WPM R23 vs Central Coast Mariners | Sat 6th Apr | 7:30pm | Sky Sport Select

I think Kraev was at fault for the second goal - he just didn't really try to get across to block the run... but he had run his heart out for 90 mins, so I can't be too harsh. Conchie was sittting in the block and did put pressure on the shot - it just was too good.

Not sure why people are unhappy with us not being aggressive enough etc, until the 2nd goal, the tactics had worked brilliantly. Had we held the draw, the league would be ours to lose.

2 more thoughts.

This game showed how much we miss Rufer. Pennington and Salas were wasteful in the middle.

Sheridan has an engine and a half. Clearly a good athlete, and seems to back himself to take a player on. Can only get better and looks a really good prospect IMO. Torres is arguably the best player in the league and I think he handled him ok. 

Rufer got himself sent off didn’t he? That is more to blame than Conchie not stepping up to his player? 

What’s the deal with the Asian champions league? Would we be allowed to play in it if we win the league?

MetalLegNZ

I think Kraev was at fault for the second goal - he just didn't really try to get across to block the run... but he had run his heart out for 90 mins, so I can't be too harsh. Conchie was sittting in the block and did put pressure on the shot - it just was too good.

Not sure why people are unhappy with us not being aggressive enough etc, until the 2nd goal, the tactics had worked brilliantly. Had we held the draw, the league would be ours to lose.

Bingo. (Though Conchie two or three steps forward..!)

As well I thought everyone was nervous, even the amazing Danny Vuckovic. 
For us to score a goal usually takes 3 or some times 4 quality pieces of football together back to back. Look at Old’s goal. It’s not complicated football, but 3 bits of quality.

So often we surged into their penalty area with 2-3 pieces of class and scuffed the shot or chose a bad option. Sheridan beat 4 or 5 people, but played a poor square ball. Old, Kraev and Kosta did a move with a double nutmeg, but then failed a basic give and go. Kosta dragged a shot, Oldy just missed near post, BK hit a tame effort… I don’t think we were far off at all. We should have scored in the 5 minutes at the start of the second half. And it was possible we could have scored in the first, but we missed the final moment…

When they scored they were relieved as much as anything, both times. If we’d managed to stick to our normal game plan (and I also must acknowledge that we might have scored against lesser defenders. They were just constantly intercepting and clearing as well as the spectacular- Torres! Kaltak! Omg) I think it was ours. Just, but definitively so.

Unused sub

Rufer got himself sent off didn’t he? That is more to blame than Conchie not stepping up to his player? 

What’s the deal with the Asian champions league? Would we be allowed to play in it if we win the league?

No we wouldn't be able to as New Zealand isn't part of the Asian confederation. I believe if we won the premiers plate the Champions league spot would go to 2nd place

Half a Pint

Unused sub

Rufer got himself sent off didn’t he? That is more to blame than Conchie not stepping up to his player? 

What’s the deal with the Asian champions league? Would we be allowed to play in it if we win the league?

No we wouldn't be able to as New Zealand isn't part of the Asian confederation. I believe if we won the premiers plate the Champions league spot would go to 2nd place

With kiwi sides making up 1/6 or 1/7 (if Canberra some how makes it) from next season, plus a possible Canterbury side in the future, we should start asking questions about this.

French Polynesian sides can play in EUFA competitions, so why not change things in Asia to let us take part.  

Think how poor it would look if Wellington and Auckland cleaned up the Aussie Cup, the League and the Toilet seat, yet Aussie "also rans" sides replace the champions in CHAMPIONSHIP winner competitions.

Don't know if the Nix owners would overjoyed about having to stump up the cash for an ACL campaign.  

Outpost

Don't know if the Nix owners would overjoyed about having to stump up the cash for an ACL campaign.  

Guess it would depend though, as isn’t there more opportunity to actually make cash from participation and progression? 

Mainland FC

No point in blaming Conchie. CCM were all over us all first half and this points to the difference between Payne and the inexperienced Sheridan who was turned inside out many times by Torres. Would I blame Sheridan? No. He is a competent youngster playing against seasoned experienced pro. CCM were simply better team than us on the day, and looked like champions all day, even when Tim Payne and OVH came on.
It was a good game showing that CCM had more gas in the tank and did not tire all game. Their fitness level helped them win the game; and not having Rufer and dare I say Hughes did not help us.  This is not a failure on part of Chiefy or the team. 

I mean we kept pace with the for 90 minutes, scored just after they did and if it wasnt for that one moment we would have walked away with a 1-1 draw. Kraev should have fouled Doka as he began the run, but it was a tired attempt, then the space Doka ran into was where Conchie should have been. Conchie realised this too late and made a lunge but was miles away. Not blaming Conchie soley, but he was on the park as the fresh legs CDM and had one job! 
It's hard to blame Sheridan for anything, eyah he was up against a seasoned pro., but he did ok they didnt score due to him being out of position.

Im pleased that Italiano stuck to his tactics, and it almost worked, we still have a solid chance to claim the league, just have to hope that CCM drop points, which given their schedule is very possible.

Marto

Half a Pint

Unused sub

Rufer got himself sent off didn’t he? That is more to blame than Conchie not stepping up to his player? 

What’s the deal with the Asian champions league? Would we be allowed to play in it if we win the league?

No we wouldn't be able to as New Zealand isn't part of the Asian confederation. I believe if we won the premiers plate the Champions league spot would go to 2nd place

With kiwi sides making up 1/6 or 1/7 (if Canberra some how makes it) from next season, plus a possible Canterbury side in the future, we should start asking questions about this.

French Polynesian sides can play in EUFA competitions, so why not change things in Asia to let us take part.  

Think how poor it would look if Wellington and Auckland cleaned up the Aussie Cup, the League and the Toilet seat, yet Aussie "also rans" sides replace the champions in CHAMPIONSHIP winner competitions.

Unfortunately NZ Football seems to have no ambitions and rather take the path of least resistance thrashing Island nations to get to World Cups. What they don't understand is this mentality does nothing for the game here, nor the development of the national team which is stuck in 2nd gear.

On the Nix all I have to say is the best team will win the league and as hard as it is to accept that's probably not us. If he had had a fit Zawada then maybe.

Marto

Half a Pint

Unused sub

Rufer got himself sent off didn’t he? That is more to blame than Conchie not stepping up to his player? 

What’s the deal with the Asian champions league? Would we be allowed to play in it if we win the league?

No we wouldn't be able to as New Zealand isn't part of the Asian confederation. I believe if we won the premiers plate the Champions league spot would go to 2nd place

With kiwi sides making up 1/6 or 1/7 (if Canberra some how makes it) from next season, plus a possible Canterbury side in the future, we should start asking questions about this.

French Polynesian sides can play in EUFA competitions, so why not change things in Asia to let us take part.  

Think how poor it would look if Wellington and Auckland cleaned up the Aussie Cup, the League and the Toilet seat, yet Aussie "also rans" sides replace the champions in CHAMPIONSHIP winner competitions.

Apples & Oranges. Yes clubs from New Caledonia and Tahiti play in the Coupe de France. But NC & Tahiti are French territories. Thay are basically part of France. You fly Paris to Papeete and it's technically a domestic flight!

The colony of NZ left the colony of NSW in 1841!

From Wiki it seems the best result of a non mainland French team is making Round of 32. ie none of them have ever been close to playing in an UEFA comp 

In the 1988–89 season, French Guianese team ASC Le Geldar de Kourou was the first team to reach the Round of 32.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_France_teams_in_the_main_competition_of_the_Coupe_de_France

No idea what would happen if a non mainland French team won the Coupe de France. Would they be allowed into the UEFA Europa League? 

Apparently the whole French dominions thing is a bit mixed up. New Caledonia, for example, doesn't count as part of the EU, but Guadeloupe does.

Back to the Nix, and ACL. Seems like there is a lot more money (Saudi backed?) with the new ACL Elite competition starting up. Even the 2nd tier AFC Cup has good pay days for the two finalists ($US1.5M & $USD750K).

The agrument is all moot unless the Nix actually win the Premiers Plate.

Nail hit on the head. Well said.

Outpost

aitkenmike

charliec

loyalgunner

I was just thinking we need to shut this down and not let anything like the Roar game happen. Unbelievable.

 We need to be able to close down the game

We tried to close down the game from the first minute.  We need to have the balls to play and not just sit in until we are behind.  We were in first place on the table FFS

Well I for one am very glad Chiefy didn't try to foot it with them. We would've lost by a three goal margin at least. That game was a reminder to me that the Nix have been consistently punching above their weight all season, which is entirely due to Chiefy's tailoring a tactical approach to suit the limitations of a striker-less squad.

It was an excruciating loss but it's just unfortunate that if you take a player out of the Nix as good as Rufer, who is undoubtedly the best defensive mid in the league, it can mean the difference between success and failure. Whereas if you take, for example, Nisbet out of the Mariners line up, or Caceres out of Sydney, those teams will both get along fine with the seemingly bottomless pool of attacking talent they have.

I don't want to be too harsh to Conchie as I think he has a bright future, but that particular moment was probably 10% Kraev's fault and 90% Conchie's.  He had one job that was to cover the top of the box as a CDM, he had fresh legs, Torres was in the box and well marked by both Sutton and Wootton, what's the point of him dropping in the box defending Torres?  when he could see Doka running towards the box in acres of space.  That was tired effort from Kraev, very poor read of the game from Conchie, and brilliant strike from Doka.   BUT, having said all that, gutted with the results but still overall pleased with the effort from the young boys, considering we played without Rufer, Ball and Payne(most of the game).

A young guy usually get allowed a half-mistake and more senior forwards hadn’t given him a bigger buffer to defend that they could well have done. Plus he got out quick smart, but this strike was a golden one.
 I don’t know who was responsible for telling him not to get caught too deep, because it’s on them too. That’s surely most of the rest of the defense who have seniority…

Blaming Conchie is harsh. As a team we invite shots from outside the box as they are low percentage.

He was sitting in the block as expected. Kraev got beaten he stepped up and forced the guy to take a ping of his weaker foot from outside the box through a fairly crowded area... and the guy scored.

Happens.

This season we have been the team that's held back and let them take shots from bad areas. Then we spring a counter and score a great team goal.

It's come off most times this year, against crazy odds.. and we nearly did again for an important draw. 

Let's see a response from the team this weekend! Home with a good crowd..  we are still in this. CCM don't have such an easy ride home - Western are playing well and getting wins, Adelaide want to sneak into the top 6, so will want a win too! And newcastle ... are random as! 

https://theniche-cache.com/football/2024/4/9/notes-from-the-wellington-phoenixs-2-1-defeat-vs-central-coast-mariners

So then, brethren and sistren, what did we learn from a feisty Saturday night at Gosford in the shadows of the oversized sauce bottles?

With the captain suspended following his slippery stomp last week, the Nix lacked nothing for leadership thanks to: a powerful performance from Scott Wootton with the armband, the return off the bench of Tim Payne, Kosta Barbarouses’ cleverness up top, and enthusiastic efforts from imports Bozhidar Kraev and Youstin Salas. No dramas there. But the actual literal midfield activities of Rufer were not to be overcome by a collective shift from everyone else.

Rufer has presence in that defensive midfield role. He shields the backline. He moves the ball around smoothly. He’s top five in the league for tackles per ninety minutes and this is from a bloke who plays almost every minute he’s available for. Even when he doesn’t win those tackles (his success rate is 63.3% per Fotmob), he’s still affecting the play with a disruptive act. This may have been a rare error on the part of Giancarlo Italiano but Nico Pennington took over that role against CCM and... was a bit of a turnstile. He was dribbled past six times and only won 4/14 ground duels. Good in possession but without nearly enough touches. Probably would’ve been better having Salas or Mo Al-Taay there instead (then again, Salas was on a mission to fold folks in half with his tackling so it could’ve been two CDM reds in a row with him there).  

Not that it’s an issue they necessarily need a solution for. Alex Rufer is a key player for this side and he wasn’t there, which was always going to make the team worse. It did make them worse. But he’ll be back for the run-in and the difference will be felt if/when these two teams meet again, when Alex Rufer’s presence will be the biggest reason to think the Phoenix can flip the result around.

ACADEMY GOAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Flash back to that goal again, with Van Hattum assisting Old, and you’ll see an all-academy combination. Admittedly the move that led to the goal involved most of the team... but the specific assist to goal was born of WeeNix pathways. That seems to be the first time that’s happened this season, at least according to the official stats... though overall we’re now up to 6 goals and 10 assists from academy players which is the equal-most since Sarpreet Singh departed. The strength of this current crop is more in the defensive areas (think Alex Paulsen, Finn Surman, Lukas Kelly-Heald, Isaac Hughes) but the forwards are doing their bit too.

Ben Old has five goals and three assists. His breakthrough has also already gotten a write-up, suffice to say that he’s caught the efficiency bug along with his mates. He’s gotten so much more deliberate in how he hunts for goals, when he shoots and when he passes. The numbers speak for themselves...