WPM R21 vs Melbourne City | Mon 9th May | 9:05pm | SS7

Oi Oi Edgecumbe

Put Oli Sail up front for the last 15 min

Put him up for the whole game.

Win by 30 and get a home semi, or lose by heaps and our shark for and against is slightly worse.

We want 30! We want 30!

Bananas

Oi Oi Edgecumbe

Put Oli Sail up front for the last 15 min

Put him up for the whole game.

Win by 30 and get a home semi, or lose by heaps and our shark for and against is slightly worse.

We want 30! We want 30!

Though he’s also a great distributor with a fantastic range of passing and vision, a good tackler and decent in the air so playing him next to Pennington as a deep lying play maker could be another way to go. Plenty of service for Hooper. Also only the one yellow I believe so? 

Bananas

Oi Oi Edgecumbe

Put Oli Sail up front for the last 15 min

Put him up for the whole game.

Win by 30 and get a home semi, or lose by heaps and our shark for and against is slightly worse.

We want 30! We want 30!

Winning by 30 doesn't get us a Home match, we gotta win our Finals match on the weekend. If we do that, we play the first leg of the semis in Welly on Wednesday 18th May (ask your bosses for the next day off now, just in case)

wilbaker

lineup (20).png 130.55 KB

I wonder if Talay will do something like this and go all out with the youths or still play the main 11 while resting a few key players like Ball, Sandoval and Piscopo.

We’ll play a full strength side so we can win 28-0 and host the Grand Final vs 6th placed Mariners

At what point does this game become a fix? Like one team is playing for the championship while the other has already signalled that they are playing 2nd string-ish. 

Good game for happiness insurance. 

We should try to win this + I don't like any City club.

Perth put out a bunch of youngsters and beat City 2-0.
They got lucky though.

The Phoenix are playing and they wanna win. 
Looking at Rudan’s ‘weak’ team there are a lot of good players. I remember Hamish Watson and that lad originally from CC who smashed in 4 goals. 
We’re often the underdog. Doesn’t mean we don’t have the desire to win. This season more than others there has been disruption to teams that keeps things interesting. 
As for midweek games, particularly the cup run, I’ve loved it. 3 days between Nix games has been a great week! Particularly with new players and squad players getting a chance to shine in different circumstances and at different grounds. 

Anyway, time for the squad to put some markers in the ground before the finals series and get ready to bring finals football to Wellington! 

Fire Up 🔥 !

RR

Bananas

Oi Oi Edgecumbe

Put Oli Sail up front for the last 15 min

Put him up for the whole game.

Win by 30 and get a home semi, or lose by heaps and our shark for and against is slightly worse.

We want 30! We want 30!

Winning by 30 doesn't get us a Home match, we gotta win our Finals match on the weekend. If we do that, we play the first leg of the semis in Welly on Wednesday 18th May (ask your bosses for the next day off now, just in case)

Oh piss i thought we were 3 point from 4th bit we are 4 points.

Never mind :( 

Looking forward to the young guns stepping up for this one. Will be a good marker on where they're at, at this level. Also excited to see Lewis come back into the fold, whether that's starting or coming on for half a game/last half hour. We've missed him dearly in the midfield.

I wonder if we do play an XI that's pretty young/inexperienced, do we give them a licence to show what they can do?  A little more creative freedom perhaps? Would be funny if we could get a massive Victory contingent behind us too, give the lads some encouragement.

Either way, COYN! 🟡⚫🦅

Bidois to score a hat trick before Rufer scores a single goal for the Phoenix

Going with waine ahead of fenton again is pretty telling

Riley Bidois the first player from Tauranga to start a game for the Phoenix since Tyler Boyd in Round 27, 2013/14. It was a 4-1 loss to a Melbourne team. 

Also first WaiBOP player to start since Logan Rogerson started (and scored) vs the Roar on March 25th 2018.

Manuel has looked average IMO with the little time he has been given, very interested to see how he goes.
Bidios has looked decent. 

MetalLegNZ

Manuel has looked average IMO with the little time he has been given, very interested to see how he goes.
Bidios has looked decent. 

Hopefully Van Hattum gets a good run also.

Smeltz4PM

Going with waine ahead of fenton again is pretty telling

 Well Waine actually tries to beat players instead of running to the halfway line, then passing back…

Sandoval injured or rested?

Not the best start…

Amateur ffs

I was hoping we would hang out the victory fans a little longer with false hope before we collapsed

That early goal might be just what the nix need to give them a boot up the jacksy.  

I hope one of the boys can score and give those victory supporters something to celebrate 

We are really not good under pressure…

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OMG just put Waine where Sutton is on the corners ffs

We’ve still got our 3 first team cbs on the field and can’t even defend a corner 

Embarrassing really.

Shark now we have to score 31

Could be a long night. Well that's an understatement....

None of the players have read the script out there. We were supposes to win 29-0, not the other way round. 

16 mins in... pennington yet to make a tackle.

They were quality corners, mind. 

Ugly ugly ugly.

Can't string two passes together at the moment and our midfield doesn't want to engage.

mjp2

They were quality corners, mind. 

 
Eh the first one if you had someone else other than Sutton at front post was an easy header away. Sutton isn’t very tall

Surman has given the ball away at least 5 times already. this is killing me.

Let's hope we concede no corners in our finals games

Pennington is no Lewis or Rufer... he really has not been a good enough replacement. Passing isn't great and he doesn't win enough ball.

wilbaker

mjp2

They were quality corners, mind. 

 
Eh the first one if you had someone else other than Sutton at front post was an easy header away. Sutton isn’t very tall

They put two corners in a row right on the button. Great pressure in front of the near post. Great flick on and follow up for the second. Forced the error with the first. Yes Sutton isn't tall but City did everything to make those difficult. 
It's not Champions League, but it's good to see that quality in the A League. 

still yet to register a shot on or off target and 30 mins in.