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

We started the season well, looked like a new team, then we get served this drivel. 

I hate to say it, but same ol' Phoenix...?

That is tactic! They tried 50x times the same thing and nobody told them to do it different.

I also thought the big referee calls in this match were correct, or correct enough..

The initial contact with Krishna was outside the box, and debatable whether it's a foul anyway.

I've always known it to be handball even if you are raising your arm to protect yourself.

Certainly a foul, and a good example of the dark arts. Arm around Krishna's left shoulder and pulled back, hard to see for assistants (far side) and ref behind in the breakaway, which is why he got away with it.

Well that dosnt feel much better the day after. Especially when you wake to the day we have down here. You have to wonder at times what we have done to piss off the weather gods because it seems we get more than our share of rubbish on game days.

I don’t know why anybody is surprised. We’ve hardly looked threatening in our first few games and we pretty much solely focus our attack around Krishna who is horribly inconsistent. We have players like Fenton who looked useless for TWs, Rufer who is even worse than Ridenton and some imports who are slow and unfit or aren’t even playing. Cacace and Singh who have only played a handful of A-League games and don’t look up to the standard. The only players that look semi decent are Taylor and Kurto! 

WSW outplayed us tonight, there's no denying that. I thought both Kamau and Roly were very effective, O'Doherty looked a talent and Riera was a handful. Nothing can excuse the dives from Roly and O'Doherty though. Nothing will be done about it of course, and I'm not saying it caused them to win, but its a disgrace and they should get a suspension. I don't know why the review panel doesn't give anyone who clearly flops after no contact a game or two on the sidelines. It's a fudgeing blight on the game. I was perfectly fine with losing to them given how they played and how shark we were, but I guess the Wanderers will always find a way to be absolute cods

Not sure, but there is no way that Fenton is up to standard. Hes very poor

I want to give Fenton the benefit of the doubt after what he's been through and his persistence in trying to make it. But I am losing patience. His  hitting of the first defender is complemented by chronically overhitting crosses. There's no in between, and in between is what's needed.

Rufer on the other hand is looking like an a-League player, and I can't understand some of the hate for him on here. He's a good player who retains possession well and gives his all.

Like some on here, I want to cut the team some slack, write this off as a blip and please get us back on track next Friday.

I would like to change to a 4-2-3-1 set up, with the players we have at present.

The left back and right back being instructed not to bomb forward to much initially. Williams is strong and fast, Krishna and Burgess have the energy to get about In the meantime keep looking for a marquee or guest striker.

Singh at right back, whilst a bit strange gets our best players on the field together, he'd haveTaylor nextto him to help and when things are going well Singh could move forward to be with Mandy & Rufer changing the 4-2-3-1 into a 3-3-3-1. 

                              Kurto

              Singh  Taylor  Durante  Doyle

                          Mandy Rufer

                 Krishna   Nichols  Burgess

                                Williams

Better to put Rufer at RB, Nichols next to Mandi and Singh in behind Williams?

Fair enough, but i think Rufer is presently our best defensive midfielder over the course of the 90 minutes, hence the reason not pushing him back to right back

Outplayed, but the calls went WSW's way.

Fenton was shoved in the area and miscued his shot.

Krishna was pushed outside the box, keeps his feet, carries on, then is shoved to the ground inside the area.

Both penalty offences IMO (deliberate and significant shoves) and game changers.

The Nix defence was often disorganised, with WSW players left unmarked in the area while Nix players were out of position or ball-watching - e.g. WSW's early chance.

Taylor came to half way in the lead up to the first goal to challenge Bonevacia, something Rufer was in position to do. That left the defence exposed.

Tactically, the Nix failed to keep Baumjohann quiet; not sure they even tried.

Thought Rufer had another good game overall; early days but looking like he might be A league standard after all. Dura had a poor game, but needed more help at the back.

Thought the Nix were way too attacking in this game. With the lowest-value squad in the league (and the only one with zero marquees), the best bet might be a defensive set-up with fast counterattack, and Williams is an important part of this.

From what I've seen last night I had no problems with Rufer's game. He  was not a game-changer but did not disgrace himself either. Doyle also played OK as did Dura, penalty notwithstanding (hard to blame him for that). Taylor is a classy player, comfortable with the ball and even the conditions, but it will be some time before he develops innate understanding with the guys playing ahead of him on the park.  

I expected more from Mitch Nicholls against this particular opposition, seeing as they would be physically intimidating to someone like Singh. However, in the short time that he was on the park, Singh seemed to be more visible and somehow more creative.

Rudan will have some work to do after last night. We can live with the midfield we have but some rearrangements might be in order.  My worry is the attack. Will Burns - a talented player in his heyday - will ever recover or should be retired? Will Krishna ever get a reliable partner upfront? Williams seems to have the potential to work well with Krishna despite them being different types of a player.

Despite the above I do not get the general doom and gloom on the forum after one loss, and the immediate bagging of this player or that player. It is clear that like many teams we will have more than one loss in the season (just look at the Jets, or Victory), and this is part of the daily business.  Sure, it was disheartening to watch, but also served as a good lesson for Rudan. 

In contrast, I see the draw against Brisbane as a much worse outcome for us than this loss to WSW. We should have scored at least one in the first 15 min against Brisbane (which is what WSW have done to us). Had we scored we might have hit the Roar on the counter more than once after they've lifted. And I can't get that we kept congratulating ourselves on a relatively good outcome (a draw away).  We should have won against Brisbane, whereas we plainly could not have won against WSW. The small percentage of extra effort needed to win away against a lethargic Brisbane trumps the massive amount of effort we would have needed to even draw against WSW last night.

Mandi was cooked after 65 minutes. Lots of standing still in the final 30 minutes.
Wrong sub from Rudan imo. Took Nichols off for Singh around the same time. Meant Mandi had to play out the game.

Very little imagination on attack at the moment. Not a lot of build up or dynamic runs in our front third.
Not a great game, roll on Friday.

One of the only players actually wanting to spur attacking charges in the first half - unfortunately he wasn't very good at doing it. Couldn't win a 1 on 1 for the life of him and delivery was poor, however props for wanting to actually win

Mandi came to us after doing his acl, I doubt he anywhere close to match fitness yet and will only improve. Will be interesting to know where Kopa is at.

On the plane home I suspect

I really feel like we're missing an x-factor player who can create something out of nothing. Was hoping Singh could be that and he probably can in a few years but he's still too young to solely carry that responsibility. Seeing Roly last night reminded me of how he used to do that for us, until he tried too hard and lost his mojo/became too selfish and got sick of the club/got the shark kicked out of him too often so he lay on the ground waiting for the ref to call fouls that never came

troll much? Lets put one of our best young attacking hopes at RB - a position he's never played.

Mandi needs to be subbed at 55-60, or he should be getting back to fitness as a sub.

That's some serious angst for only the third game of the season! Harsh on Krishna, Fenton, Rufer, Cacace and Singh.

Apart from throwing  SIngh in there which statement however is actually incorrect?

The referee has no choice in this, he should book every time. 

Ha ha surely this is a pisstake? The guy barely looks 60kg dripping wet, is left footed and most importantly has never played a defensive position in his life. Why would we put him at right back when hes still finding his feet at A League level...

How many tackles have you seen him make?

No game is referred with an absolutionist view of the laws. In fact, refs are encourage to consider the spirit of the game, and to create a fair flowing game. That's why every( strict foul) for a minor tap doesn't result in a free kick; refs set a threshold and the good ones apply it consistently.

Likewise a letter of the law approach to yellows for offences like delaying the restart in play doesn't work either. A stepped approach is about managing the heat in a game. (Yellows don't defuse situations, but can inflame). This refs are coached to follow a stepped approach where appropriate; ask, tell, enforce.

(Remember that if we card a player, we are also preventing the quick free kick, which punishes the fouled team)

It's a shame that there isn't more education for the spectating public around those concepts. Ifab explain it lightly here: 

http://www.theifab.com/laws/the-referee/chapters/d...

His obvious lack of fitness is a bit of a worry but then I can think of lots of examples of imports who took a while to get up to speed in the A League. Diego Castro looked like an absolute chump for his first half dozen games before finding his feet. 

The concern for me is that Mandi doesn't have any pace, which is OK as long as he's got the engine to make up for it. But without pace or an engine he is rapidly going to turn into a liability.

We were poor... nothing clicked, and their third goal on the counter summed up our day. I'm happy to chalk this up as a one off - largely because I can't bare to think otherwise.

Kopa needs to step up or go as soon as possible.

Succinctly summed up.

I think WSW has just given the rest of the league the blueprint to beat us. Now it's up to Rudan to see how tactically flexible he can be.

Regardless of how flexible Rudan is if we don't have the players, not much point.

The two changes completely unbalanced our midfield and attack.

Nichols was box to box, but also wing to wing - he was charging around the place, often quite close to a player with the ball, which closed down the passing options. Sarpreet tends to drift into spaces which means the opposition have to keep an eye on him - and meaning there wasn't always somehow a spare WSW player to shift the ball to, leaving Mandi, Rufer and Nichols in a tight group while they galloped off upfield.

It also meant that Mandi and Rufer were pushing up a bit into the space vacated by Nichols, and all it took was a simple ball to have both of them on the turn - I can't recall how many times I saw both Rufer and Mandi heading towards our goal, chasing down a Wanderers player, in this game. Rather than shielding the defence, he did more running in this game, that's got to have a big impact on Mandi's overall ability to last out a game. 

With the midfield out of sorts, Burgess was having to cover Cacace more often - meaning Roy was often by himself up there, with a weird mix of midfielders and attackes slightly out of position and exploitable as a result. Williams so far doesn't seem as adept at Burgess at surging forwards with the ball at defenders, but he's much better at occupying a defence and pinning them back with his presence - he and Roy keep defenders occupied, which gives space for Singh, which gives space and time for Mandi and Rufer.

It was troubling, because it showed that our team really starts from the front and if you make small changes to the forward line - the defence is exposed. 

Last night reminded me a lot of last season - we didn't look like a coherent unit, which is weird because we did for the first two games.

"Referees should apply the Laws of the Game correctly but with sensitivity and common sense to create a positive atmosphere on the field of play...."

The applying of the laws of the game takes precedence over spirit of the game - hence why Demarai Gray was correctly booked for removing his shirt after scoring for Leicester even though it was part of an understandable emotional tribute to the late owner .

Its a shame some officials don't apply the laws of the game correctly.

I assume you're replying to me? I thought the comment was harsh on the players I mentioned because:

Krisha is one of our most consistent players.

Fenton being useless for TW has no bearing on his performance for the Nix. He certainly isn't useless for us.

Rufer has been one of the better players across the first three games. Worse then Ridenton is subjective.

Cacace and Singh have played a handful of games sure, but look like A-League standard youngsters to me.

Agreed with everything you mentioned. The draw against a poor Brisbane particularly annoys me.

well it's guna be a test of Rudan's mettle. No point saying we haven't got the players- it's a bit late to get anyone else. We gotta go with who we got. To paraphrase an old thing- their flaws are why we could sign them, otherwise they'd be playing for Man City. 

Are you arguing for a red card for every player who swears on the pitch?

"Referees should apply the Laws of the Game correctly

http://www.theifab.com/laws/the-referee/chapters/d...

Are you arguing that the quote taken from the link you provided should be ignored ?

(tangent time) I personally would love to red card every player who swears at, rushes the ref or talks back. It's a fudgeing blight on the game.