Fans. But, the game has left a bitter taste in the mouths of the locals. I heard a great number of people after the game complaining about the game and how they wish they had never gone (Literally every group of people I walked past leaving the stadium). I think home games should just be in Wellington, at least until the Nix are playing a brand of football that will be popular with neutral fans.  

Yeah none of the non-football people with me liked the game at all. It will depend on results as to whether 10k would show up next time in Napier.

I still think we perhaps shouldn't tour the country with this team in the condition its in.

It's a poor performance every time we play outside Wellington. I'm almost certain we would've got something out of the game had we played it at the cake tin.

I wonder how many will turn up here in Christchurch.

They've advertised the game well, big billboards, specials on tickets, ads in the papers etc.

I've already got 10 mates together, some of which have been to Nix games before, others haven't. (As I'm typing this I'm giving myself a pad on the back)

We have to note though that crowds usually half each time the Nix come back to play.

So as for Napier, after that performance I'd say 4k for the next one.

There were less than 1000 more than at our first home game this season. In fact, I reckon if you took out those who travelled up from Wellington, you'd be damn near close to an attendance of less than our first game of the season. 

Yeah, always thought as soon as I saw the fixture list that it was craziness to take so many games out of town resulting in a gap of no home matches in Wellington Oct. 13 to December 1 - five games away from Wellington means losing fan interest & getting out of habit of going to games - will be very hard to regain that interest now, especially if results continue to be poor. Also, these "home games" throw away home advantage to a major degree and results will suffer as we saw on Sunday.

Seems the people running the Phoenix are not football people - which club anywhere in the world would decide to voluntarily play home games in other towns resulting in a five game stretch away from the home stadium? Only happens in UK or Europe when the home stadium is unavailable due to repairs etc.

The 9000 crowd in Napier is what they should be aiming at as a minimum anyway for home games in Wellington. Even that's embarrassing compared to other A-League clubs' attendances this season so far.

If the Nix get a good result in Melbourne next Monday night, it may help with crowd numbers in Christchurch a little bit, otherwise people will just be thinking "oh, another bad Nix season like last season" and there won't be more than 5000 or so.

It's actually amazing how much energy the fever kept up to try and spur the team on, given that it was such a poor match to watch. 

Just had a scary thought - the Jest did to us in midfield almost precisely what ACFC did, only without the ability to finish a goal. So NOTHING has changed since the pre-season disaster that all you guys told me was insignficant.

When I think about that game and what we have seen last week I think there a couple of things that have not been mentioned which need consideration

Can Costa Rica have got it so wrong? Have we been duped? He has started twice and has not shown anything that I can remember that looks like quality.

I think Ernie's figured it out - if you are going to play Lia and Manny together, who are both defensively decent,  then you need someone who can pass out of defence because they can barely hang on to the ball, let alone pass it.

So you either bench one of them for someone who can both win the ball and link with the front half of the park and Hernandez in particular (doesn't that just sound like the player we were looking for but couldn't find) or you stick in an extra mid-fielder to play the linking role (Hicks or Reira or whoever) and drop a forward.

P.S Cunningham is taking a while to settle in to our style - which is a bit all over the place at the moment. I think once Ernie's settles on his optimum formation we might see a bit more from Cunningham. I don't buy you get to play more than a few games for Costa Rica unless you can play.
 

And yet we got it right at ko in round 1..

I wouldn't give ifill such a hard time. He is a good player and has proven he can create goals. 

Lia has been poor for countless seasons. That won't change. 

Bertos had a tough game v burns , but usually got left out there to deal with him alone, and burns is sharp. Otherwise I thought he was ok.

Huysegems is so slow and labored to turn, run, make decisions. Makes the transition bloody hard work. And his total reliance on his left peg is also irritating. Amazing he played a dozen or so games for Belgium.

If i was ernie, i'd stick kenny out wide fo the pace (instead of striker where he heads worse than stien), then put brockie up front for some muscle. Stien for me lacks the pace, vision and always stalls play instead of looking forward so should probably be benched next week. THe major factor seemed to be reaction time of players when being pressed and then the fact when we did push forward out quickest player was carlos hernandez who has a fucking sprint speed of 10km p/hr. I originally thought it was a problem with manny and Lia's speed and reactions however Hicks didnt really solve that despite being a fleet footed player his reactions seem to be just as bad, plus his ball control is not great. I think we need to find a balance between young guns and old experience because clearly playing too many golden oldies at the same time deprives us of the killer instinct/risk taking impulses of younger players. 

+1

Waffles was also born offside , is slower than slow, and despite his size not an overly strong player. 

Question for people in Hawkes Bay: How much marketing was there for the game? Because I get the feeling Welnix spend more money promoting away "home" games than they do for Wellington games, and given the extra costs for the squad travelling too, is a crowd of 1000 more than Welly really worth it?