WPM R4 vs CCM | Sun 10th Nov | 6pm / Sky Sports 2

You're not alone, we are all having the same problem of varying degrees. There are some tips in the forum feedback thread.  Or just go into your history to load old cached pages.  Those should still work. 

veterandiamond

having difficulty getting forum up on my comp,,,tells me im forbidden...is there a reason for this...being tech challenged im at a loss  why this might be...saw someone else mention this the other day but no other information...great result yesterday..im not a heavy poster but spend lots of time on here ..any advice would be appreciated 

nixin

Missing the kickoff-related: I wish Sky had a policy that when the ball is in play, the camera is on the play, and not on a lingering pan out of palm trees, coach reaction, player walking down the tunnel.
Many times goals have been missed, including last week nix v akl. But it's not just about the missed goals. 
Show the play!

They've started putting ads on the YouTube livestreams while the ball is in play too. I'm aware that I'm not really in a position to complain because of course I'm not supposed to be able to watch the games on YouTube but Jesus of all the times to play ads just about missed a goal last week because of them.

Big improvement in this game.  Much more fluent and entertaining to watch.  

Caveats:
1) CCM weren't great and haven't been great so far this season
2) CCM didn't really look to press us - or simply couldn't.  Other teams will.
3) Other teams may be more effective at the physical pressure than CCM were.  I think we can expect our small playmakers will need to get used to being worked over.
4) Going behind:  it'll be interesting how we go against a side defending in numbers. 

On the last point I guess we are all thinking we're probably significantly better off than last year - because of the sudden, new, exciting set piece miracle going on. But early days.

And I'm hoping that's also where the Rojas, Ishige, Colakovski skillsets and combinations will prove to be better at unlocking sides in tight defensive formations than we were last year.  

Hopefully the little play that put Colakovski through in the penalty area this game is just a teaser for what's to come.  

Looking promising. COYN  

Agree, and also wanted to add that Colakovski also deserves a bit of more time to get properly gelling with the team.  There is a bit of disdain I noticed in the posts, but he is a useful player with a bit of that nice energy we like to see.

valeo

Marto

Nommag

Cola is a bit disappointing ngl

I'd have given OVH a run instead.

With his limited minutes this season I don't think OVH has taken his chances

Get with the program kid, that’s 3 year old rhetoric which just makes you look a little silly really.

I think it’s partly wanting a game ready striker who doesn’t get pushed off the ball. Saw him get brutally out muscled against CC a couple of times so he’s not that. 

Also we’ve seen Chief freeze out David Ball while playing Colakovski and Piper up front with minutes to go. 

David Ball has an a grade football brain, excellent dribbling skills and generally can pass and hold the ball up. He has slowed, but also rarely dies with possession. 

Then I heard people say how good he was. At the moment he’s not as good as Liam Gillion. (That’s the right brother, yeh?) I haven’t seen him make much for himself or show much guile in his play as of yet.

Perhaps he’s doing defensive shape and duties better and that’s why Chief likes him. Perhaps he’s more athletic and faster. 

We also have seen little of OVH, despite a number of creditable performances last season when he assisted or scored or contributed to a goal. Often at clutch moments.

Going to be happy to be proven wrong, but I haven’t seen anything yet that he’s a significantly better player than the ones he’s keeping out or others who were available locally at various points. 

And the collar up thing came across to me as arrogance. He’s not Giggsy. Maybe he’ll come good, but also perhaps he’s overhyped and getting too many minutes.

martinb

I think it’s partly wanting a game ready striker who doesn’t get pushed off the ball. Saw him get brutally out muscled against CC a couple of times so he’s not that. 

Also we’ve seen Chief freeze out David Ball while playing Colakovski and Piper up front with minutes to go. 

David Ball has an a grade football brain, excellent dribbling skills and generally can pass and hold the ball up. He has slowed, but also rarely dies with possession. 

Then I heard people say how good he was. At the moment he’s not as good as Liam Gillion. (That’s the right brother, yeh?) I haven’t seen him make much for himself or show much guile in his play as of yet.

Perhaps he’s doing defensive shape and duties better and that’s why Chief likes him. Perhaps he’s more athletic and faster. 

We also have seen little of OVH, despite a number of creditable performances last season when he assisted or scored or contributed to a goal. Often at clutch moments.

Going to be happy to be proven wrong, but I haven’t seen anything yet that he’s a significantly better player than the ones he’s keeping out or others who were available locally at various points. 

And the collar up thing came across to me as arrogance. He’s not Giggsy. Maybe he’ll come good, but also perhaps he’s overhyped and getting too many minutes.

 Collar up is just his style, like socks up or down, doubt it's arrogance. He has hardly been with the team long so will take more time but I don't get why everyone is so hard on him. He looked much better last game and he has been a great player in the past, that's not likely to change with Chiefy working with him. I'd much rather have the depth we have this year 

No clue where all this Colakovski hate has come from. We've hardly seen him play, and from what I've seen, I think he looks quite promising. 

Would give him 7/10 so far, with upside potential, and that's on very limited game time.

Definitely more lively and creative than bringing David Ball on as an impact sub, as much as I like Ball...

More able to hold the ball? More able to find a pass and retain possession? More able to at least make sure we get a shot away and preferably on target from a counter? 

He’s done some good things, but some ordinary things and I’m yet to be convinced by him. It’s not hate. 

If we want to be a top club, there’s no giving players a pass when I expect more. He’s come in after Zawada and Kraev, and is keeping OVH and Ball out. 7/10 is fine for a game, but not for 3 games or the rest of the season. 

You’re telling me he’ll be fine. Chief’s selecting and playing him. I want him to do better than he’s done so far, before I’m happy with him as a signing. That’s not hate, it’s standards.

There are kids walking and talking who weren’t even born when David Ball last scored a goal for the first team. 

I’m playing the guy who got 6 goals for a rubbish Perth last season.

In all reality none of us can really judge how good (or not) Colakovski is gonna be, he's had limited minutes and as said above done some ok things and some not so good things. Like all of the team. I've been impressed by the two Japanese imports, both a game or two to find their feet but they both seem to be prepared to do the work and really take charge of a game. Colacovski may take longer given he's not starting. Competition for starting spots is going to drive performance, so I hope the likes of Ball, Rojas, OVH and Colacovski take the opportunites they'll get this season and make it a tough decision for the coaching team,

Think some of you really do need to take a listen to Chief talk about what he is trying to do and what his expectations are for when we can expect to see things happen.
Just dont get why some you are expecting something different and expecting players who havnt been together very long to all be on the same page from the get go.
Not sure what people dont get despite the long off season the squad havnt had that long to really get a good understanding. There have have been so many interruptions with injuries,late arrivals and guys away on rep duty the time all together hasnt been as long as people may think.
Think there are some really good signs of what is developing and some of you just need to have some patience.

number8

Good to win.
To be fair two out of three goals were a bit lucky, and on another day (last week?) none of them may go in.
We are not creating a lot of chances, we just 5 shots on target. And I was disappointed not to see Rojas for few practices minutes.

We never created many chances last year, either, and it went okay. We're all about restricting their chance creation, and then being clinical when we create - that's the identity of the team. You need to sacrifice some of that chance restriction if you want to create more yourself, and I don't think we're there yet.

ClubOranje

valeo

Marto

Nommag

Cola is a bit disappointing ngl

I'd have given OVH a run instead.

With his limited minutes this season I don't think OVH has taken his chances

Get with the program kid, that’s 3 year old rhetoric which just makes you look a little silly really.

Thank you for calling me a kid, appreciate that. Ask for my ID next time too :)

OVH was good last season, no arguments, but there's a reason he hasn't been thrown on instead of a Cola who barely has match fitness.

The Cola hate is really surprising, honestly. I think he's slowly grown into it and was exactly what we needed off the bench v CCM to tie things up.

Also, I think we're building nicely - I wasn't expecting to see the combinations we've seen from Ishige/Nagasawa/Kosta until later, honestly. I'll bet that we're above Auckland come seasons end.

That is presuming Auckland don’t further improve.

Jesus Christ, what’s with the herd mind? I want more from the player brought in as our plan b striker option and it’s hate. Learn to read. Most of you can’t be bothered engaging with what I’m saying aside from Ballane. And apparently I’m not allowed to say that I’ve found him underwhelming on what he’s done so far and I was hoping for someone ready to go.

Cola or Zawada?
Cola or Kraev? 

OVH needs to play wider imo, which is tricky in this formation so really should be competing with Payne or be in the midfield behind the striker, so not really in direct competition with Colakivski. 
However, the guy was effective for us last season and Chief is yet to find a way to use him. I think there’s things his stats don’t show- the pass to Kosta to pass to Zawada, his winning of a penalty, perhaps the goal Surman hit into a Victory player first and some good delivery that went unconverted. 

And if you look at what Cola’s tried to do so far, he’s lost possession much more than David Ball would and also yet to show the range of dribbling and passing skills that Ball had at his disposal. 

Chief has chosen not to bring in a more conventional striker like Ibusuki or Ott or some such, so Colakovski is his plan. I don’t think it’s a particularly different plan from our plan A and I’m not sure as of yet it’s one that will strike fear into the opposition defenders at a top 4 club the way Zawada did, from what we’ve seen yet. I haven’t seen his goals or play last year, but I’ll have a google. 

He seems to cope in defensive shape well, but doesn’t always keep possession on the counter to give the defense a spell. Maybe Chief’s given him instructions. 

Anyway, it seems most of you are saying 7/10, he’s doing fine. I’m saying fine is okay, but it won’t get us top of the table so hoping to see what Chief sees soon. I’m patient- it hasn’t cost us anything so far- but anxious. Let’s be honest CC were rubbish. He got one half chance, but was also muscled out just receiving the ball back to goal. 

Edit: watched a bunch of highlights and they show that 1) Taggart is phenomenal omg. Our defense must have done very well to keep him quiet. 2) Davy Williams is fairly good too 3) Some of Oli Sail’s problems are self inflicted. 
But it doesn’t tell us a lot about Colakovski. The 3 goals were good first time hits set up by someone else. He seems to be operating wider rather than through the middle mostly. But yeh- it’s a lot of him watching Taggart! Though I’ve said before our highlights don’t give you a feel for the game, just goals.
An earlier video from 2022 show him operating mostly on the counter and as a winger. 

Eh. In Chief we trust. 

martinb

Jesus Christ, what’s with the herd mind? I want more from the player brought in as our plan b striker option and it’s hate. Learn to read. Most of you can’t be bothered engaging with what I’m saying aside from Ballane. And apparently I’m not allowed to say that I’ve found him underwhelming on what he’s done so far and I was hoping for someone ready to go.

Cola or Zawada?
Cola or Kraev? 

OVH needs to play wider imo, which is tricky in this formation so really should be competing with Payne or be in the midfield behind the striker, so not really in direct competition with Colakivski. 
However, the guy was effective for us last season and Chief is yet to find a way to use him. I think there’s things his stats don’t show- the pass to Kosta to pass to Zawada, his winning of a penalty, perhaps the goal Surman hit into a Victory player first and some good delivery that went unconverted. 

And if you look at what Cola’s tried to do so far, he’s lost possession much more than David Ball would and also yet to show the range of dribbling and passing skills that Ball had at his disposal. 

Chief has chosen not to bring in a more conventional striker like Ibusuki or Ott or some such, so Colakovski is his plan. I don’t think it’s a particularly different plan from our plan A and I’m not sure as of yet it’s one that will strike fear into the opposition defenders at a top 4 club the way Zawada did, from what we’ve seen yet. I haven’t seen his goals or play last year, but I’ll have a google. 

He seems to cope in defensive shape well, but doesn’t always keep possession on the counter to give the defense a spell. Maybe Chief’s given him instructions. 

Anyway, it seems most of you are saying 7/10, he’s doing fine. I’m saying fine is okay, but it won’t get us top of the table so hoping to see what Chief sees soon. I’m patient- it hasn’t cost us anything so far- but anxious. Let’s be honest CC were rubbish. He got one half chance, but was also muscled out just receiving the ball back to goal. 

Edit: watched a bunch of highlights and they show that 1) Taggart is phenomenal omg. Our defense must have done very well to keep him quiet. 2) Davy Williams is fairly good too 3) Some of Oli Saul’s problems are self inflicted. 
But it doesn’t tell us a lot about Colakovski. The 3 goals were good first time hits set up by someone else. He seems to be operating wider rather than through the middle mostly. But yeh- it’s a lot of him watching Taggart! Though I’ve said before our highlights don’t give you a feel for the game, just goals.
An earlier video from 2022 show him operating mostly on the counter and as a winger. 

Eh. In Chief we trust. 

I feel like you're living in some blissful world where David Ball is 3 years younger again. I think we've all seen him age during his time at the Nix. Excellent classy player Ball is and a class bloke too but also nearly past it. Cola has shown more to my eye in his first few short cameos he's had when compared to David Balls last outing or two.

I feel like you're also completely missing the fact that out of everyone Cola has had the least time to gel with his teammates. He only just stepped off a plane from Perth like 5 weeks ago??

martinb

Jesus Christ, what’s with the herd mind? I want more from the player brought in as our plan b striker option and it’s hate. Learn to read. Most of you can’t be bothered engaging with what I’m saying aside from Ballane. And apparently I’m not allowed to say that I’ve found him underwhelming on what he’s done so far and I was hoping for someone ready to go.

Cola or Zawada?
Cola or Kraev? 

OVH needs to play wider imo, which is tricky in this formation so really should be competing with Payne or be in the midfield behind the striker, so not really in direct competition with Colakivski. 
However, the guy was effective for us last season and Chief is yet to find a way to use him. I think there’s things his stats don’t show- the pass to Kosta to pass to Zawada, his winning of a penalty, perhaps the goal Surman hit into a Victory player first and some good delivery that went unconverted. 

And if you look at what Cola’s tried to do so far, he’s lost possession much more than David Ball would and also yet to show the range of dribbling and passing skills that Ball had at his disposal. 

Chief has chosen not to bring in a more conventional striker like Ibusuki or Ott or some such, so Colakovski is his plan. I don’t think it’s a particularly different plan from our plan A and I’m not sure as of yet it’s one that will strike fear into the opposition defenders at a top 4 club the way Zawada did, from what we’ve seen yet. I haven’t seen his goals or play last year, but I’ll have a google. 

He seems to cope in defensive shape well, but doesn’t always keep possession on the counter to give the defense a spell. Maybe Chief’s given him instructions. 

Anyway, it seems most of you are saying 7/10, he’s doing fine. I’m saying fine is okay, but it won’t get us top of the table so hoping to see what Chief sees soon. I’m patient- it hasn’t cost us anything so far- but anxious. Let’s be honest CC were rubbish. He got one half chance, but was also muscled out just receiving the ball back to goal. 

Edit: watched a bunch of highlights and they show that 1) Taggart is phenomenal omg. Our defense must have done very well to keep him quiet. 2) Davy Williams is fairly good too 3) Some of Oli Saul’s problems are self inflicted. 
But it doesn’t tell us a lot about Colakovski. The 3 goals were good first time hits set up by someone else. He seems to be operating wider rather than through the middle mostly. But yeh- it’s a lot of him watching Taggart! Though I’ve said before our highlights don’t give you a feel for the game, just goals.
An earlier video from 2022 show him operating mostly on the counter and as a winger. 

Eh. In Chief we trust. 

Look, no one's saying he's elite but calling him underwhelming feels pretty harsh all things considered. I mean he's only played 63 minutes across 3 matches, and was a very late signing. He certainly hasn't been perfect and he definitely struggled against the mariners, but again, he's had little time on the pitch and with the team in general. And credit to him, in those 63 minutes overall he got extremely close to scoring for us. I really think we need to give him some time and the benefit of the doubt before being so critical of him. 

Also no hate to Ball but he's not getting any younger. It won't hurt us to experiment with new players over him seeing as he only has so much of his pro career left.

martinb, have you considered the possibility that Cola's collar got accidentally "popped" when removing his bib? Or maybe the extreme Gosford wind was holding it up against his will...? :)

On a more serious note, I'm not sure it's fair to compare a player we've watched for an hour to others we have had the chance to analyse over the course of 2+ seasons. Especially in a system like Chief's where players are expected to perform in several different positions. What he wants from Cola may not be the same as what he or Uffie might have wanted from Ball/Zawada/BK.

Personally, I like that he seems very keen to get involved. He was running around, getting himself into good areas and almost scored a goal after a good sequence of passes. He also doesn't appear to have an issue with getting involved in defense, which I think is pretty crucial to the way we play. It is true that CCM were not mindblowingly great, but they were being pretty physically aggressive so it's no surprise he lost the ball a few times. I don't think it happened to him a noteworthy amount of times by comparison to the rest of the team.

Also, really pleasantly surprised by Retre! Not sure what I expected but I thought he combined very well with Rufer - looked as if they'd been playing together for a while. I'm quite keen to see more of that.

Agree with the last two posters.  In particular, judging Colakovski on the basis of his one hour or so off the bench, with a new team, is not the same as casting our mind back over hours and hours of what we remember of Ball or Kraev or OVH in the last few season/s.    And even if Colakovski is not a star signing, he might have been a good value pickup - we won't know the price tag.
Let's not forget that the very first appearance/s by David Ball were in the Australia Cup where he could not convert a penalty during the run of play, and not during the penalty shootout in the same game either.  So we all know not to judge a new player by the first few games.

Just on Bally, in this recent post I’m not talking about what he is now, but what he offered us in the park for 5-6 years or whatever it was. And Colakovski is a different kind of player to that. Ball often looks to slow the play and pass. I think Cola gets the ball turns and goes most of the time. Or looks to play quickly and directly. 

Agree on Retre. He seems very decent. 

I mean- yeah if Colakovski needs a pre-season to settle he’s not ready to go now. Sure the collar is a bit irrelevant, but I’m not having a go at the player. (That said I don’t have much time for Grealish and his silly socks either. A decent Mohawk however…) It’s Chief I’m questioning.

We need him to do two things- 1) hold the ball (or win a free kick) and get it upfield and keep it there to give the defense a break if we are under the cosh. 2) counter attack and link with other players to get us a goal. 

Based on the videos he seems more suited to 2, but as you say combinations are better with more time. 

At the moment he’s got a bit of time to step up and that’s okay. Ishige missed an open goal and Kosta has been good, but not unplayable and lethal as he was at times last season. Early doors.

Anyway, we have devoted more to this than it deserves! 

Yeh so my concern is plan B and plan A are similar and so perhaps fail to exploit defense weaknesses, and that we haven’t dominated the last 10 minutes as much as I’d hoped. 

Yep, no clear Plan B.  But I think we're a Plan A+B+C side.  

Plan A fast transition goals.
Plan B set piece goals.
Plan C neatly worked goals from passing sequences in tightly defended areas, i.e. goals against sides parking the bus.  Which Plan B also contributes to.

I think Chief has improved us in all three areas.  Though more proof of the pudding required.  Especially over Plan C.  But a few hints of how Plan C might go in the last game.  Which I was enjoying.  We've been lousy against tight defenses for a while, mostly aimlessly passing around outside the box.  

With us being so short this year - excepting the guys who will come up for set pieces and maybe OVH - it was good to see that near thing with Cola on the end of some nice passes in tight spaces in the box.

But as you say, martinb, all to be proven.  And we'd maybe be more comfortable with Chris Wood up front haha.

I'm looking for Colakovski to be a contributor/depth for Plans A and C.  I can see OVH competing with Cola for that role, and that's good, though I've not seen him particularly effective in those tight spaces zones.  We'll see.

As well I feel like plan C is sometimes to hold possession until they press us deep then to play through them quickly, which is similar to hitting them on the transition. Drawing out their defense and getting in behind. 

Praline

Is this match on sky open? They said at beginning of season one match a week would be broadcast on open in nz. Auck don’t play this w/e - does this mean we can watch? Phoenix

By my reckoning, so far Sky have shown these games FTA.
R1: AKL v BRI
R2: AKL v SYD
R3: WLG v AKL
R4: ADL v WUN
Reinforcing the perception that to get any media love in NZ (usual individual journos excepted), the Nix need to move north.

wolfman

Praline

Is this match on sky open? They said at beginning of season one match a week would be broadcast on open in nz. Auck don’t play this w/e - does this mean we can watch? Phoenix

By my reckoning, so far Sky have shown these games FTA.
R1: AKL v BRI
R2: AKL v SYD
R3: WLG v AKL
R4: ADL v WUN
Reinforcing the perception that to get any media love in NZ (usual individual journos excepted), the Nix need to move north.

Indeed they could have shown the Nix vs CCM game but felt that would cut into their paying base.

coochiee

The Chief speaks 🫡

That cheeky grin says it all 💛

No game this weekend, the Men have are off on their International window. We will be back on the 24th of Nov for the Unite Round. pic.twitter.com/GD3hXQeNPS

— Wellington Phoenix 🔥 (@WgtnPhoenixFC) November 11, 2024

Hail    the Chief!!

Also, I've watched the "Pied" Piper at practices. He is a solid unit meaning he isn't easily pushed of the ball and if he gets his chance to play up front he & Kosta are going to score goals.