WPM R2 vs Central Coast Mariners | Sun 16th Oct | 3:00pm | SS7

Bananas

WanderingSheep

YoungHe.\rt

Outpost

Crowd today? Looked smaller than last week but just as enthusiastic.

Thought I heard 7089 over the announcement system, but this is not gospel from my end. 😅 

Was there or there abouts, shame really given the weather.  That new stadium announcer is awful though. Get the names right and get that fudgeing rugby sharke in the sea. Good on the fever for trying to drown that out. 

Definitely should have won that. I think my fears of Payne being RB was there in evidence today. He’s not good enough in that position, nor does he go up the wings enough. It was clear as day he should have cleared that out wide. 

By and large we seemed a bit timid today, not sure why, but man, zawada and waine impressed today. Don’t think lists deserves any hate, was mightily unlucky but also should have shot first time a couple of times. Signs are still positive. Just need to get used to playing here again. We’re behind you! 

Was that the Freddie Mercury videos?

First one I assumed was an error.

Rookie move by the ground announcer, trying to rark up the crowd. Unnecessary shark.

AucklandPhoenix

Two games in and I think it is not too early to make a call that we are not going to be top 4 this season and have no chance of winning the league. Basically to do that we need to have picked up gold in our new imports. The polish striker looks A league adequate standard for a kiwi or ausi but nothing more. The Bulgarian midfielder despite having the best CV is simply slow as and I suspect will lose his place to old shortly. I don’t think the coach has won the lottery this time with those guys. 

Waaaaay too early to make that call, two games in no losses, scoring goals, we'll get better as the season goes on and we'll be challenging for the top 4. Adelaide and CCM are both decent sides, they will be challenging us for the 4,5 and 6 spots.

MetalLegNZ

Old was poor today off the bench. Shame, did well last week.

Waine gets better and better, strong on the ball with his hold up play, but also quick enough to make those runs in behind the defenders. Seems like a good all round striker.

I think Old tries a little too hard to impress TBH. He's got the skill but he needs to do what Waine has done, bide his time and take the chances without over playing his hand.

Sky Stadium gets worse season by season. I can just about live with monologue in Te Reo entering the ground, but when the announcer clearly can’t be arsed to get the pronunciation of players names correct, it does my head in. And, as people head off to get their chips as the players walk off after 45 minutes and then again, to the train or whatever after 90, do we really need to be told it’s half/full time?

True in some ways Prof. Old does overplay his hand but I'd still start him. He's a talented boy. In my opinion, there's an over emphasis on our senior players. We've got terrific players under 25.

Someone get onto Domey about that ridiculous Queen video clips played during the fooking game ffs. 

STOP THAT SH!T

I'm so happy that Pennington came on when he did but he should have come on as soon as we scored. That was the point when we needed his DM talents.

YF in good form today .. gave due respect to Ifill .. and got in full voice when that music video was dropped in. We're here to watch the football. 

Alf Tupper

Sky Stadium gets worse season by season. I can just about live with monologue in Te Reo entering the ground, but when the announcer clearly can’t be arsed to get the pronunciation of players names correct, it does my head in. And, as people head off to get their chips as the players walk off after 45 minutes and then again, to the train or whatever after 90, do we really need to be told it’s half/full time?

some of the announcements are required by the league, ie the half time "please behave" ones. The announcer not getting his own players names right is criminal and playing queen videos??? WTF???

kungfu panda

I'm so happy that Pennington came on when he did but he should have come on as soon as we scored. That was the point when we needed his DM talents.

Hr did the job he was asked to do, he was tidy in the midfield and that corner was brilliant,

kungfu panda

I'm so happy that Pennington came on when he did but he should have come on as soon as we scored. That was the point when we needed his DM talents.

 Are you Pennington in disguise? 

martinb

Outpost

KiwiMancunian

Not the greatest showing from Payne & Barbarouses but happy with a point in the end - also how did Kaltak not pick up a yellow card?

Thought Kosta was fine. But for a miracle save he's on the scoresheet, plus general play was ok. 

Payne is a bit of a concern for me but he wasn't entirely to blame for what was a very ordinary display of defending.

Payne has to be better than Elliot to keep him out and he mostly is, but he used to be Mr Reliable, but has had some jitters in the passed 12 months.  I’d expect him to have to step up a level or two as a senior player to hold his starting spot. 

You feel he's playing out of position, and needs to be back at CB.

Watched the game on tv (don't live in Wellington). A strange game, frustrating/boring at times and entertaining at others.  VAR kills the flow of the match and excitement of goals.

Thought we were pretty poor other than Waine who really stood out. His decision to stay in the A-League and get first team action instead of sitting on the bench in a better league, even if it meant more $ in the short term, is looking like a good long term decision at this point.

Kungfu Panda will like me for saying this: Pennington should of got more minutes, we looked better with him on the field. Lewis is one of my favourite players but he didn't look as sharp as usual today and maybe should of been pulled a bit earlier. In general we lacked urgency in defence and midfield.

Ugarkovic looks more unlikely to unlock a defense than Kraev which is a worry.

Some thoughts and questions.

Last week we blamed the ref.  Not possible this week.  

Why o why does it take so long to get a VAR decision? I could have got from Isle 16 to the ice cream seller and back while they sorted out the offside or not for their disallowed goal.

Rufer is listed as our captain.  Where does he fit in when he is fit?  Suspect on the bench only.

We need to take the arm band off of Sail.  He seems consumed by the captaincy thing in wanting to debate with the refs all the time.  In the first half he rang 60 metres to get in the ref's face when a CCM player got a yellow obviously wanting it to be red.  I think he has been watching too much egg ball.  I suspect that the refs consider the captains job to be over after the toss up for ends before kickoff.   

Speaking of Sail, he is starting to worry me as a goalkeeper, possibly believing all the good publicity he got last season.  He could not have been more in no mans land for their second goal if he tried.  

Kraev is also becoming a bit of a worry.  He looked the goods in the cup games on tv but I have not seen a lot to impress in two games watching live.

I think we need to use Zwada more as a target man pushing high on the opposition centre backs.  He has a great first touch for a big man but i have not seen him burn anyone in the two games for pace although i am not saying he does not have pace.  Agree though when he gets on board with a goal, it could open a floodgate.

When Ball is fit and Sasse unsuspended, who is in our first choice attacking system?

Having said all of that, in the last "normal" season, Talay's first, we had zero points from the first four games.  So, it could still be a bedding down thing.  

Kraev and Kosta didn't have great games I would like to see Old start but wouldn't mind keeping the Kraev/Kosta partnership for another game. I really think Elliot needs to start instead of Payne tho.

What I thought was weird with the offside goal was it didn't matter the head it came off did it?

He was in an advantageous spot because he was offside anyway, so even if played on it could have still been offside.  Or did that rule change.

I could not believe also the difference Sutton made when he came on.  The threat level down our left went up considerably.  Looked like Liberato was back

kungfu panda

• Ninja

  kungfu panda

  I'm so happy that Pennington came on when he did but he should have come on as soon as we scored. That was the point when we needed his DM talents.

   Are you Pennington in disguise? 

• Yes, good funny statement. But consider everything that I post as a question and explain intelligently why I'm wrong.

Seriously though, are you Pennington in disguise? I mean I think he's a decent player too but you only ever seem to post about him. 

kungfu panda

• Walsall Boy

  I could not believe also the difference Sutton made when he came on.  The threat level down our left went up considerably.  Looked like Liberato was back

• I'll rewatch the game again at home again to pick up on that, I remember the shot. Sutton is always a threat though on the left. Is he a winger or a defender?

 it seemed obvious from Isle 16 behind the goal.  he was open a lot when we seemed to go down the right all the time frustratingly. 

Another solid enough game with promising signs again. I thought Waineo was immense, Zawada looked great, Ugarkovic was excellent and Sutton made a big difference off the bench.

In terms of the negative, Kraev looks like he needs more time to click with the squad but I’m confident he’ll look the goods soon enough. Kosta was fairly wasteful and Payne was pretty ineffectual at RB I thought. Laws and Sail have me a bit worried too. They’re both good players (especially Sail on his day) but they both looked very shaky positionally today.

Next week I hope we see Old and Elliot start, keep the rest of the XI the same but maybe try out Payne + Wootton CB pairing? My preferred XI might look like this:

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Payne was poor, crossing was pants and just offers no real flair. Elliott was very good last week so was a little surprised he didn't get on, particularly when were behind.

Old didn't do enough to warrant breaking into the starting line up. My guess is, the same next week with maybe Payne in a little trouble for his spot.

Sutton and Elliot need to be starting. Especially Sutton imo

Or should I say Sootaan… ffs 🤦‍♂️ still getting riled up by the stadium announcer.

Seems like we will still be leaking goals for fun 

NZPhoenixFan

Seems like we will still be leaking goals for fun 

Go on Welnix, make it happen

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Monto

kungfu panda

• Ninja

  kungfu panda

  I'm so happy that Pennington came on when he did but he should have come on as soon as we scored. That was the point when we needed his DM talents.

   Are you Pennington in disguise? 

• Yes, good funny statement. But consider everything that I post as a question and explain intelligently why I'm wrong.

Seriously though, are you Pennington in disguise? I mean I think he's a decent player too but you only ever seem to post about him. 

 Or a relative, or agent or something. No hate at all, I've just never seen anyone post so much about one player. Pennington is decent, but would like to see much more from him to be honest.

Surprised at the criticism of Kraev. The amount of attention the oppo were giving him tells you how good he is. Did he earn us two yellows? I'm guessing we'll improve how we play off him over the season, and he'll learn to draw the fire and feed. Hope so. 

The way I saw it, one goal was a combo of Laws letting his man go free and Sail getting himself in no man's land (not the first time). The other followed Payne's 'clearing' header back central and what seemed like some standing off immediately after our first goal. Seemed like we were a bit too easy on both. 

We coulda/should had that one. And we should have plenty of room to get better still. 

CCM had no scruples hacking every Nix player with the ball after they got ahead. 

The good, the bad and the hmmm
Good: Waino's finishing and work rate. Ugarkovic's vision and decision making. Laws's enthusiasm. 
Bad: Defence's communications. Sail's getting into no man's land. Set pieces often not clearing the first defender. The ground announcer's pronunciation (again).
Hmmm: VAR taking forever. Tactic of hoofing it long seemed to go on all game. Crowd over a thousand less than last week.

Seems Sky Stadium are blaming the Phoenix for the announcer  shambles. Hope like hell they arnt  trying to reintroduce that shtye we had to put up few years ago with the ground announcer coming in over the top of fans.

Ninja. I don't know what to answer to that. I pick players to follow. I always have, not just in NZ. You've read my posts. I've lived in Italy and England. I have to say that of players I've followed, I'm more enthusiastic about Pennington than anyone. I like his stats, watching him live never seems to bear out his stats but his stats are true. And it's simply a fact from what I've followed, Pennington means points. Compared to when he's not playing. 
Today we got 1 point that we wouldn't have had if he didn't come on.

One of these days, Pennington is going to misplace a pass to give away a goal, miss a sitter and foul an opponent giving away a penalty all in one game... and kungfu panda will still be on here telling everyone how good his stats and work ethic were in the game. 

mjp2

Surprised at the criticism of Kraev. The amount of attention the oppo were giving him tells you how good he is. Did he earn us two yellows? I'm guessing we'll improve how we play off him over the season, and he'll learn to draw the fire and feed. Hope so. 

The way I saw it, one goal was a combo of Laws letting his man go free and Sail getting himself in no man's land (not the first time). The other followed Payne's 'clearing' header back central and what seemed like some standing off immediately after our first goal. Seemed like we were a bit too easy on both. 

We coulda/should had that one. And we should have plenty of room to get better still. 

CCM had no scruples hacking every Nix player with the ball after they got ahead. 

Yeah i agree they shut down Kraev well and I think he'll come good when he has another skillful player next to him like Sasse as it'll draw the attention away from him and he'll have some more space to work with.

Also comparing our first 5 games of the last 3 seasons under Uffie we've got 3,4,3 points so with 2 from 2 we really should beat that in the next 3 games. Especially once everyone's gelled together + when Ball, and Sasse are back we can really start to kick on.

I don't want to be negative, but how hard is it for the announcers to get the player's names right? It's really not that difficult. Maybe sit down for half an hour and do your due diligence and actually learn the player's names. Out of respect, if for nothing else.

Ninja

I don't want to be negative, but how hard is it for the announcers to get the player's names right? It's really not that difficult. Maybe sit down for half an hour and do your due diligence and actually learn the player's names. Out of respect, if for nothing else.

It really is piss poor. The pronunciation and Queen video during play were awful but his worst offence has gotta be saying “Bozda Krev” was being replaced by “Harry Van Sag” last week. They’re literally in different teams bro???