vs Planes Sunday 4:30pm

Guy wearing the heart shirt was loving the goal Fenton scored

 All the faults that we are complaining about are not new. They have been around for a couple of seasons. I have mentioned this before and have had abuse thrown at me for simply stating the facts. They are quite simple. We have not recruited well and a lot of the players we have are simply not good enough.

Lochhead just NOWHERE near the ball for his red card.  Terrible.

And that goal was terrible.  Paston had to get it, had to.

It was pretty ugly. Paston should have had that under control.  I think it's moss man time for our next game.

 Ha ha ha!!   

Agree with most of what has been said.  Couple of points.

On Cernak OK-or-good?  I thought in his 15mins or so Cernak made the rest of our central midfield options look totally second rate.  That's any player we have played in a central attacking midfield position since the team started.  Strong, fast, great passing range and speed and seemed to have good football nous.  Brockie was so flat footed and surprised at one of the balls Cernak played from depth with pace off a turnover he created, within a foot of Brockie between the two CBs, that Brockie  ... totally failed to move.  A touch on that pass to turn and shoot was a dead set goal.  We'd moved to the shade side so had a perfect view of that.  I thought he played some great balls that a decent player might have anticipated, but our guys are so used to a poorer standard of passing that they did not react.  I am probably labouring it a bit, but that's the way I interpreted what was happening.  Only 15mins, but keen to see more.

Lots saying the second half was poor and lacked intensity.  I thought defensively we were a bit looser on them, but we made several chances and a lot of quick breaks getting forward.  Our problem is lack of finishing quality and organisation.  I think we very much suffer because we do not have one natural instinctive striker in the squad, just a dozen or so wide midfielders Ricki has tried to convert.  And we  still, as others have said, fail to play the right cutback to players that should be making the late run to the top of the box.

Ordinary game from two ordinary sides, entertaining enough largely because it was close.  One positive is that we should be on the table about where they are.

The other positives for me are:

- Cernak

- we held a reasonable crowd.  i think with that weather with the team on a reasonable run we would have got 8-9k, so i reckon we've dropped a couple of k of fairly regular support due to the standard of play and poor results. I thought we might have dropped more.

- lochhead cannot play next week

- Totori surely has proved he must get more game time, in the reserve side.

- we were much improved for Ifill and Manny replacing Smith and Lia.

- despite some saying the effort wasn't there in the second half, I think it was, we were just disorganised and lacking combination from the number of changes.  i thought we got improved effort all through the game.  mind you, compared to previous weeks second halves that is not saying a lot.  But hey, I thought they did keep up a decent workrate on a hot day.  But easier to keep your heads up I suppose when you are not 2+ goals down by around halftime.  I did say this was a positive ...

- i thought Fenton did pretty well in that more central position, but agree he's got room to improve.  But Cernak will do better straight away I think.

The negatives

- still playing very ordinary at best overall (but as above, that might still get 5th/6th in this league)

- Ricki still seems to have no idea.  Stein for Brockie was so obvious a sub to make, and the rest of his subs really did not help. [Edit: and agree with Austins post following about what a coach should be doing]

- agree Greenacre seems to have added nada, zilch, zero. 

He is absolutely right.

Also, big thumbs down to the people who started chanting 'F*ck off Gareth'. I'm all for a bit of banter, but telling Gareth to f*ck off was completely out of line. Never again please people.

Two average teams serving up an average game.

I thought Cernak looked sharp when he came on. Maybe he's the man to provide a bit of spark in midfield.

Totori? Anyone who thinks he should start needs their head read, in my opinion.

Paston was blatantly at fault for the goal. There is no way anyone can make excuses for him.

Lochhead? Don't have to say a word. Speaks for itself.

Better performance than last week (obviously). Given the circumstances we are currently in, I'll take a draw. Not happy with a point, but I'll take it.

Not sure the boos I heard on telly at the end were warranted. Thought the players put the effort in. Bottom line is that I suspect that there won't be any big changes, on or off the park, this season so we need to look for any positives we can find.

Don't stop believin'!

 Didnt like the boos either,so just left as soon as the whistle went thoroughly pissed off yet again.

Does seem the zone has a lot of casuals in it these days,which could explain why things seem so off at times.

You seem to make this claim about once or twice a week.  I've ignored it until now but seriously, let's just be clear.  What I said was if we sit back and just accept mediocre rubbish the likes of which we've been served up until now, nothing will ever improve.  We as fans can have a POSITIVE impact on the club but letting them now when what we're seeing isn't good enough.  That's really not that difficult to comprehend and in fact was actually said in the context of off field pressure.  It had nothing to do with booing the team etc.  I've never done it with any team I watch and I've no reason to start now.

The Yellow Fever forums stopped representing phoenix fans opinions in general a long time ago

morgan based chants were crap for me. thought everyone was talking up supporting the side rather than associating ourselves with gareth. Chant selection is definitely not as good as it once was

Random thoughts on yesterday's game;

Good crowd all things considered

Anti Gareth chants a disgrace

I wonder what Stein was thinking sitting on the bench watching Brockie sleep walk through the game

I wonder what a decent coach like Ange P could do with Boyd and Fenton's talent

Cernak looks like he can play a bit

Looking forward to seeing "not Lochhead" at left back

Anyone seen the real Andrew Durante

You have to laugh at the delusional off season comments that Sigmund would show ADP and Heskie a thing or two - they've both had Sigmund in their back pockets (that's no disgrace by the way given the calibre of the two players)

Moss please - if for no other reason than Paston's distribution is terrible - can't remember if Moss's is any better but time for a change

Hoofball is the pragmatic style for the Nix given our team's skill set but, as my wife so succinctly puts it - it's boring

For an aging player Bertos still has some wheels

The way I interpreted most of the so called 'Anti-Gareth' chants was that they were more self-mockery than having a go at Gareth. Case and point is the "If you are pathetic clap your hands". The chants that ventured towards and included 'F*ck of Gareth' were a disgrace, I concur.

jr and I sat in the Zone for this one ( our second time ever there). We left soon after the "fuck off Gareth" chants started. FOr Christs sake , that was really infantile. I'm not a big fan of his , he could keep his yap shut a bit  , but really??

We liked the look of Cernak ; seems like he has a bit about him. Some of his vision and passing was very good- shame others weren't on  the same wavelength to make the most of it ( Brockie)

Greenie the player was far more influential than Greenie the coach.Some of the runs that Heskey made for the Planes , Greenie would have made for us. Pulling defenders away... Can't remember Brockie ever doing that.

Heskey is a beast- in the first half ( I think) , Siggy ran into the back of him  and went ass over tit backwards , claiming a free kick as he fell. Never a free , Siggy- you just got schooled. I thought Heskey was very good yesterday.

I observed Cernak in the warm up, he looked like the new guy, had to look what the others do, and then copied the exercises.

Cernak tried some good passes to Brockie, but he was to static, Stein would maybe a better partner for him, faster, more creative in the runs.

I enjoyed the match. We should build on that.

Did not hear the anti Gareth chants, but I think it's childish.

Highlights of the Wellington Phoenix v Newcastle Jets A-League match

 It was a tale of two keepers I feel. Paston looked shaky all game and though I don't envy anyone trying to compete with Heskey in the air at that kind of range, Paston should have had that under control. I thought their keeper was really good, stopped a number of decent shots and kept the Jets in the game.

Thought Cernak looked decent, certainly worth more game time. Lochhead was looking great until that tackle - the ref was pretty consistent for most of the game and yet it seemed noone altered their game to cater to that.

Why are people blaming Greenie all of a sudden, did I miss something?

we're trending

 He's this week's designated scapegoat.  It will have changed by next week.