R7 vs Sydney | Sat 8th Dec | 7:35pm | SS1

"Turned him down for various reasons.."    There are only so many reasons.  I think only three: money, environment and potential development. Perhaps it's only the third that MR can offer?

For this week, anyway.

Not sure anyone wants to come see me on the North Shore :-P

Thought I was the only one!

So, only room for Kurto now as an outfielder lol.

Kurto is our new no.9?

With Sail playing pretty decently, it makes you wonder why we didn't trust him to begin with. I thought he did OK last year too. He's obviously not as good as Kurto, but he is serviceable, which is all you need in a keeper at this level.

perhaps having Kurto around has helped Sail's development?

Maybe! That benefit is a bit hard to measure, I suppose. 2 year contract for Kurto so will tie up an import spot for a while..

worth it for mine, if Sail comes out of that two years a better keeper then we have that sorted for the future.

How good is it to feel confident with 2 keepers? 

I feel like the defence is better than when Sail was last on so we also aren't seeing him under the same pressure. 

Hadn't we just decided how awesome kiwi talent was? I think Kurto has given us defensive confidence and the keeper competition is a good thing. It's a sign of a strong club 

Not sure if we've been watching the same Sail. His kicking is good but yet to see him actually catch a ball. Miles behind Kurto and can see why the management head no faith last season. 

Should have done more to stop the Perth goal last week (one of two nutmegged players) and missed a challenge in the air that he should have had covered too. Not tested by Sydney in this game.

Great presser from Rudes. No jubilation or won the cup moments after one goal. Lots of talk about what we have to do.

Kurto a far better keeper than Sail from what I've seen. Several saves Kurto has made I'm not sure Sail would have made. 

I don't at all buy the 'only need an ok keeper in this league' argument. Having a good keeper can help win you matches in any league.

Have been pleased with how Sail has gone, but will be happy to see Kurto back in next weekend. 

Whoever put that highlights package together has to be a Sydney fan. They made it look like Sydney were all over us and we scored a couple of jammy goals. can't those cnuts give us any credit for a job well done??

He's the best second keeper we've had in some time- given that we also have Steven Taylor in our defence 

I think the Taylor, Dura and Kopa combo as a back three has vastly improved the defense. Keeping is easier when you have a vocal leader at the back, a decent playmaker who can shift the ball and a staunch man who'll put his body on the line. (you pick who is who)

Also Dura was on the edge of the box working an opportunity for a shot and Taylor got a goal 

After re-watching the highlights of the game I am completely stumped. We played with pretty much the same team as before, .but with one single new player on the teamsheet. And we have beaten last year's champions.

So... do we now have to sign Ante Covic till the end of the season?

We have to build on these performances in the past two weeks, I would hate for this to be our 'Horses' moment and we go back to being mediocre for the rest of the season.

Basically. What gives me hope is we played just as good against Perth (without the finishing touch), and they're a much better side than Sydney.

Singh worries me a wee bit. He's very creative and got 2(?) brilliant assists this game but every shot he's had at goal has been poor, very much like Ridenton last season, wasting a few good opportunities. 

When Roy came off it never felt like those out there would score (Burns, Williams & Singh). I really think we need another striker, and a quality one at that. 

Quite happy now with Kopa, played well the last two weeks.

Winning against Sydney is amazing but to do it with 3 young Kiwis who all had a huge impact is absoluetly terrific, proud to be a kiwi.

Doesn't worry me at all. He's not got his radar right just at the moment, but I think part of that was the pressure on the team. He'll work on it and when it comes right we'll crush teams. 

I don't know if it's a cause or effect, but I feel like the last two weeks, we have actually had something of a midfield, with Rufer and Mandi not being so deep with the backline, which has allowed us to distribute much more effectively - we have done a lot less hoofing and hoping, and also not had everyone defending so deep and allowing teams to just swamp us.

Think he has shown in the past he is more than capable of striking them well. Far to early in his career to making any judgements on him. Rudan has stated he still has plenty to work on have ño doubt at all that he can bang some in.

Singh has proven over and over again he's got a good shot on him; long range shots are always a lottery - even for the best players in the world. Have 0 concern there.

That coupled with the fact he's an AM, not a striker, and thus not expected to score a hell of a lot of goals (as long as he's assisting).

Just seen the news in Sydney about the game, Coach of SFC says he's gonna drop the axe on some players for the shock lose. I think someone's a sore loser.

Anybody got a link to a video of the first half ?

https://www.a-league.com.au/match/sydney-fc-v-wellington-phoenix-a-league-08-12-2018/1002858

3? Five young Kiwis started, and all had good to excellent games.

Riding high on this win all week I think! Because I'm a pessimist at heart, I hope Rudan has us working on in-box clearances this week. A more clinical/lucky team may have found themselves converting a few more opportunities there.

But yeah, clutching at straws of criticism here

Thought we cleared most situations okay; goal was unlucky. Taylor is very good at just barging through and clearing it.

There's an example of it in the second half of this video - IIRC, there were 3-4 distinct moments where the ball seemed to pinball around our defenders in the area

https://twitter.com/ALeague/status/107157278875692...

This

I guess this is what we always hoped would happen with the Nix and their academy. Its taken a while but there is some fine talent coming through the ranks. I thought all the kiwi's were good but the two teenagers Singh and Cacare were outstanding. There are probably close to 100,000 registered players in NZ. There is 100% certainty that the talent is there...it just has to be found an nurtured. 

Rudan said preseason dont judge me or this team on the first half of the season...he said it will take a while to get things right. But from what we have seen in the last two games, they are on track. Sure they will have there ups and downs but the base is there. Welnix should give Rudan all the support he needs. Because he is the key to the future of this club. He said he will walk if he is not supported...and that would be a disaster for the club. Give this guy the rest of the season to advance this team. Then give him the resources in the off season to strengthen the squad and have a proper buildup. Then you will see what a Rudan coached team is capable of..

Kopa named as a midfielder in the team of week despite playing 80 minutes as a CB. Talyor and Krishna also there.

https://www.a-league.com.au/news/hyundai-a-league-...

Apart from the game, I also really liked Rude's presser at the end. He's not getting carried away on one result. He looks really fired up after the Perth game last week and you can really see he wants us to develop a hunger for winning. 

I think the Perth result may end up being a real blessing in disguise. It's fired us up and now the gloves are off. Poor little Wellington aren't just going to sit in the corner and take the bullshark that's been dished out to us so far by VAR and the A-League in general.

I also liked the fact that he signaled out players like Singh, Rufer and Cacace as having serious talent but needing to put in the work.

It's season on I reckon. If we can take 6 points from the games against CCM and the Roar we'll be in very good shape.

The only downside (if there is one) is that Rudan will definitely be on Sydney FC's coaching radar given that we totally pantsed them.

COYN!

Of course all that he says could be bullshark; but I'd be surprised if Rudan gave up a project so easily and went to Sydney. I also think that if Corica left, Sydney would be aiming a bit higher for the replacement to appease fans.

This.

Watching the replays I can see that the high pressing game compressed the space between the Singh-Krishna-Burns line and our midfiled, where previously teams like WSW or Adelaide simply exploited the empty space there.  

As others said, this may not work against other teams, but it worked against the Smurfs.