Ernie! Another Week, Another Mountain Of Possession, Another Loss
Teach us how to score mate
If I were lazy, I'd copy and paste the last few weeks/months of Ernie! here. I'm only slightly lazy though so here I am, trying to come up with something fresh to describe the Wellington Phoenix who once again dominated the stat-sheet and lost. This time the Nix went down to Perth 1-0, at home and the Nix are now one spot off the bottom of the A-League ladder, sigh.
What keeps my head up, seeking positivity to distract me from this slump is that we have nine rounds left, enough time to mount a hefty comeback as coach Ernie welcomes Alex Jones into the fold along with our cast of injured soldiers. Clinging to hope, I recently had an epiphany that the Nix simply aren't very good, especially not in this 2015/16 version of the A-League and my expectations have now been nicely trimmed to suit this epiphany.
I mean the Nix are good, good enough to control 62.1% of possession, make 495 passes with 77.2% accuracy, whip in 25 cross to Perth's 7 and fire 11 total shots to Perth's 3. Those sound like stats of an A-League leader, not a team who offer little threat and are consistently read like a book; get the first goal then sit back and let the Phoenix have a fiddle.
Michael McGlinchey's shot, not a shot at goal, a shot at the goalie kinda summed where the Phoenix are at right now. McGlinchey is arguably one of the Nix's best three players (not that he's really playing like it) and instead of knocking a cross into the open half of Perth's goal, he opted to hit it back at Perth goalie Ante Covic who had only taken a few steps from his position at the near post. You'd expect the inexperienced Joel Stevens - who I like the look of - to make such an error, not McGlinchey but that's the Nix right now for ya.
Lowering the expectations does mean that I enjoy the work of Stevens for example a lot more. Win or lose, impress or resemble the fortunes of their team, seeing Stevens, Dylan Fox, Mathew Ridenton, Louis Fenton and Kwabena Appiah-Kubi get plenty of minutes is fun and should be beneficial in the long run.
The news out of Melbourne Victory, that Kosta Barberouses is likely to be returning to Wellington is encouraging. Especially as it sounds as though the Phoenix have offered Barberouses a nice little stash to lure him away from Melbourne, which along with the signing of Alex Jones - hopefully we'll see him this weekend - shows the Nix are being proactive about this slump. The Kosta deal won't see him arrive until next season, if it does go ahead which obviously won't impact this season on the pitch but the message this sends the players and fans is important; we don't belong down the bottom of the ladder, let's get up outta' here.
Talk about being thrown to the wolves, next week Jones could get his first run in Sydney against Western Sydney, who are 18 points ahead of the Nix, tied with Brisbane for the top spot. I'm not sure about your religious beliefs but I'm gonna send a prayer up to God, Jah, Allah and Buddha for the Nix this Sunday.