R8 vs Central Coast Mariners | Sat Nov 25 | 7:35pm | RoF

Games last night depress the shark out of me. Not only did we suck on the pitch but the crowd was tiny despite a good victory last home game, good conditions, and football in general beiing much more in the public consciousness after the Peru game. The club is a joke for a lot of people. If I wear Phoenix gear to work I am guaranteed to get multiple comments about how shark we are, and it's pretty much impossible to argue with. 

I'm sick of excuses and explanations for shark like last night. I don't give a fudge if CCM are in good form. None of that shark will save this club. We need to get some momentum, wiin a string of games at home, and shake off this loser tag or attendances will keep dwindling and the FFA and/or WelNix will pull the plug. I don't think #savethenix will work a second time. And ultimately, I don't know if we could blame the public for not getting behind us when we serve up shark like last night. And I don't know if we could blame the FFA for saying we offer nothing is we're getting hidiings at home in front of 5000 people. And I don't think we could blame WelNix if they got sick of pissing their money away on this. 

The fudgeing players need to take some responsibility and start playing like they give a shark week in and week out.

This is my 5th year following the phoenix.

In that time we have had one good half season.

There have been three different lots of coaches.

And yet if im honest I cant see this season now being any better than the others. I wont the team to do well, which im sure everyone on here does also, however last nights game feels like more of the same. 

The general public will never support a team that they dont think has at least a 50/50 chance of winning games.

I would really miss watching the Phoenix if they didnt exist in a couple of years. The question perhaps is, would the general public?

I'm still hopeful, but we've had too many shark games. 3 crap games. And not enough wins yet. We keep rotating our team.

To be fair this should answer the Smith v Mambo debate. 

Our backline has had to much chopping and changing. Will we use Doyle? Could we use him further up the pitch?

Abbas seems to be ahead of Doyle.

The biggest worry should be what has happened to Paracki and Ridenton, who had been our rock. 

One more win and we go up to midtable- and don't forget we are a game behind. 

Regrouping and a run of wins would be nice please...

We've been saying we're not that far off the pace, there's promising signs, and a few good games will turn us around for two and a half seasons. And we only had a decent run of half a season before that. The two seasons before that 6 months of glory with Burns we finished 10th and 9th too. How long can we wait for things to click? How about we just fudgeing do it already?

The Foundations. There is something wrong with ours?

Be interesting to see how Darje and Rado respond. Darje knew the problems tactically and how CCM got superiority over the Nix but he was at a loss about the lack of intensity.

We had no injuries and potentially the best team on the field. I waited for the halftime whistle for adjustments from the coach, instead they where even more hopeless. We all should expect certain standards from the team, but if they play like that more than once a season they have to offer free beer to people to watch it.

As for the impact of the bench....

Did enjoy the 5-2 and the 3-zip just before half time. I'm not not agreeing, but also I've got a little left in the sand timer of hope!

Certainly didn't go as well as it could have....

These types of performances make feel bad for Roy as you can see him playing his ass off and he clearly gives a shark. I think a number of players couldn't of cared less about last night's game.

Given that this is their living, and "you're only as good as your last game", I think you'll find they care a great deal.

They have a very funny way of showing it then

Darije's press conf suggests Keegan will be starting again. Keegan wasn't 100% before the match, so Lewis started.

Lewis did make some very good saves, that I doubt Keegan would have made. But how do you equate that to his distribution?

Okon's always been big on lifting intensity and maintaining it - and that was a big difference last night - though the Mariners played like a really good play-off side. Way better than they've been given credit for. 

Warnings signs were there for us early, though we battled out of that early Mariner's burst OK.

What puzzled our group was how flat we were straight after half-time. Only one side in it, and few of our players even looked like they wanted to know about it, be there, whatever. No-one took any responsibility.  In fact the Mariners really looked like the home side most of the 90 mins.

Did we underestimate them ?  Shouldn't  have - Mariners were great against Sydney.

Or is it just the old Phoenix culture issue surfacing again - Darije looked in shock in the press thing afterwards - if the players don't bring enthusiasm onto the field - no amount of tactical genius is gonna get you through.

However we've only played 7 games and get a chance to prove it was a blip of sorts straight away against Melbourne.  

Paracki said in an interview during the week that he was shocked at the intensity and tempo of the A-League and that it was a lot faster than the football which he played in Europe which was more around tactics.

Could it be that Darje and the foreigners had just gotten to grips with the intensity of the A-League at the start when it's kicked up another notch?

Darje strikes me as someone who understands the game well and is quite analytical. His comments about tactics post match are usually more in-depth than the other coaches despite not being able to express himself as well with English being his 3rd or 4th language, so I'm eagerly waiting until next week to see how he and Rado respond.

I thought we were absolutely sharke!

Haven't seen the game yet though so don't take my word for it!

As each week goes by , I find more reasons not to bother going. 

Agreed. Given the type of game we played, Lewis was actually the better choice on the day.  Playing out from the back wasn't a good idea when we could barely string together 2 passes. His shot stopping saved us a more humiliating scoreline

If we were able to pick any keeper in world football for that match we still would've lost it.

Can't work out why we were so poor, in contrast to other bright performances we've had. I might do some research into the moon cycles vs our performances to see if there's any correlation there.

In our first games it was clear that we were up for it from the first minute. We scored early goals and took early chances. Now we've had 2 and 1/2 flat games. That's clearly something to work on.

1) Keegan keeps us fizzing and the ball moving.

2) Galloway provides attack on both sides and more skill passing and pace than Mullen

3) Finkler isn't as good as McG

4) Watson isn't an impact player currently, Parkhouse is. Watson needs to start or not to be brought on IMO. He hasn't found his range or zone this season and getting a couple of minutes here and there doesn't seem to be helping. 

5) Doyle is a good player. Where can we play him? I think he'd be a better impact player than Watson tbh. 

6) Do we have a second formation? Paracki is the heart of the team, we've got to keep him at his tiger best. Having outlets for passes and proper Fbs helps.

My lineup for next week -

Unfortunately its obviously not working at present 1 win from 7 -change is required.

We are clearly not good defensively but more of the same wont work

 a 4-1-3-2 is my solution 

Krishna and parkhouse can both get forward and drop back when required.

Cut the opposition apart up front (hopefully) and hang on . 

                     Smith

Galloway    Mullen     Rossi    Doyle

                    Paraksi

    Krishna   McGlinshy  Parkhouse

                 AK         VID

Perhaps that week off at the last minute really didn't help things.

Darje needs to pick a back four and stick with it. There's been at least one change made every single week. Not sure how our defence is supposed to gel when the players are having to adjust to new positions or partnerships every week.

Abbas is clearly the favoured left back and Galloway is far and away our best right back. Since Darje has to have a left foot/right foot combo at centre back, then that leaves Rossi with either Durante or Mullen.

Central midfield pretty much picks itself with Paracki and Ridenton. McGlinchey could start ahead of Ridenton, but for me he should be out on the left so that Vidosic can play in the middle. By default that leaves Krishna on the right and Kaludjerovic up front.

Italiano sits on the bench. Doyle acts as our defensive cover. Parkhouse is our wide player and Finkler can come on when McGlinchey or Vidosic gets tired.

That leaves one place on the bench and I'd rather see that spot go to Singh, McGarry, Rogerson, etc. than Watson who offers absolutely nothing and will never challenge for a starting position.

That's not really fair, that was his chosen back four, he would have stuck with them if he could have but injuries and international Windows have forced him to chop and change.

Last night was a bit hard to...

Dick teasing the opposition by constantly fudgeing around with the ball at the back is becoming increasingly annoying. 

It either ends up with us under immense pressure and usually conceding a goal or it results in the big diagonal ball to Krishna.

Try playing it up the middle with quick short passing. It doesn't have to be a long ball, it doesn't have to be played down the wings everytime. So friggen predictable.

My take: Kaledzic is gone. He may or may not last out the season, but he's coming up against what Ernie Merrick found - a team culture which doesn't want to play, doesn't want to win, because it's only Wellington so who cares.

Sadly, there is an element of truth in what you say. The type of football we played in the first half of the first game was refreshing and very much not the normal Nix style. It was excellent to watch. 

However, there is indeed a culture and I think a lot of it has to do with our CB/DM/Am player with whom nothing happens unless he is doing it. Across the park and back to the goalkeeper style. Just what we did last season. and in the games said player has played, there has been a tendency to continue it. It is frustrating as hell to watch. 

The newer players to the squad are not getting used to their proper abilities and it showed yesterday. I wish they had some pride in the team badge and the club but it appears that it is all about themselves, money and egos. Very disappointing

Ha ha, well, Dura likes him at least.

You got my drift. Thank you.

Change of players, change of coaches -Still results the same.

If team culture is the issue, then the constants are the management team/owners.

As per earlier podcasts this year the GM and one of the admin reps noted aim is top 6, we arent likely to be a top 2 team due to resources etc.

If being 6th is acceptable in a competition of only 10 teams and that culture is coming from the top, then what we are getting is what youd expect. You quite often dont get where you aim to, but occassionally you do. Aiming for 6th means well often land up around 7th to 10th.

If nothing less than say 3rd was acceptable to management/owners then youd have a different culture. 

The culture comes from the top, and if the top is happy with top 6, nothing much will change. 

They may care but most of they know they are better than the bench..

i haven't be open about it.

You think Kaledzic has given up on us already? 

As for the team culture: it's his team. It's a substantially different team from the last one. 

I saw in the post-match interview a man who was wearing his heart on his sleeve, was a bit heart broken and was in NO WAY going to take this performance lying down. 

He doesn't seem like a quitter.

Thats so sad coming from such a loyal supporter like yourself...

A fish stinks from the head ... maybe its your ownership group ... I have no idea but that is such a sad post.