The Hierarchy

That, dear reader, is our baseline first choice starting eleven. That was the talk coming into this game, that Talay wouldn’t be rotating the rest of the way with nine more points on offer and second place dangling there on the end of the line, and sure enough when the team list came out an hour before kickoff against Western Sydney Wanderers there wasn’t a surprise to be had.

Unless you count Callum McCowatt edging out Reno Piscopo. That one’s purely on form, and although Piscopo’s been playing pretty well himself McCowatt probably offers a little more earlier in phases of possession plus he’s got that wicked combination with Libby Cacace going back to the U20 World Cup. Piscopo had started the last fourteen games he’d been available for so this is definitely a notable one but CMC has been excellent since the restart. He’s earned this.

That was the only position up for grabs, really. There’ll be a conversation next time about Tim Payne at right back once he comes back into contention (this was he and Oli Sail’s final game of suspension) and not sure Louis Fenton’s done enough to leapfrog him but the rest of the backline, the goalkeeper, the midfield duo, Uli Davila, the English strikers... nothing debatable there. Nothing to argue with. This is the baseline... and it would probably take something drastic to change it because while we’ve seen these last couple games that there’s quality and reliable depth at the club, as this game progressed it didn’t often feel like the options on the bench would improve matters a whole heap. Like, fitness aside there was nobody you really wanted to sub unless it was for a tactical change. Which I guess just confirms that we’ve got a pretty concrete starting eleven now.

The Disappointment

But they didn’t play like a peak Phoenix team, bloody hell. There was some bright stuff in the first twenty-odd minutes which never really led to anything. Callum McCowatt getting dragged back outside the box at one point and that was still maybe the clearest chance aside from the big drama of David Ball’s Geoff Hurst impersonation (we’ll come back to that). The Phoenix have had trouble against teams that defend in a back three before though one thing that really helped them against Perth the other game was playing with wingers and working overlaps with our own fullbacks in behind their wide defenders. But while there were bits and pieces of that on the left from McCowatt and Cacace, it didn’t take much for a midfielder to step across and help out for WSW and leave the Nix pair outnumbered.

What we needed to do was to stretch the pitch by switching the play but Davila had a very quiet game. Just not involved the way we needed him to be and he’s a fella who drifts infield looking for the ball anyway. And Fenton didn’t get too many chances to push forward either... that right flank was way off in the distance way too often. The balance got better in the second half but according to the A-League website the Nix attacked 47.9% down the left, 32.3% down the right and a mere 19.8% through the middle. Now, I don’t know how much you know about the intricacies of the FIFA laws but... the goal is actually in the middle of the field. The Phoenix weren’t able to sustain much down the middle. Hence shots were at a minimum.

Then there was that horrible head knock for Nicolai Müller, clipped by Fenton coming through and you don’t need me to tell you how awful that was to watch. Thankfully he’s better off than it looked at the time, though the WSW gaffer JP de Marigny reckoned they’d need to check for fractures since he hit his head so hard. Understandably that changed the flow of the game after that lengthy break. Not as bad as it could have but the Nix were doing alright at building into the match before that stoppage and after it they seemed to level out. By which I mean they stopped feeling like they were building and started feeling like they were on a smoko or something. The lack of precision from a team which has been mostly great at that kind of thing was startling, passes which were off target by a metre or two, touches which were heavy enough to draw a defender, stuff they’re normally great at. Fair play to a Western Sydney team who played very well in frustrating the Nix but usually the Phoenix can play their way around trouble and here they just... didn’t.

The Calamity

Which might have been acceptable if things had continued on that way. Because usually the Nix do find a way to score, they don’t get many goals but they’ve only been held scoreless three previous times. Be it a dodgy penalty or a deflected shot or whatever they normally get that one sneaky goal. And as pesky as this game was beginning to feel as the first twenty minutes of the second half unfolded a lot like the last twenty minutes of the first half... it didn’t particularly feel like the Wanderers were going to break them. Despite what may have been uttered in the Fox Sports commentary box this game had every imitation of a stalemated nil-all draw. Until Luke DeVere got sent off.

No dramas whatsoever with the call. LDV got two clear cut yellow cards and the second one in particular was a blatant example of his one major weakness: a lack of pace. He was playing too tight to Kwame Yeboah because he had to play too tight to him since he couldn’t keep up with him. A bit of contact and out comes the card.

Not buying the calls that Fenton should’ve been sent off for the Müller clash at all. You judge the penalty by the crime, not the injury. Fenton was perhaps clumsy but he was definitely not malicious or whatever and a yellow card was more than sufficient... although having said that he could well have been booked very early on for leaving a few sprigs in a fella’s shin which would’ve made that a second yellow so from that perspective, okay. Fenton had done well in his first few games of the restart but he wasn’t good here. Already mentioned that he didn’t have much going forward (not all his fault) and then this and yeah Tim Payne will be sliding back into that right back role soon enough, methinks. Only thing is whether he plays half an hour off the bench first to get him up to scratch.

Maybe Fenton should’ve been sent off because the Phoenix played better with ten men. The Wanderers were initially boosted, as you do, by the advantage and Yeboah swiftly gave them the lead with a fine old header in the 73rd minute but once they got the lead they suddenly got too worried about keeping the lead. Talay made a bunch of subs. Liam McGing came on at CB and Josh Sotirio came on up front with Hooper and Davila replaced, probably right on schedule, in the 67th minute straight after the red card. Neither had played more than 45 minutes in the restart ‘til now, here they played two thirds of a game. Six minutes later Piscopo and Rufer came on for Devlin and McCowatt. Then for the last five mins of the game Ben Waine replaced Matti Steinmann as the ten-men of the Welly Nix pushed and pushed for an equaliser that never came. But honestly they never really created anything to make the Wanderers sweat. Numbers forward and abstract pressure but no genuine saves being forced, nothing that pulled the WSW defence out of shape other than maybe a mazy dribble or two from Reno Piscopo.

The Fallout

A 1-0 defeat means the Nix drop down to third again. They’ll climb back up to second without playing if Sydney FC can do us a solid and beat Melbourne City tonight (Saturday), which would be lovely since that’s now a game in hand for City. It was one of those days for the Phoenix where if David Ball’s shot had gone in off the post instead of bouncing clear off the line then it might have gone a completely different way but sometimes the luck doesn’t follow and the Nix didn’t do a lot else to create much luck either, to be fair. One of those days.

Individually, over the course of a season, these days happen. What makes this one more annoying is that it comes after a few games where the Nix already didn’t get what they could have from games. The Sydney game after restart, lost 3-1 when we could’ve easily won 3-1 on the basis of that performance. Then Davila’s missed penalty against Adelaide. We did beat Perth but one win from four games isn’t quite commanding second spot and if we slip below that by the end of the regular season... I just think the fixture congestion being what it is the competition winner is gonna come from the top two. Winning three playoff games in a row, with extra time a real possibility, with short turnarounds each time, is too much.

But it is what it is. The points are on the board now. Still six more we can claim with wins against Brisbane and Newcastle and gotta bank on Melbourne City dropping points like they probably will. This is the Nix’s fourth loss in the last twenty games (since the opening four Ls on the trot) and each of the three previous times they’ve bounced back with a win the following match. This wasn’t good. In fact it was genuinely bad. But after playing well and only getting four points out of nine in the last three games this was maybe a crack of the whip that they needed, dunno.

The Rest

Okay, freeze frame right there it’s pretty clear the ball didn’t cross the line, right? No need to freak out. Remember that the ball is curved, being a ball and everything, so the point in contact with the turf is not the widest point hence it’s clearly still shadowing the line. So bloody close though.

Apparently when they were both playing for Hamburger SV back in the day, Matti Steinmann actually made his Bundesliga debut as a substitute replacing Nicolai Müller. At least that’s what they said on the comms and wikipedia backs it up.

I never get tired of this...

So who starts at CB next week? Good thing for last week because prior to the restart that woulda been a crisis meeting but at least both Liam McGing and Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi have been able to stretch their legs in A-League footy in that position recently. I was a little surprised McGing was on the bench ahead of TAHW because of the latter’s extra versatility, plus Hudson-Wihongi was picked to start alongside Steven Taylor in the Adelaide game (before McGing came on at HT). Hence I’d lean towards TAHW although I’m not sure the difference between the two is enough to matter and McGing is more of a specialist.

Wednesday at 8pm NZT is the Brisbane Roar game, that’s at Bankwest Stadium yet again. The good thing about post-pando footy is that if you do lose a dumb one then you don’t have to wait too long for the next chance to put it right.

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