R4 vs Victory Monday 9:30pm SS3

Would the Nix be better off playing with a Sweeper in front of the back four. Say a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-1-3-2 formation??

Paston

Sick of all your monkey bullshit completely ruined this thread goodnite aholes

Bring back Lochhead

Well put after reading back. Bans for all these dicks so we can chat bout game grr

Take your monkey business elsewhere! In all seriousness this forum is embarrassing at times. Feel sorry for the mods who really are on a hiding to nothing these days.

Spoonley

(as sweeper)

Ifill is now a 60th minute man and i like it.
Leo was a shambles when he came on

I think in that last 40 when Melbourne definately took the foot off the throat, we could have nicked it if we were a bit more onto it in the midfield. There were as many gaps in the Melbourne defence as we had in ours in that first 45. I think next time we play them we should plan for that and take full advantage.

The question is whether Perth Glory have the skill and ability to capitalise on our defensive errors - Victory had the speed and fluidity. Watched their (Perth Glory) game last week and they weren't even close to what Victory showed today.

Off to play some FIFA 13 - hopefully a bit more satisfying.  Not too cut up about the result surprisingly, but disappointed that we gave the Tards 3 pts in the first 10 minutes of the game.

As for this thread - good on you JV and sthn.jeff. 

The rest of you please write out 100 times "I must try harder not to be a numpty".

I'd just like to nominate newzealandpower for the award of "locked thread of the year"

You can continue with the angst now. 

I was going to respond but all right. Lets talk about football. 

I like Hicks. Wouldn't mind seeing him start ahead of Lia. I think he would feed Hernandez better.

Fenton is a defensive liability atm, but may come right, this was his first game back from injury so cut him some slack, he offers a lot going forward and I like this.

I still like Stein but placing him in the first 11 is problematic. His work rate is great and he usually has a good pass but I don't think we will see our best 11 in our ideal formation until he isn't in it. Unfortunately I don't see him as much of an impact player...

There is promise there at least. One of their goals was crap from Durante, another was offside. The high line must be something Merrick wants to implement but if you do that you have to be very good at it. The Victory are not a good team to test it out against. The positives are that we have a midfield that can pass the ball between themselves and don't simply just mindlessly hoof the ball (this is even when we have Lia and Muscat who have been passengers so far). I still think it will be a tough season and the playoffs will be a huge stretch. The point of this season is to change how we play and we are going to have to sacrifice short term results to get that. Maybe playing a high line burnt us today; maybe in a few years our defence will always play a high line and be one of the best in the league.

We have to show faith.

Still think Bertos > Fenton at right back

Bertos Sigmund Durante Caira

I really want the Stein, Brockie thing to work but it isn't. Brockie can be depended on to score a goal thus far in his Nix career.

App totally f'dup my formation there grr

2nd half both teams were poor. Just kept giving the ball away.

Lets hope that Brockie and Dura turn up for the AWs cause they were woeful tonight.

I thought that this game, Melbourne made us look better than we were cause they slotted 3 past us in the 1st 30 and then just relaxed and sat off it. Did we come back into it because we were actually better than them or cause they stopped playing and it allowed us to? That question we will not know the answer to but I think its not because we were better than them. I think it looks like there is more in this performance than actually is because Melbourne stopped playing more than we actually dominated them.

I thought in the 1st 30, anyone from the midfield 3 and the back 4 (sans Siggy) could have been dragged because they were that naive and asleep, its not funny. I think Ernie gets a massive brick bat as well. He has coached this team previously and knows exactly what Archie can do. Did he really not watch old footage and see last years game? Good coach but gets a massive brick bat from me on this one. I felt sorry for Siggy and Dura for having to mop up the kids effort either side of them. Dura had his worst game for a while. While it was Fentons first game back, he played cause he was fit so has to share the blame. Caira... WIP but not 100% convinced. Time/experience will be his friend. I think both of them got higher up than previous weeks like Ernie has asked for but need to put the effort in in getting back too.

A valid point that the commentators mentioned is that our schedule has been a nighmare. 2 home games on the road, players out because of the AWs. The only way it could have been worse was a trip to Perth thrown in. In that respects, I do feel for Ernie because no other team has had to go through this and he can see for himself how much love the FFA do no have for the Phoenix.

Ifill looks better as a sub. Once again, came on and looked lively. Bertos is not a DM but he makes a better pass than Lia. Not to single out Lia but him, Riera and Manny were equally guilty of being ordinary. They simply are not ball players like Hicks and Bertos but then those two are not DMs like Lia or Manny. I think the front 3 worked as a better option than a front 4 so the puzzle is a bit closer to being completed perhaps in terms of formation. Does he pick 2 of the 3 Manny/Lia/Riera axis and put an extra ball player in there from Bertos/Hicks? Brockie had a decent workrate, Hernandez plays the game like its in slo mo for him...

There is the signs there but its got to start clicking and 4 games in (plus a preseason), we still can't afford to be finding our best formation and players.

Do we expect results against Perth?

good points. I like the look of Hicks.

I think sometimes our fullbacks can't find an easy option and lose it. Dont mind not playing lochy longball though.

Surely a team can find a way of turning the ball over regularly when Victree play short from their keeper?

Good comments Jeff. Definitely had shades lastyear where Victory went 3 ahead then went to sleep and had a nervy finish. Same again really more than US doing anything extraordinary.

Really exposed for pacewith siggy and duration against troisi and Archie. Duras header to give the goal away was a shocker but while he gets bagged for it, he got given shocker of a ball to deal with from someone. Not sure who. I guess the desire to want to play the ball-out and retain possession has to be measured against the need to just welly it clear.

Brockie industrious but gave the ball away cheaply at times. Carlos a class above pretty well anything in the a league. They say classy players seem to have time. As said, he plays in what looks like slow motion, Kind of like the way David Gower looked like when batting!

Our three midfielders all guilty of giving away ball at times but all showed some nice touches at times. I felt they played a bit deep at times, almost onthe toes of the back four.

Some good signs again but without stating the obvious we need to win and win soon. That said, we have probably played 3 of the top four teams, so far. With only the Mariners out of that group of four missing.

A win in the village of the damned is very important

One thing that I am going through over and over and over again in my head.

Archie Thompson at his age, is arguably the fastest attacker in the league. We have a rookie RB who is back from injury and an LB that still is coming to grips with the game and a CB that is not the fastest and known for rushing out of the line.... and we play a high line???

I just sit here with this evidence and go WTF? How did any 1 of the players not raise a hand and go "Er coach....."

First half was an absolute nightmare. A lot of the blame has to go to Merrick. He got his tactics in the first half completely wrong and it’s become a bit of a worrying trend already this season. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing a high line, but it definitely doesn’t make sense against the Victory who are the best counter attacking team in the league.

A high line also has to be used in conjunction with pressure on the ball to stop the through balls. The formation implemented by Merrick didn’t allow us to do this. The fluid nature of our front three meant that Brockie, Hernandez and Huysegems often ended up in the same area of the pitch which made it easy for the Victory to exploit the space they left unoccupied. Once the Victory managed to get the ball past the front three and out wide they would then find themselves in space to either play an easy through ball or carry the ball forward. If we managed to apply any pressure out wide it was because one or more of Lia, Muscat or Riera would close down the space, but then that left space in the middle of the park for the Victory to exploit.

I think it’s easy to blame the back four (and to an extent the midfield trio) for what happened in the first half as they didn’t play particularly well, but they were put in an impossible situation defensively by a coach who got his tactics completely wrong.

There is some really good observations in the summaries.

Another thought I had. This is another game Ernie got wrong tactically. Thats 3 from 4 he has gotten wrong....