It’s a little bit mental to think that, having started the season with four defeats, the Wellington Phoenix could now be feeling frustrated at only taking a point from Melbourne Victory away. But here we are. The Nix have been increasingly impressive in recent times as their attacking combinations begin to settle into place and they were the better team in Melbourne from the opening kickoff to the final whistle. Defensively they were able to contain the immense threat of Ola Toivonen as well as this club ever has, Steven Taylor getting big raps for that one, and they moved the ball beautifully through midfield. Some of the passing and movement in the attacking third was simply gorgeous too... the only thing missing was a few more clear-cut chances and a goal or two to show for it but aside from that it might well have been the most complete ninety minute performance we’ve seen from this team under Ufuk Talay.

Jeez they were good. Bloody all over them. Especially in those early stages of the second half. The Victory did have a few spare chances in that first stanza, generally with Robbie Kruse involved in some way, but it was yellow and black controlling possession and dictating this game. Stefan Marinovic only had one save to make. And the Nix should have won, absolutely they should have. They played against ten men for the last half hour and there were several half-decent chances throughout. Nothing in the sitter variety but enough that you’d figure one would have been buried. Luke DeVere came closest with a header that rocked the crossbar and bounced clear off the line. Steinmann then volleyed over from close range but in some heavy traffic (just not quiiiiite enough patience to let it drop), similar to a Reno Piscopo slash over the top from a little further out earlier in the game. Ulises Davila had a couple too, one brilliant chip from the edge of the area and also that corner kick that he nearly curled in – although that was probably always going over.

Then there were the almost-chances. Libby Cacace nodding one across goal but with nobody making that near post run. Ulises Davila taking an extra touch instead of shooting as he collected a one-two in the box. Numerous useful crosses that didn’t quite get to where they were meant to. The overall impression from this game was a hugely positive one and thanks to the three straight wins prior the Nix have no worries with an away draw, this was still a lovely point to add to the tally. So don’t lose sight of all that. But yeah it’s definitely a thing that this team ain’t gonna get great numbers on the old finishing stat when the next Football Manager comes out.

Every Wellington Phoenix result so far has been decided by one goal or less. Two draws in there, both away to the Victory, comprising of the ‘less’ while four single goal defeats and three single goal wins have them where they are. Which means that each of those games has been vulnerable to that cheeky Moment-Of-Magic/Disaster-Mistake happenstance which is never more than a shot away. An example: Ola Toivonen had one clean effort on the edge of the area late in this one and he hit it high and wide. Old mate curls that into the top corner like he’s very capable of and the Nix lose. By that logic, you really do have to revert to Ufuk Talay’s wisdom about sticking to a process because even though the results have been streaky so far, the margins for them have not been.

Part of that is that this team hadn’t kept a clean sheet until this game, allowing for a frisky finish against Brisbane in particular, a game they should have won comfortably. So shout out to the lads for getting that one done because Big Stef has been in top form lately and he deserves a cleanie to show for it all. Part of it is also that this team just doesn’t have a huge amount of goals in them at the moment. They’re capable of scoring them in bucketloads if it all clicks but so far they’ve had to work extremely hard for their goals. Four of their 11 goals this season have come from the penalty spot. Not once have they scored more than twice in a match (although this was the first time they’ve been kept scoreless since the first game). Davila is the only player with more than one goal to his name.

As long as they keep on creating chances then there are much worse problems to have, it’s not like they’re losing games 4-0 or anything. But Jaushua Sotirio’s ineffectiveness in front of goal has been an obvious one. David Ball definitely looked like he was feeling the pressure of not getting on the scoresheet until his seventh game and he’s been excellent in the two games since but clearly he’s a secondary striker, an unselfish fella looking to link up rather than hunt around the penalty spot like Gary Hooper might. In fact after the Nix threw out all their attacking options at once at the end there it looked like Ball finished the game in midfield – that’s not something you do with a 15-goal striker... though it does make it clearer where Hoops might fit into this formation, just drop Ball into a number 10 role and have Davila either as a second 10 or a roaming winger like he started off as. And then Reno Piscopo and Ulises Davila both look like fellas that should be able to put them away but they’re also both guys who aren’t necessarily the most powerfully direct blokes either, especially Davila who is always looking for that extra pass. Which is part of why he’s been so amazing, it’s just that yeah sometimes you’ve gotta pull the trigger. It’s all part of that process though.

The Victory haven’t been living up to their name in recent times and under Marco Kurz they’re looking rather dishevelled. It’s all kinda disjointed and you suspect the players aren’t a hundred percent in on the vision like, say, the Nix are with their new manager. That might be why they quickly turned this into an extremely physical game and started collecting yellow cards like a team full of Alex Rufers or something (fair play to Roof, he actually hasn’t been booked since the third game). Seven of their starting eleven were booked along the way. A red card felt inevitable with these buggers hurling themselves around like bumper cars and sure enough with half an hour to go it was Kristijan Dobras who sent the ref to his back pocket.

Plenty of chat around this decision, all of it astounding to me. Well, I s’pose you’ve gotta expect the Fox Sports crew to find something to complain about but that just looked like a blatant red card. Dude goes leaping into a challenge with his sprigs five feet off the ground in the midfield with players all around him. You might get away with that in some areas of the pitch but not there, just outside your own penalty area where there’s always gonna be someone looking to challenge. I get that he won the ball first but no matter how many Aussie sokkah geezers on the telly try to spin that yarn it still doesn’t make sense. If you can’t physically remove your foot from a dangerous position after winning the ball then you had no right to go in that way in the first place. He would have won that header with ease. It’s just dumb and reckless and it really doesn’t matter how you do it, if you put an opposition player in this situation then you deserve to go...

Even if it was only a yellow then it still would’ve been his second so folks gotta chill on that one. Anyway it ended up being better for the Victory. With only ten men they now had an excuse for being able to close the gap between their defence and midfield, sitting deeper and looking to hold on to a draw at home. Which they did. And they had the ability on the counter attack to still make a couple things happen if the dice had fallen that way, in many ways the red card actually simplified things for the Victory and helped them avoid the defeat they should have copped.

Special mention for Cam Devlin. With Alex Rufer out injured from last week, Devlin once again stepped up in that deeper role and was straight up fantastic. Probably the best on the park, to be honest. He’s a wee lad but he throws himself around with plenty of force and the Melly Vix folks were ready to throttle him by the end of it, he won seven fouls including the one for the red card and there were a couple more that weren’t called too. Devlin is a busy player, he moves the ball well and he works super hard (which you can say about basically everybody under Uffie’s guidance). I’ll admit there were some doubts about whether he could play that role away from home for ninety minutes like that but absolutely no doubts remain now. Great performance... and a timely one because even if Rufer is back next week, Matti Steinmann is now only one yellow away from a suspension so that next opportunity might not be far away.

Also special mention to Tim Payne. With Louis Fenton devastatingly being ruled out of yet another season with injury, Payne has gone from a preseason trialist in midfield to a starting right back. And nobody’s complaining either because Payne’s done beautifully in that role. A few moments each game where he’s still figuring out the positioning and all that but this five game unbeaten streak has coincided with Payne stepping in as a starter in defence. Obviously it’s not all his credit, the fixture list helped and there was always gonna be a natural progression early in the season, but this Payne/Taylor/DeVere/Cacace back four has conceded four times in 471 minutes. Every other combination has conceded eight times in 339 minutes. That seems like it might be a good thing.

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