R7 vs Perth Glory | Friday 21st Nov | 11:45pm | SS2

It's about context though. If you are a man up, desperate for a goal and your pretty passing has yielded you precisely nothing for the previous 85 minutes then it's time to do something different, especially as if the cross into the box is cleared your extra man will give you a more than decent chance of getting possession back for another attack. What we saw instead was toothless, thoughtless and frankly gutless.

Bah humbug.

My thoughts too.

I felt as if Riera was a bit outgunned today, kept trying to go with through-balls but Glory were all over them .

I also wonder if Boxall would've covered left-back a lot better tonight if he started .

People get subbed for a reason, injury etc. but when you are 2-0 down why would you replace a defender with another defender..

Piss poor performance- Manny ball watching for the second goal, and they had two chances to score in the last 10 mins. Never mind an easy game next week.

Boyd looked dangerous both times he got on the ball, but in those last eight or so minutes every attack was down the right, why? IF ITS NOT FUCKING WORKING DOWN THE RIGHT, DON'T KEEP GOING DOWN IT. Honestly how many times did were we moving toward the left, only for it to get to lia reira or boxall and go back down the right again, where the last ten or so attacks hadn't worked. piss poor.

You are never going to threaten from half way or from 30 metres. This passing game across the field and then back is a total waste of time.  No point in doing it if the forward line aren't making runs. 

No urgency in this team. Last 5 minutes they played at a tempo as if the game had just started. 

Just seemed to lack urgency - especially near the end and given that they were down to 10 it surely must have been an opportunity to throw the kitchen sink at it - chuck in Kenny perhaps? When we did start being more incisive we were opening things up - but just lacked the last pass and very little capability of inclination to shoot with any venom from distance.

So far this season we look like we're going to be mid-table at best. Its going to take a fairly miraculous 'click' of the front end combinations to change that. Still it is a long season so live in hope.

Again as much as I love Ernie he's done a fair bit wrong recently. Bonevacia our best player, subbed for Boyd.

You want to attack you sub Gorrin for Lia, Hook Brockie for Boyd and sub Burns/Krish for Kenny.

Tactically we had it all wrong. We had our front 3 all coming back to receive the ball, Burns can't do anything 25m away with his back to goal. They need to be trying to get in behind the defence. 

We never even looked like scoring, we just looked content to pass the ball back and forth.

Get a bunch of cotton balls with different smells on each (perhaps using essential oils?). Take one and smell it. Write down the thoughts you have while smelling it.

Terrible effort, no urgency.  Only plus is they outscored us in the off sides and we can score a penalty.

Roll on next week

Why was Moss taking so long to take his goal kicks? It was as if he was time wasting.

Roly is a brilliant player. Can you imagine how good he would look if he was playing in a top football club with top players. Can't believe he was subbed.

Did Brockie touch the ball? I seriously cannot recall him having any contribution at all. 

Agree on Riera - they had him sussed, I think, and had 2 people on him when he had the ball.

Not sure about Boxall, might be a bit of wishful thinking. Doyle did OK but he is a young bloke.

Maybe JBS instead of Boxall - I thought he was OK gainst Adelaide.

Yeah 10 seconds wasted. Blame Moss.. 

So you want us to launch crossed into Brockie, Burns and Krishna against Thwaite and Djubic. Pretty much a zero percent success rate. 

Agreed, he should have done better, but Keogh is probably too good to be stopped by Manny so close from the goal.

Sign Deklan Wynne for left back. Be better then Doyle

What a fucking pathetic performance that was. There are no excuses for serving up a performance like that. Every single player on the pitch and Merrick deserve to be criticized for that. 

How many losses does it take to make anybody realise that the team setup is NOT working? Brockie did nothing all game. Burns had a horror. Lia is Lia. Riera looked oddly off. Bonevacia looked the best, but gets subbed. I have no idea what is going through Merricks mind right now. Oh and our centre backs are now i'd say starting to get among the worst pairings in the A-League. The amount of times one or both are caught out of position and make a desperate lunge for the ball is extremely poor.

(I'm totally expecting hate for that, but in every game this season we've looked far from solid.) 

Lia brings absolutely nothing to the team. Isn't good enough to take anyone on or spot a smart pass. Most of the time plays wide or to Riera, even when Riera is sometimes in a worse position than he is. 

Brockie didn't even register a shot. (Not counting that excuse for a cross in the first half). Mind telling me why he gets recalled to play wide, when we have two NATURAL wingers on the bench? 

Merrick waits too long to make a sub in the game. If things aren't working (i.e. Being completly outplayed in the first half) then change something. Then again if that doesn't work. We're 2-0 down before he even seems to think about a sub. Then subs Bonevacia. Arguably our fittest player at the club. He's been quoted to have said that the fullbacks provide the width. Then why are we playing a 4-3-3 that already should have wide men in the wide areas? I don't know. 

Perth at times looked like they were toying with us. Even with 10 men they created far better opportunities. We won't come close to making the top six if we play like we did. Against Adelaide and Perth we have been exposed over and over. You can't play Newcastle every week...

I feel that people on here believe we can't cross because the opposition are bigger than us, 'Chucking balls into the box' doesn't mean trikki rikki from half way, it means getting to the byline and putting a low/ground cross across the face for the striker to run onto, hard for defenders to clear those and often enough theyll be put into thier own net. The other option is to run at your defender. Why the fuck you would pass back to your centre halves when you are on the byline I have no idea

why do I do it? Why do I do it?

Why do I read the match thread?

Is there a match thread anonymous that you can join?  

Maybe, but he got on the inside of him.

So was there first goal offside? Looked like it when replayed on mysky

So was there first goal offside? Looked like it when replayed on mysky

1 - I should think so

2 - he will get an earful from the coach, but if he was to sit on the bench next time then not a real issue for Perth.

To be fair, I thought Lia played reasonably well. Made some good tackles, interceptions and broke up the opposition play effectively at times. Hardly missed a pass either. He's obviously not a creative player, but played the box to box midfielder role fairly well tonight imo.

Getting to the byline, gives defenders time to reset. So most low cross barely get past the first defender at the near post.

What is more effective, is delivering balls between the defensive line and the keeper (ala Perth's second goal).

BTW did anyone else think that boxall was going to be played as a target man when he came on? 

Quite often in the A League I have seen teams that are hot on attack, get near the opposition penalty box, only to work the ball all the way back to their own goalkeeper whom promptly hoofs it up field and gives away possession. It does my friggen head in.

You can't say that. He is designated scapegoat so he can never have a good game.

Box to Box? Get out. 

Absolutely. It's not as if we are talking a full tactical overhaul, just a Plan B when you are in desperate search of an equaliser, the clock's running down and your careful passing has failed completely to produce a single chance. Right at the end someone did actually put a cross over and Brockie almost pulled it down out of the air with no one around him. A few more like that and the luck we needed may well have eventuated, instead we mucked about and achieved the loss we appear to have been resigned to from the kick off.

Fixed....

Have to say when Boyd came on he looked like the best outlet we had had all game, good touch, dribbling and a bit of flair. 

On the money.

It is amazing what a bit of desperation can do, combined with opposition knowing they can afford to sit back and counter.

Only called for that to happen at the start of the season...

gif = removed.

cheers mods 

Not really acceptable AJ

Roly on next week, I say.

Pretty gutted about that game. 

Can't say Perth are dramatically better than us, maybe our tactics let us down and a few errors.

Disappointing to not see as much urgency at the end as Adelaide showed us last week. Although I do believe patience is always good, we did seem to still always go for the safe option rather than try and break through. Missed Roly's penetration once he was off.

Set pieces are still a concern although we looked a little better this week.

At least we finally scored a pen!