R4 vs Melbourne City | Sun 3rd Nov | 6:00pm | SS7

just 6 lonely minutes of yellow fever  come on Phoenix

Absolutly, a lot of Sydneys attack seems to involve Grant, although to be fair he does have a great engine getting up and down the pitch the way he does

Fenton hand is up by his head ball as changing direction off his chest. The hand ball was a guess followed up by VAR error.

From the behind goal camera you see the ball balloon up over his hand/Arm. But I have no Video skills 

FFA A-league VAR  rule book  "If any doubt back the #Ruf

I think it glances the arm, but shouldn't have been HB as it deflected.  Straightforward

There is so much focus on this ridiculous new "unnaturally big" handball rule in the penalty area that refs feel under pressure and blow the whistle at the slightest suspicion of handball. 

I can't bring myself to blame the ref. He's inexperienced, made a genuine mistake, and was only obeying the new laws, but he's been left high and dry by the very technology that is supposed to be supporting him.

We are playing a low block, which means gaps. 

We're playing this way because our centre backs are slow

Steinmann and Rufer are playing deep so that the gaps are not in front of the centre backs.

Hooper and Ball have to start deep to ensure the gaps aren't between them and the centre midfielders. 

Rudan played deep, but he had Krishna and Williams as outlets who could start deep and still cause problems with their mobility, which had the effect of pushing the opposition back. Right now, we are just inviting teams on to us.

Rudan also had extra numbers in central areas to make it difficult for us to be broken down despite the space in front of us.

In our current formation, the wide midfielders are the problem. Everything is fine until the opposition start getting clever and pull our wide midfielders into areas that they should not be going in a 4-2-2-2. but it's hard for them not to because we are so deep. This makes spaces in bad areas in the box in front of the full backs and behind the centre midfielders. Even early in the game, City were able to find a lot of space beyond our midfield.

Most times, for 4-2-2-2 to work, one of the holders needs to create a triangle in front of the back 4, the full backs need to defend wide and the wide midfielders need to defend narrow. We are not doing this.

I think Talay should consider asking Ball to defend one of the full backs, preferably on Davila's side. I think this would help to create an overload in front of the CMs. It would also have the effect of having Ball well placed to counter between that full back and the centre back

Great analysis Reg.

email it to Talay or his coaching staff, maybe they'll pick up on something they've missed.

The players selected for All Whites from Phoenix:

Liberato Cacace

Alex Rufer

Louis Fenton (Tim Payne if Louis's shoulder doesnt be 100%)

Callum McCowatt

Stefan Marinovic

If Talay needs randos on a webforum to tell him tactics, he should be fired ASAP as incompetent.

I reckon every other sentence from you is SACK TALAY

Excellent analysis, reg22.

Yeah, but only because I'm curious about why no-one else is saying it.

Because it's 4 games in with basically a new team.  You seem to be trying to stir up some sack talay momentum so you can be the first to point it out as ridiulous

Without referee interference/incompetence, we'd have points on the board and a lot of people would be singing a different tune. I can't think of much that has gone our way these first four games, but an absolute shedload of stuff has gone against us.

Silly question, but couldn't we play 4-2-3-1 with the top of the 3s dropping back to help the midfield?

Will work when Hooper is fully fit to hold up the ball, but would also like to see us play 3 at the back

Well, the buck stops with the coach, does it not?

Lots of people pointing out that Sotirio, de Vere and probably Rufer are not up to the job; but it's Talay who puts them on the field.

Under the new rules isn't it five Phoenix players (or three Australian team players) get called up to the national squad the game is postponed?

One thing puzzling me is Rufer. I was not a fan but he seemed to grow into his role last season. This season he has gone backwards in my view and people are pointing this out here.

Why? Is the formation not suiting him?

I do recall someone very politely asking the question earlier in this thread

Less options to play out? Teams can set a press easier on our DMs, a lot passing is just going down the wings.

Obviously, there's a bit difference between writing it down and actually implementing it and these things take time

I am a bit worried because I thought that the weekend's performance was flat. Hopefully something starts happening for us soon or things might get pretty bad

Couldn't find the actual rules but two newspapers make notes that teams could ask for one if 

"Under A-League guidelines, clubs can request to have games rescheduled if they have four under-23 players or a combination of under-23 and 'A' internationals players away on representative duty".

"The A-League removed international breaks this season but offered clubs the opportunity to postpone games if they have two or more senior international players away or four or more youth internationals".

wow, look at metcalfe, that sort of positioning killed us

We have a bye that round, don't we?

You've explained our problems very well. The practical effect of them is that even though we have numbers in defence, we still look vulnerable, and find it difficult to then transition those numbers in attack. And now we have no pace up front like last year to be dangerous on the counter, so Uffie needs to do some figuring out.

True had forgotten that, so we have the game this week against Victory on the 10th, then don't play again until the 23rd at home. So with the internationals being played on the 14th and 17th, really it is only managing jet lag.

From the Dept of Broken Record: this is pretty much a new team, with Rufer, Cacace, Fenton and Taylor the only ones left over from last season.  A new coach, untested at this level as a head coach.  We would not expect us to win the league this year with such a change. 

Whichever way we look at it, Talay will work with the players he has by now. Apart from Cacace returning, and hopefully nobody picking up an injury or a card, we will see his mettle tested by how he manages this team .

There will be a lot of issues to sort out, and problem areas to fix. But, for all the doom and gloom, I am pleased to see that now we are creating opportunities and scoring goals.

Bang on. The Jamieson goal was terrible because in a simple movement across the field from left to right they opened up our midfield because we moved laterally incredibly slowly. It didn't help either that rufer and steinman didn't pivot. They did it the whole game, left to right, right to left and our wide players were so slow to tuck in we ended up spread out in a straight line.

Numbers back is one thing, but numbers back working cohesively as a unit is obviously much better. And if we can do this we can start asking ourselves questions about where and when it is best to win the ball, rather that if we will win it

The most effective player on the park was Griffiths.  Not only is he tough, he dominates the midfield and then plays simple balls to his team mates. 

Yeah but seems like they still going to play after Talay's interview this morning. 

This is my preferred line up. Would slot in McGing for DeVere but haven't seen much of him since FFA Cup. Phoenix would look better in this type of formation with Piscopo and Davila falling back faster to support. Defensive midfield should be more compact with Payne coming in for Rufer who has lost his boots this season (with all due respect)

Fenton has pulled out of the AWs squad injured, so would have to assume he misses the Nix game before then.

Wonder whether we see Payne or Elliot at RB - my money is on Payne.

To easy to blame them how about the ridiculous goals we have gifted to the opposition they arnt the fault of the officials.Yep there have been some bad calls but who is to say City wouldnt have scored from the corner if the penalty had not been given. Far to much blame placed on the officials we arnt the only team to get bad calls but the way some go on about them fat to many wearing tin foil hats.

We have a bye so no players will miss any gametime? Or am I missing something?  

playing against Waitakere in the window aren't we?

TAWH maybe for DeVere but I would like to see this team in action

we pretty much have the lineup sorted and playing at the moment, except ball is playing alongside Hooper.

Hope Fenton's all right - especially given his bad luck with shoulder injuries..