R4 vs Melbourne Victory | Mon 31 Oct | 9:50pm | SS2

Thought Fox's first yellow was soft, ref had a better view but thought he had the better position on Berisha - pen and a yellow on that standard Bonevacia should have gotten a yellow too.

His 2nd yellow Austin goes to ground easily when it was shoulder to shoulder - less of a foul than Berisha on Parkhouse and the ref didn't even call that.

MV were poor apart from Berisha and Rojas (and Georgivski in the 1st half) and for the most part we were competitive even the better team but we made some monumental errors that two very good players took advantage of. Ref to be benched next weekend.

I guess the question you have to ask is that if we agree that there is nothing on the bench to help, then this must be the strongest or close to the strongest team we have. What do you do with this lot to change it around?

I'm not so sure this is one of those 'Everyone can see it except the coach' situations cause I think its fair to say if Ernie does not see anything wrong after that, then he definitely needs the sack. I'm pretty sure he knows there is a problem. Just the answer is not obvious and there are minds in this forum that are smart but can't quite figure it out either.

Illustration of the losers mentality that currently pervades the club. 

Nothing can really explain how most of the 'star' players that individually have a history of strong performance, collectively are amounting to a pile of shyte.

Historically away vs Victory we nearly always look terrible so I wouldn't get rid of Merrick based on this, but if we lose vs Newcastle at home next week then he must be under pressure.

Other than they don't really give a shark and are just picking up easy money.

Most of our 'star' players had much better players around them when playing for other teams, which I think helps you to look better than you are. I think guys like Kosta are A-League quality but not 'star' players unless they have extremely good players around them.

Someone explain the new quick free-kick rule?

I'm glad I had a meeting for most of the second half and didn't watch it. Any redeeming reason to watch the replay?

 tonight all im going to say is that the ref did us no favours at all, declines our penalty kick, the gives mvc a similar softer one.too scared to book and send off home players. Ref let Melbourne get away with murder again, especially that Twit berisha.good night.

Someone posted an article a while back saying that for a team to be good, it is more important not to have bad players or weal links than to have "star" players. I think the Nix is a good example of this.

Perhaps not consciously, but they're not all giving 100%. Perhaps they no longer believe in what Merrick is telling them to do?

As I understand it if you do a quick free kick then the opposition can't be pinged for where they are standing, so you take a gamble on a quick free kick.  could be wrong though. 

I thought we had some terrible calls go against us but suspect without those we still would have been flogged.  Victory just outplayed us.

Happens all the time in football.

Glad I went to bed..challenge now is to avoid the spoon.  The rest is doom and gloom sadly.

Right, off to work to get mocked for being a Nix fan. At least I can respond with"for half a season a couple of years ago we were good"

Why has Berisha got some excellent ball skills and yet have such a shark attitude and play acting? I really want to see someone on the field knock the prick out. Sick of seeing him trying to referee the games.

Still haven't scored from open play this season too. Rossi coming back, and to a lesser extent Doyle, should help the defence but what's going to solve our attacking issues?

I say go to a 4-2-3-1 with Kosta and Krishna as wingers, Watson as a target man, Finkler in the hole and Lia/A-Rod alongside WeeMac in the base of midfield. WeeMac did that role OK for the AWs against better opposition than he'll find in the A League. Roly can sit on the bench and hopefully get some hunger back.

Never going to happen though. 

The morning after the night before - and the highlight for me was going to bed at half time.

As many will know I"m far from a footballing tactical genius (in other words, I'm like everyone else on here - whether some admit it or not), though I can't see what we're trying to do, or how. Our midfield has no shape, nor does our defence - whilst our "star" attackers run around waiting for the ball to land at their feet as if by magic - which it doesn't.

We have fullbacks who aren't good defenders;which is further exposed as  we haven't even close to adequately replaced Albert Riera (even last seasons version which was admittedly a downgrade on what we saw in previous seasons); Roly looks like he doesn't know whether he's coming or going; Dura is yelling a lot and looking frustrated; Vinnie is Vinnie - giving his guts but he isn't what he isn't (and nor will he ever be); WeeMac has vanished without a trace into the mists of the Scottish highlands; and Kosta can't seem to work out how to play football in a yellow (grey, or black) shirt as he does/did in a white or blue one. Roy is showing glimpses, but again he seems to be unsure or unable to play the role that he's being asked to.

It seems to me like Ernie (and I love the bloke) has continually tried to play the way he sees us playing in his head (which we saw a brief glimpse of when Burnsy was on fire); but hasn't recognised that the league has moved on (opponents have us sussed, as they did later in Burnsys golden season) and, we simply don't have the players to play that kind of game efficiently or effectively.

What's the answer? ImfudgeedifIknow - but I do know the definition of insanity, as I'm sure most of you do too.

Something must change, and it must change on Saturday night.

That's pretty much the formation I was thinking we need when I went to bed at half time. Finkler is too far forward and struggles to get back to pick the ball up when turned over by the defence. There is no focal point to the attack and even though a target man type player is slightly one-dimensional, its at least half a dimension more than the current options we are giving when attacking. Aside from the penalties (one of whom wasn't a defender) I thought the defence was doing OK at half time, we weren't giving Victory many options, I have no idea what happened after Fox got sent off and I'm hoping I will never know.

For me the biggest disappointment are Roly, Kosta and McGlinchey. Those are the senior 'star' players who should do better. Roly gave two goals away. Kosta can't go past a single man and McGlinchey was not on the pitch. If you miss those three players, you never can win. Not sure why we replaced Finkler with Ridenton.

Nothing wrong with the young guys Fox, Parkhouse and Tratt, they played OK and tried. Durante and Lia had at least a certain standard of quality. Victory was not as good, but they at least did not mad 5 stupid errors, the 6 goals are flattering for them. And we are the joke of the round. Shame.

The Nixe need to turn this around, get back to the training, drink a large cup of confidence and then win on Saturday.

So...that went well.

Dick.

I think those two posts are the guts of it.  One pen and yellow were won by taking advantage of Fox's inexperience and a very tough call from the ref.  The goal that killed us when we'd got back to 1-2 was Parkhouse being bullied by Berisha. But it's boy's against men. 

Roly is half the time playing like a maniac that has got kicked for two seasons and wants payback.  And he's clumsy with it.  We've thrown him back into a more defensive role, where that's more of a problem.  So he gives away a dumb pen.

But I swear Fox was on P and it was waiting to happen.

-----

Without Rossi, Doyle and A-Rod we had too many weak areas but, even so, were fairly competitive for 60 minutes, apart from the blunders/Berisha schooling younguns/the ref. Even with our best starting 11 on the park we are good enough for maybe mid pack - fourth with a dream run, but more like 6th.  But we are going to have injuries.

I thought we were unlucky with the ref and played 63 minutes of fairly competitive stuff undone by two rookie suck-ins and referee 50/50s.  After that, too much to come back from. But we went down 6-1 because they pressed trying to find the equaliser.  I think the criticisms saying they were not trying are harsh.  But boy, it's frustrating. 

The likes of Melbourne were bringing on Archie last year for a hard out 20-25 mins as a sub and have been playing Kalfallah off the bench this year.  We are starting with not poor but lesser players like Krishna and Finkler and don't have that sort of experience and quality to back up the starters.  Welnix and Ernie need to stop kidding themselves. 

Would like to see us start with A-Rod and Lia at the base, Finkler, Kosta and Krishna through the middle and Berisha up front.

We definitely got a couple of bum calls in that game but we were full of mistakes across the park.  Fox is just not a good defender, Tratt got taken to school by a good opponent, Parkhouse was sharkhouse (watch him closely, he has no idea how to jocky and he ends up inevitably turning his back and facing his own goal). 

It's now 8 losses in a row, 23 against, 3 for and Ernie has to show he can arrest the rot.  I do not want to hear him say ever again that we play "good football" because good football is winning football and we are a long way from winning a football game.

You can't fix the problem, really. We don't have the players. The biggest problem is defensive midfield and you can see that because Victory killed us in transition. I think our attackers will still come right and we will score some goals but our bad start plus international duty and i just can't see us making top 6.

It can't change because the squad is just way too thin. It's screamingly obvious that there's no true competition for 1st team places, and this has been the problem for the last few years - since we made the play-offs. Ernie can only operate with what he has, so he's partly to blame by bringing in below par players. But the fault is mainly in the way the club is set up imo. Not enough ambition. Nobody willing to stump up proper dosh for real class. But hey, we got the licence extension ... and there's no relegation to worry about. So hey, no worries. Except we've turned into a bunch of losers.

I don't think you can use last nights game as an example to make your point because our DM played the last 30 odd minutes as a CB and no one was brought in to fill that gap.

I think this is the best formation. The problem is that that formation would be basically admitting that Merrick has picked a bad squad (a point lots of us keep harping on about).

Also, that's not just a different formation, it is a completely different style of play needed with those players

So lets look at this with some rose coloured glasses for a moment and play a little "What if"

If Rossi plays, we don't have Fox and perhaps we stay with 11 for 90 mins and we don't concede one penalty so you perhaps come down from a 6-1 to a 4-1, maybe 3-1

You put in Doyle for Parkhouse and it may be a little tighter. Perhaps still 3-1
You disallow the goal where Berisha fouls sharkhouse but the result of that foul was away from the ball and action so was sharkhouse going to be an effect? Maybe, maybe not. Still 3-1

Going into the game, no one really expected anything more than a loss and most people predicted 3 goals. With the above (and absolutely its glossing over some things) its probably about what we expected considering.

It's not that we're losing, it's how we're losing.

It's also how long we have been losing for...

I think Victory were very hungry. If some of those goals were disallowed I think they may have turned around and scored another one of two.