Adelaide are pretty freaking good this season while our Wellington Phoenix have shown signs of life, but have yet to put it all together on a consistent basis. That was the deal heading in to this weekend's fixture in Adelaide, that's the mince, cheese and pastry. The tomato sauce was that the Nix were without their All Whites and damn, we must have forgot to blow on the pie because the scorching first bite was another rough performance from those refs.

Hold on, munch munch munch.

That pie was still pretty good. The tomato sauce really gave my palette a wee orgasm and after that scorcher of a first bite, I dug in to that mince and cheese. 

First of all, welcome to the 'Coaching a New Zealand team in an Aussie competition' club Ernie. It's not easy and you have to deal with this kind of shit on the regular, but you've dealt with it admirably. The Nix were out played, Adelaide held possession super well as you would expect from a very good side and they created a whole lot more opportunities that the Nix.  It was one of those games that you'd be happy to get a hard earned draw from, unfortunately it just wasn't meant to be. 

Why was the lack of our All Whites the tomato sauce? Because it wasn't really a negative, I'm not too sure what sort of difference Jeremy Brockie would have made, maybe Michael McGlinchey would have helped us control the ball a bit more and maybe we missed the pace and attacking mindset of the injured Louis Fenton too. But much like the All Whites, the Nix showed that the signs are promising and that they have the culture to deal with these situations. Roy Krishna showed signs of the impact that he can have, while on the whole, the team showed that there's enough strong personalities and performers who can keep the team on track.

There are still a few issues. The lack of an ability to control the game was again clear, but Ernie surely must have opted for the counter attack style. Which was fine but there were still enough talented footballers on the field to at least try string together the passes, but the Nix haven't shown much along those lines this season. We didn't have a shot on target in the 2nd half, which is never good but probably more of a worry is that they couldn't hold on. Just hold on, do whatever it takes to not concede the winner, even if that means not being so ruthless in tackles. Just gotta play smart, sure the refs are against ya but ... nah there's no way you can judge how a ref is performing and act accordingly. They're refs, they change their minds like Mary.

It's hard to be overly upset about this pie/game. Sure it wasn't exactly what we wanted, sure the end result could have been a whole lot better but the Nix showed some heart for the contest. They battled hard, even showed a little panache on attack and came close to a perhaps not so deserved draw. It's all good baby baby.

Who Are Ya? G'day, my name's Josep Gombau. Manager of Adelaide United and a bit of a wanker. I'm a 38 year old Spaniard who worked in the Barcelona youth academy for a few years and have coached Adelaide since April 2013. You probably saw me run on to the field when ADL scored that late winner, which is completely illegal. I have no regard for your feelings.

Nek Week the Nix head to Perth. They face the league leading Perth Glory, awesome. A big road trip along with facing the best team in the A-League isn't exactly the next step you want to take after a loss like this. However this is where you either remain a mediocre, mid-table side or emerge as a low key contender. Hopefully the Nix can move on quickly, welcome bakc their All Whites and string some passes together.