R8 vs WSW, Sunday 1 Dec, 5 pm

Opportunities seemed to favour us on balance but for some poor/unlucky finishing.

We had two get out of jails: WSW blazing over the crossbar from point blank and Dura putting his body directly in the line of fire (absolute legend).

I liked Fenton very much. He won most of the balls and had some good runs.
We overcomplicate things in final third.

Well, that's exactly what my concern has been about him. I just don't think he was poor today.

I think we out played sydney last week and deserved more than a draw this week, Its just a pity we had only attackers//defenders on the field with no mids for the last 20min, I really think we could have had them.

Huysegems played well up until he actually had to come up with a final product - each time he failed to deliver.

Cunningham wasn't great even though I was willing him to score due to having a few bucks on him scoring.

Can't quite put my finger on what's wrong. We are a bit too slow going forward, lose possession too easily, and give away far far too many free kicks. There's 3 things anyway.

Thought Stein was ok today. Plenty of work put one on a platform Carlos who has no left foot. Boyd was pantheon he came on although a bit bettertowards endow match. Liable had another good match today. Manny was good left back. Best match from Fenton as full back. Digby and Dura very good. Headless chook Kenny was on display today. The ref.....how did he get so many bookings 8? From that match.?

Loved thechant when wanderers supporters started the Poznan. GOLD

To much optimism on here ;>)..Back from another ho hum oh dear frustrating performance.  So we can pass better than last year..but we cant score for shite.  And apart from a hoping the pinball machine style play might just give us one it looked very unlikely.  Will 2014/15 bring us two new strikers of quality?.  I doubt it so whilst we are supposedly more entertained now I cant see where more than 2-3 wins all season are going to come from.  Our next three games are tough ones.

Re crowd commennt....a bigger crowd was unlikely given fantastic day weather wise and lack of wins.

Fenton played well, Carlos gave away twice what he created then had a meltdown after his yellow.  Ifill took ages to get involved...still our best(2nd best?) player but not for more than 30mins I think.

When Boxall comes on you know the win has been forsaken.  Where are some of the other players we supposedly signed because they coud play in this league now..not in 2014/15.

Can those who say Lia was good explain what he did that was good?

Melbourne Heart can finish we can't that's the difference between us and them.

Wow. Maybe I was watching the wrong game...

We deserved 3 points today. Covic was definitely the busier of the two keepers if you look at it from that perspective. I like the way we played and we had parts of the game and they had parts of the game. I picked WSW to take the game and if people thought about it with their head and not their heart, WSW were definite favourites. It was not a game we held on and pinched a draw nor did we play like ass. WE definitely held our own and thought we shaded them. On the balance of that, I think we deserved 3 points. I don't think anyone played a bad game which is a good thing to have although Carlos was not at his best (busted flush he is not Doloras. I mean, really.) but he did limp off which may explain the 2nd half. Anyone in the back 4 could easily be given man of the match.

The biggest thing I noticed if you look specifically at Manny today. He was never beaten on his side once. The reason being? He does not push forward and thus, is never out of position. The flow on is that it never drags out Durante (or Sigmund). Fenton too pushed forward but not as far as he has in previous weeks and I think thats the better way to play and very much against what Ernie wants to have - 2 quick FBs that get up and down. It does not work and I don't believe it will work in the future. We look a lot better with a solid back 4 and let the players in front of us play. If Fenton turns in that hand every week, lock it in Eddie because he never got caught, never got beaten and offered enough on attack without overplaying his hand like he has done. It think thats the way to go. Either way, Caira is back next week and Manny has 5 cards. Means he has the next 20 games to stay away from 3 yellows... Unlikely.

Subs: I feel sorry for Boxall. He is not a DM and he got dragged everywhere when he came on. That was a rough call by Ernie and also the 3 subs in the space of 10 mins. The Carlos one was forced through injury but again, would anyone have picked Hicks, Riera and Carlos? It left us out of shape and with that many changes quickly, had he staggered them a bit more, it may not have had the effect of making us look ragged for 10-15 mins. I thought Boyd looked lively when he came on and Ifill offered us more from that AM role that Carlos did. I thought Boyd probably offered us more than Stein which is saying a lot.

Stein is one of those guys where he has obvious quality - I am a fan, but he is the square peg in the Phoenix game plans' round hole. When you accept that, what do you do with him? Kenny showed enough but still doesn't look like the gun signing we need. Across our 5 imports, Ifill is consistently the best and he plays about 30-40 mins only. Riera was ok this week but him and Lia were guilty of ball watching in the first 15 when we did not have the ball, Stein is gone in 20 games, and we have Kenny and Carlos for another year and a half. I know Ernie has some players he will not want but you would think with the imports, you need players that can flat out play. Do our 5 do that? Food for thought. When you throw in Brockie and the fact that none of these players work well together, what does Ernie do?

The funniest moment in the match has to be the 'You're so shit your fans wont even watch' when they did the Posnan. Came through brilliantly on TV and I'm not sure if any other supporter group has chanted that to them but hopefully it makes them think what dicks they look like. Fucking class YF

Hmmm.  Thought Reira keeps getting better and better.  Two things made today extra tricky:  1) The big  3 player midfield swap. 2.)  Hernandez having a pretty crap day.

I thought Stein was fine - he picked up a lot of ball a bit deep, sadly the ball in the final third seemed to find Lia who was obviously not playing in an "orthodox" DM role for most of the match.  When hicks got hooked it was clear he'd been asked to play higher (to better support/compensate Hernandez).  Pulling hicks so soon was a bit mean I thought...

WSW aren't  a shit team, and we were very competitive - coulda had 3 points.

You really are a miserable sod Steve o. How many tackles did he make... how much ground did he cover. He actually played some nice passes today. Do you go to a match the the sole intention of coming away saying Liable is useless. You are a broken record. Give some credit where credit is due

We possibly deserved the win but we've said that maybe 4 times already this season. There comes a time when we actually need to get the 3 points.

Whatever the opposite of 'clinical' is, we're it!

Did anyone spot Wheres Wally tonight? I think tonight he was wearing Black

sthn - I didn't see much of that from Lia at all. He barely touched the ball in the first half.

I just don't see what he offers other than conceding possession several times per match.

I don't know how much ground he covered but I will look up the stats if I can find it.

Fuck the music. Two home games in a row now. Eugh.

I think you hit the nail on the head JV (post #375). Our squad is a mishmash of players that don't really fit together. we don't have the pace to play a quick counterattacking style, we don't have the strikers to play longball or get-it-wide-and-cross styles, and we don't have enough midfield creativity to play this shortpassing game. We need either a quality ball-playing defensive midfielder, or a traditional targetman, or a Smeltz-style goalbox poacher. Preferably at least the first one, so we can commit an extra man forward. Signing Cunningham appears to have been a serious mistake. He doesn't offer anything which we didn't have in the squad anyway and he takes up a valuable visa spot.

On the plus side, our back 4 was impressive today. IMO Durante was man of the match but the other 3 all looked good as well.

I don't think anyone was poor and some, Siggy and Dura, particularly had amazing games. I'm off to work but the replay is on at 10:30 so will watch the match when I get home tomorrow.

I thought the ref destroyed a lot of confidence and rhythm particularly after the Carlos yellow, and it will be interesting to see how many fouls were justified. Any folk who watched it on the telly care to comment?

Disagree about Lia as I think he's one of the weak links, but in general agree.

Playing reasonably well but not winning is starting to get pretty frustrating.

Don't forget WSW were missing 3 of their better players and haven't been quite as good yet this season. Not sure they are a shoe-in for the final this time.

I can accept there is a lot of frustration but to say we were shit and all that other stuff (not necessarily directed at you Steve-O)

I feel a lot better about this team and how we play this year than for the last 2 years. We have some players that don't work but the football is night and day better. When it click, we will knock someone over long on and out of the park. You can see it, its just frustrating.

The ref Telly watchers? How many did he get right or wrong?

I thought playing the loss to Sydney on the big screen as the players warmed up worse...

a couple of points on the match

1, Hate the new stadium management. Whats with the dickhead DJ stuff? Now we have an idiot on the big screen in way cool shades pretending he is part of the action. F**k off! this is football not eggball....we can entertain ourselves. F**k off the music when people are chanting too! Also don't like the vid of Ifill and Siggy doing the big "don't run on the pitch and be good children shit..." That is not the job of the players to enforce petty stadium rules. How many people have run on the pitch at a Nix game in seven years?.....ZERO. So stop with the big brother stuff. I pay to be entertained not have the bloody stadium rules shoved down my throat . Sorry about the rant but I have been to many stadiums all over the globe and the ROF is the worst for petty rules.

2, As for the match. Once again a heart breaker. Everyone played OK, We defended really well, we moved the ball really well, but we just can't seem to get our shots into the net. I thought the top end worked well. Cunningham/ Stein works way better than Brockie/ Stein. Our defense was outstanding. I am not sure what the solution to our not winning is.....except I still think we are short of 2 or 3 quality players.

In Ernie we trust.....but a win before Xmas would be a real nice present

Decent game against WSW B team.  But no punch.

JV's dead cert Cunningham ;) is looking more a dead loss at the moment as an import level player, though (I hope) that is still maybe too early to call.  Good enough to be on the park, which is a heck of a lot better than many of our previous imports, but he's looking like he's not good enough to be winning games regularly; and his poor card history is starting to show up in his play. Still hope I'm wrong on that one.

Lia again played well enough and I think we are seeing more out of him this year.  But he's still another journeyman that we know cannot make anything happen to produce a result.  And to be fair you'd say the same of Riera, so far.  Happy enough to have in the squad, but ...

Hicks worst game, but he still did a lot of good work, just overplayed his hand and got caught on the ball quite a lot, plus was not quite on the wavelength with those in front of him several few times.  Probably hurt us that he had been pulled already before Carlos decided he'd limp about and have a rest - maybe being harsh, but it looked that way to me.  Things did look very promising several times but we failed to finish and other times the four up front were on slightly different wavelengths.  I'd suggest it's getting better and whoever said that we are overcomplicating it up front - I agree.  

Manny just great at LB, Siggy and Dura had great games, as did Fenton, albeit just lacking a bit of final ball quality.  It's a bit of a problem that the back four were our best and we have to remember who WSW were missing.  

Tyler looked like he took on too much, but got off one decent shot, and he's not had much play.  Still young and we needed a goal so probably got sent on to have a crack.  Boxall showed some great wheels, but also looked a bit lost - as JV said, understandable playing out of position, but you want to take your chances.  Good that they both got a bit of a run.

Despite all the above we played well enough to win the game if only Carlos had his mind on the job and put away one of the two apparent sitters (as they seemed at the game).  Clearly Carlos is class but if players don't deliver the runs he wants on a plate he sulks.  Clearly showed frustration several times, but I thought it was to some extent his desire to stand and deliver and not take responsibility to take it forward himself.  Pretty heavily marked though, so it is probably fair he needs players working off him better.  Doloras may have been exaggerating but with a few exceptions his free kicks and corners have been dissapointing this year imho and he's missed a number of game changing chances this season that I would have expected him to nail.  And having said Carlos should have scored, WSW wasted one or two as well.

I'd now be thanking Stein and Ifill next year and moving them on - that's a bucketload of cash for a couple of new strikers with younger legs and a bit of pace and quality. If we can find them.  Stein has some good touch and along with Carlos was good for maintaining a lot of possession, but he's not threatening.  Ifill is an expensive bit player who now (perhaps slight exaggeration, but we are heading this way) looses possession almost as often as not.  Yes Ifill is class, and yes he is still the one player who can create a goal from next to nothing; but I don't see him going another year, and certainly not on his current $s

Enjoyed the game, we are playing some good football and we were definitely in the hunt.  Donut on the board, just the point on the table. Signs of life but  ... not enough punch, ... yet?