WPM R20 vs Melbourne City | Sat 9th Mar | 9:00pm | Sky Sport 2

All the players over to get a handshake with the ref. I bet! He’s been their best on the park. More time wasting.

As much as I agree regarding the referee's performance, we're letting ourselves down big time here

Come on Phoenix! 

Let’s go! 

Ffs kosta

Kosta...............

Fudge that was the opportunity 

Kosta mate… that was soul crushing. Not even a corner?! Not our night

Not our night

And there it is. Cards he couldn’t find in the first half. Useless. Done his job, helped stop our transition game early on. 

From the City games I’ve seen this season, Jakolis is a prize ****

Pennington has done well since coming on.

....hmmm that didn't age well!

And that corner sums up the last 86 minutes 

Pennington, moronic!

Kostas miss gonna haunt us

Even just a point here would keep us top for now. 

Outpost

Pennington has done well since coming on.

....hmmm that didn't age well!

 
Jinx! Rusty, rusty

That kosta miss kinda sums up our night. Trying hard but not doing enough 

Can’t watch. 

I think our attack got in its own way. Needed our strong base to launch from. 

We tried something and it didn’t work…yet 🤞

Getting Zawada back is so important. Class player, and he changes our game plan the minute he’s on the field. Hope his return isn’t far off

LKH better be dropped after this game, all I'll say

Disrupts the attack, kicks the ball away. No card. 

16 seconds Jamie Young

In the last ten minutes our defenders have done so much dicking around with the ball at the back. It's like there's no desperation. 

Alex King getting in the way of our move there is beautifully poetic on so many levels

Eh. Fudge that for a laugh on a Saturday. 

18-7- a clear win. 

Surman's defending at the end there was hard to watch. Man.

Oh well, the boys will hopefully have learned some lessons and then onwards and upwards from next week.

It's unbelievable that Melbourne were able to play well in the heat but weren't at all.. they deserved the win.

2nd best at everything tonight and got what we put in. But it is Melbourne and we never win there so not to be unexpected. Lets smash the smuffs at Eden park next week. 

Well that fudgeing sucked.

Ah well.  Time to smash the fudge out of Sydney next week.

Well that wasn't a good time for the modem to die.  Vodafone zero help. 
Thanks for giving me some feel for the game.

Gutting. 

What a strange week the women won and men lost

Losing to a directionless Newcastle Jets at home
Losing to a Sydney FC getting used to a new coach’s system
Losing to a Melbourne City missing their talismanic front three and Socceroos stars

Frustrating games to lose, to put it mildly 

AAMI Park it's just grave yard for the Nix! Lethgaric flat performance. The heat made it tough. Couldn't create many chances in transistion and when they did Barba missed. Match settled by a poor read on planned Melb City corner. Should have been a 0-0 or 1-1.

A game I feel where Zawada was really missed. So many free kicks won in MC's half, but no real threat. A day where Oska's size & class could have been the difference

Flush it down the toilet and move on. Macarthur will be tough for CCM tomorrow.

Disappointing, but a fully deserved result that. Poor all round.

Yup it was hot, but the fundamentals of football don't change because of the weather. Our passing, decision making, battling to win the 2nd phase ball and all round general play was way off the mark tonight. 

If we're going to win this bloody thing then we simply must be better than that.

Watching us even try to create a chance in the last ~10 minutes was dire with all the back passing - add to that the Pennington and Paulsen set piece. The lack of yellows was super frustating too, similar to Sydney away. 

Wish we’d gone with our 5 at the back or 3 in the mid of Rufer plus any two Pennington/Al-Taay/Salas…

We need to keep back at least one attacking sub (we know now in hindsight). 

Oi vey. Biff it and hope we do better from here in. 

YoungHeartHM

Disappointing, but a fully deserved result that. Poor all round.

Yup it was hot, but the fundamentals of football don't change because of the weather. Our passing, decision making, battling to win the 2nd phase ball and all round general play was way off the mark tonight. 

If we're going to win this bloody thing then we simply must be better than that.

Yes but you become worse at all those factors, when the body & mind are weary. I wouldn't be worried about the performance, unless it's repeated at Eden Park next week. And hopefully Zawada is going to be fit for the big games coming up. Sort of game I feel he was really missed.

I guess the Nix don’t really train in mid 30s heat like the Melbourne guys so you would expect MC to be better acclimatized. Our guys looked very lethargic. If Kosta had scored we would have happily taken a point. 
The referee was appalling. He let MC constantly break up our transition play with cheap fouls for the first hour. Then he decides it’s time for cards and books Kosta for a legit shoulder to shoulder near our box which wasn’t even a foul. A yellow card offense should be punished in the first minute if warranted. 

IMHO Al Taay should have started instead of Salas. Apart from the occasional spectacular challenge, Salas doesn't give anything in the DM role. Al-Taay gives 10+ Duels won a game, plus a few interceptions, And the odd creative pass going forward.

Al-Taay has earned the right to start. Salas hasn't YET. 

All it takes to beat us is a high press it seems. No Nix team I've ever watched has done well in those situations. Very strange