R3 vs Western Sydney Wanderers | Sat 3rd Nov | 7:35pm | Westpac Stadium

How is mandi still on the fudgeing pitch

I think we've barely gone forward all game and when we have, we've either been offside or overhit a cross. It's been shocking to watch tbh

That's as may be, but there are many games duller than this that the Nix have played!

And 5 minutes to play

WSW have been taking the piss for the last 10 minutes and should be 6 up

Fenton's got a great engine.

Can't play football very well though unfortunately

any game where Krishna chases back at 2-0 down in the 93rd minute ain't dull for me 

Completely deserved thrashing.  We have not had the calls from the (terrible) referee, but we have been completely dire.  Absolutely no flow, never looked like building to scoring a goal.  Horrendous passing, terrible crossing.

Why is Krishna having to try to tackle the last goal scorer, where was the defence???????

Back to the drawing board Mr Rudan.

Embarrassing again

What a shark show of a second half. I'm sure Mandi was a passenger for the entire 45 minutes and for the first time a team was going straight through the Nix in the middle of the park. Kurto seems hestitant to come off his line. Burns was more effective than he has been recently. Singh is out of form badly. You know you have problems when a CB is your biggest goal threat.

Thrashed at home by a very mediocre WSW does not bode well 

Singh making Roly fall on his ass has made 93 minutes of hell all worth it

If we play like that against Sydney, what will be the score then?

farken wana wipe that smile off Bonevacia's face. 

They defended well too 

could use a class import DM- we've made one disappear, can we make one appear?

we'd drawn with Sydney and passed through them at this stage last year 

Well that was a bit shiite.

We looked like we had had a week of super intense training and everyone was knackered. Mandi looked stuffed after 40 mins. Not sure why Rudan changed a team that was doing OK.

Hopefully this is just a blip however it is a bit of a worry that our midfield got so outplayed. Also you do wonder about our creativity in the final third. Krishna will always be a goal threat but after that???

I thought Rufer did some OK stuff and Fenton looked lively but the defensive execution was poor...we could have conceded five. 

Back to the drawing board Mr Rudan.

You don't just become a shark team overnight.

But somehow Rudan managed it.

Ots almost like game times to suit tv lead to less people.going to.the game.

Rufer showed the right attitude tonight. Wants to play much more than Mandi. Burns very unlucky with a good header. If only he can put one in it would turn his and our luck.
WSW the better team, much better passing.

The only thing more embarrassing than our performance was the dance cam. 

Maybe Fenton....

Oh god that was worse than ordinary. Best part of the night was there was no crowd, so back home before 10pm.

The number of poor turnovers we gave away was ridiculous, we never gave ourselves a chance. They out muscled us and picked up so much possession. 

Burns and Singh made no difference at all, so can't blame the selection. 

We were just deservedly beaten, and well beaten. I wouldn't single anyone out for criticism, our lot were all much of a muchness, although Taylor looked class at times for sure. 

We never ever should play bad like tonight, this was like last season. Long balls, one dimensional game plan, we can't score. And hopeless how they tried to force something at the end. Really disappointing.

Bad performance, bad crowd. Its gonna be a looooooong season!.

Yep horrible game and the boys didnt play well. BUT shark some of you jump off the bandwagon bloody quick.Shark game played in terrible conditions so we park it and move on not time to start slashing our wrists just yet.

We battled well to hang in against better players, better drilled. 

Burns scores the header and it's 2-1. 

One positive: we have a game next Friday. Chalk this one off, go back to our starting team, sign TAWH (bah) and play out of our skins on Friday.

Loved Rufer giving the fans the Daniel rark up gesture. It's guna be tough times, but this team wants to reward our faith. 

I think people got a bit quick ON the bandwagon after the first win. Last week wasn't flash either. You clearly can see the limits of some the players and the coach, they could not change any of their game after the HT break, this is always something that worries me.

Good on Rudan to try a different formation against a team he thought we should have beaten easily (someone forgot to tell WSW though). Shame it blew up in our faces.  I think not starting Williams was a mistake. We were very stretched in midfield and WSW defended well enough to just place the ball between our attack and midfield, exploiting Mandi's slowness.  

Despite some of the comments here, I thought Rufer had a decent game and is improving. Good commitment from him and from Fenton; his technical limitations notwithstanding. Would have probably preferred Doyle on the left FB instead of Cacace, in these conditions; and Fox in CB instead of Doyle. Other than that, can't really blame the team for a dispiriting loss against a team that lifted well from a poor start to the season.

We will regroup and learn our lessons and go on to win games.

Blame can fall heavily on Rudan for tonight. Changing a well performing side, not making substitutions at the right time. 

I've said it before but surely there is someone in the premiership who could fit into midfield. Sure, they didnt turn up and trial (unpaid) but neither did Way or Kopa and look where they are.

I know it is easy to blame the referee but as soon as I had heard it was Jarred Gillette, I knew the Nix were on a hiding. I don't know if it is a personal thing with him against New Zealand or whether or not he is just a straight out incompetant buffoon but last night confirmed his either bias or buffonery.

I saw a Nix player comit a minor fould that only warrented a free kick. Fair enough but Gillette gave him a card too. Five minutes later and a WSW player comitted the exact same type of foul and play was waved on.Sometimes small insignificant things like that frustrate the crap out of players and the game can turn sour. Krishna's was a penalty. WSW's was not. That shot was like a rocket and Durante didn't have time to think of raising his arm. There was no intent other than to turn his back on it. And if VAR is going to be used what about the two WSW blatant dives when replays showed at least a 24 inch gap between the players and no contact which should have scored them 2 yellow cards for simulation rather than 2 free kicks indangerous positions.

I make no excuses for the Nix not playing their best, nor the fact that the worse playing conditions for severals seasons because at the end of the day WSW adapted better to those conditions. But I do question the integrity or competance of the match officials. I have yet to hear them admit that they got it very wrong for most of the match. I don't mind good calls for both sides and bad calls for both sides. I can live with that, but to give bad calls only against one side and give very dubious calls in favour of the other, does make one doubt about their ability's.

Ah no, not this shark again. Why can't we just have a good football team?

I missed the first half but was getting told he was very poor. He didn’t do anything to change that from what I saw. Is there anyone who can come into that position?

https://www.refchat.co.uk/threads/fouls-and-miscon...

Brief twitter discussion between Patrick and chris kerr here on why the handball is a penalty

https://twitter.com/patrick478/status/105862782568...

Not seen a replay yet, but i believe the foul on krishna  was outside the area.

We were poor. Thought ref got most things right.

Still quite concerned about where our goals are going to come from.

They have got themselves into a mess with the laws here and there, and VAR isn't helping. Handball supposedly has to be deliberate. All the interpretations aren't helping to make it any clearer. Whatever the law says, I think it's ridiculous to give a penalty for that. 

Another law that annoys me is retreating at free kicks. They have stuffed up this law as well. We are getting the situation where players are delaying free kicks by standing in front of the ball. They should be booked Every time they do that or try and play the ball rather than retreat 10 yards. 

Also it's ridiculous to have hoards chasing the referee when the ball goes out of play and the players are claiming a VAR referral should happen. That's not an improvement at all, just encourages dissent. 

At a certain level, players know exactly what they are doing with their arm positioning, and how the interpretation of the laws works. Whether or not deliberate is in the law wording or not, that was, and should be a handball at this level.

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Another law that annoys me is retreating at free kicks. They have stuffed up this law as well. We are getting the situation where players are delaying free kicks by standing in front of the ball. They should be booked Every time they do that or try and play the ball rather than retreat 10 yards. 

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Stepped approach works best, and is how ref's are coached for this kind of infraction of the laws.

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Also it's ridiculous to have hoards chasing the referee when the ball goes out of play and the players are claiming a VAR referral should happen. That's not an improvement at all, just encourages dissent. 

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VAR has been sold as a solution to all ills of the game, and it clearly is not. Lack of it cost Liverpool a goal v Arsenal this morning - but i think part of the problem VAR has is the people commentating the game are still as genuinely clueless as ever about the laws, and lead fans down the garden path of confusion.

Only one team was ever going to win that game in those conditions - WSW are a big strong physical side that were really up for it - and it's no surprise they won well.

We have a defensive midfielder that is a good player, but isn't match fit, and our import DM is nowhere to be seen. Until that's sorted we'll struggle to win slugfest games where you just have to dig in and adapt. The surprise was that we had no self belief from the start, and looked like we were playing in strong winds and rain for the first time.  

No lack of effort, just lacking some equipment for those conditions. .