Lesson Number One: Don’t Overreact Whenever The Welly Nix Lose
The Wellington Phoenix were terrible last season, right? Somehow I don’t think too many people will want to argue that point. The Wellington Phoenix were also terrible the season before that. Any complaints? No? Rightio, moving on then. The Wellington Phoenix were terrible the season before the season before last. If you’ve come this far then might as well go that little bit further.
In their previous three seasons the Nix played 81 times, winning 20 of those games (not even one in four), drawing 16 and losing 55. Fifty-five defeats out of eighty-one games. They’ve scored 106 goals in that time, conceding 155 for a goal difference of -49 (in case maths ain’t your strong point). It’s been a little while since the Nix were a team capable of reaching their own expectations.
Obviously you know that already and I’m not trying to pick at old wounds here, just reminding you what we’re dealing with here. Sports clubs are entities of their own and they carry that psychic baggage around with them. It’s like the Ship of Theseus, okay. Here comes a philosophy lesson. Suppose that a boat, a famous boat belonging to Greek hero Theseus as the thought experiment dictates, is kept in a museum for future preservation. Over time bits of wood rot and need replacing. But what happens when all the original wood has been replaced, is it still the same boat? In terms of a physical construct like that, I dunno what to think, but I know that sports clubs are not physical entities – they’re sort of like composites of emotional investment. All the rest of it, the team and the organisational structure and the employees and whatever, that’s all sorta moulded around that emotional investment from those people and, most importantly, from the fans. Is that making any sense?
Maybe not but the point is that the Phoenix have psychic baggage. Then in comes Mark Rudan and he demands better, he says all the right things about effort and commitment and desire and sacrifice and perhaps not the right things in terms of player recruitment but to paraphrase (and repurpose) another nautical parable: the man looked for a boat or a bridge and found neither. There’s no perfect solution and you’ve gotta pick your priorities. Rudan restored a sense of belief to the team and the fans and for two weeks that translated into four points and some positivity.
Then the Nix were comfortably beaten 3-0 at home by Western Sydney and, last night, 2-0 away to Melbourne City. The City game was not pretty. Rudan made a couple changes with Mitch Nichols coming in for Alex Rufer and David Williams returning to the starting XI in place of Max Burgess (as well as Dylan Fox in for Libby Cacace, with Tom Doyle sliding out left). Which is funny because those first two moves sound quite aggressive in theory, but instead the way the game went it was just defence, defence, defence all night long. The stats levelled out a bit after the second goal as the home side took their foot off the pedal and the visitors rolled the dice with a change of formation, but don’t let that deceive you. The closest the Nix came to scoring was when they thought they were about to get a penalty for a handball from VAR only for the ref to decide it wasn’t even a handball at all and call for a drop ball instead.
City’s first goal was a rocket from range courtesy of Ritchie De Laet and their second was a slice of pure Bruno Fornaroli, rediscovering some of his best form with a curling strike into the top corner. The first was probably save-able, Filip Kurto reacting late to the shot, perhaps obscured by the plethora of defenders in the box, while the second was unstoppable by any keeper in the world. It should probably have been more but it also didn’t really need to be.
What’s weird is that this game seemed to bring out the familiar old demons in fans. Immense frustration at another inept and negative performance, nothing’s changed in three years, what are we even doing here? They sit back and soak up pressure because they know they have no other choice because the team’s so rubbish, the players don’t even care. Bunch of lazy bastards. Waste of time. Waste of space. So much for Mark Rudan turning things around, all he wants to do is sit back and defend. Didn’t even look like scoring, couldn’t string two passes together. Does he even trust his players?
Hooold up there, chieftain. The Phoenix didn’t actually do anything different in terms of tactics here than they did in any of the other three games. (And you can read all about that HERE and HERE!). The difference is that this is a very good Melbourne City team (going forwards, anyway, as long as Bruno Fornaroli is on form) and they exposed the flaws in the Nix’s approach. The overly defensive shape, five at the back with two holding midfielders, has been consistent in every game but City pressed guys forward and forced them to stay back, keeping them from being able to transition into attack as intended. There was too much space between the forwards and midfield, basically… or there would’ve been if the forwards weren’t spending most of the first half defending as well.
The attack/defence thing is a continuum. The more you defend, the less you attack. City’s ability to find space behind the fullbacks turned the Nix defence around and it’s a big worry that this will keep happening now – the cutbacks and square balls across goal are going to be murderous the way the Nix are setting up. Somehow they’ve got to stop guys from breaching them that way. They did a much better job of that against the Jets and Brisbane and therefore looked quite comfortable in defence. The WSW game it was a couple counter attacks and a dodgy penalty which did them in. This was the first time we’ve really seen this defence get roughed up in the natural run of play.
And even then… I didn’t think it was terrible. Far from it. They two goals were rippers and that’s what it took to breach them, I realise there could’ve been three or four if City were more onto it but that’s just the difference between the two teams. Mark Rudan has said all the right things, sure. That doesn’t mean this team is just magically fixed now. There’s still that baggage… and worse than that is a playing squad which looks pretty bloody mismatched at times. It’s not a strong squad and we’ve known all along that it wasn’t a strong squad. Why did anyone would expect them to go to Melbourne City this early into a season which we know hasn’t had the best preparation with some of the late signings and the handicap they were already beginning from and play gorgeous attacking football like we haven’t seen for four years from this team? These things happen as a process. Ask Stephen Kearney and the Warriors, it sure didn’t take four games for them to look like a competitive NRL team again.
That’s the main thing I wanna press on you here. If your perception about this team changed after last night’s defeat then you weren’t paying close enough attention because this is the level they’re at. In 360 minutes they’ve scored two goals – an own goal and a rebound from a missed penalty. There is a method to the madness, this team has a strategy for how they intend to create chances and score goals, but they’re over-reliant on one or two main creative players for that and opposition teams know that if you stop Roy Krishna then you stop the Wellington Phoenix. Good teams, like Melbourne City, will do that. Just gotta ride the rollercoaster. Get all zen about it.
One thing I’d like to see is the fullbacks used as proper wingbacks like this formation demands. Their attacking purpose is more important to the balance of the team than their defensive cover. And Louis Fenton’s getting beaten on defence every time anyway so might as well let him have a bit more freedom to get forward. That’s the strength of his game after all. Not sure if that would solve all issues, but it should help the team play better in possession.
The other thing is that this team has seen basically nothing yet from Nathan Burns and Michal Kopczynski. Kopa made his debut off the bench here, didn’t do a lot but from what he’s done with the WeeNix he looks like he’ll bring a range of passing and an industry that the midfield really needs. It might even be that he and Alex Rufer or he and Nichols are the best partnership – Mandi’s not played poorly yet but if Kopa’s getting ripped as he has been for playing reserves in the first two weeks then Mandi needs to be accountable too, he hasn’t exactly set the league on fire yet. And as for Burnsy, his partner gave birth this week which explains his absence, congrats to the Burnses.
Not gonna sugar coat it, Burns has been very bloody average since returning to the Nix mid last season but we have to believe there’s more to come from him (and I’m not talking about kiddies either, though of course that’s his family’s decision and not mine). If he gets back to his best then there’s a crucial extra option on attack, someone to benefit from the gravitational pull of Roy Krishna beside him.
Look, it’s a long season. This is only the beginning. I don’t really believe that a snap judgement formation change is going to help anything when they’ve spent ages working on this shape and problems are as much to do with player mismatches as tactical ones anyway. It’s too early for any drastic alterations and the only reason to be devastated by that game is if you were suckered into getting your hopes too high because they beat Newcastle by a single goal at home a couple weeks back. There will be more bumps along the way. It’s all a part of a wonderful journey, so to quote another great philosopher, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala… let it happen.
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