R8 vs Melbourne City | Sunday 30th Nov | 5:00pm | RoF

Banner suggestions for Sunday:

1. Go Football Ferns

or

2. Well done Ferns

Banner suggestions for Sunday.

1. Attempt to find people sober enough to make it.

2. Attempt to find people sober enough to use it.

3. Give up on attempt.

With 12 pubs and TeeDubs Saturday suspect banner may not happen.

With respect to this, I never said Lia was the best we have. He is also not a DM and thats been well proven.

In my opinion, last year he found his position and had a decent season (by his previous standards) He plays that link role between defence and attack as a short passing outlet for Riera - essential a link man. This year, he has been solid without being spectacular. A-Rod has been the exact same. It seems Lia has been tasked with either supporting Fenton and squeezing (which he did well) or being a link man. Last week (and read the game thread - Its there) there was support for him being 1 of 3 players on the pitch that performed.

This season, other than the pass to Sigmund which more than a few wanted to hang on him (it was Sigmunds fault) he has largely not put a foot wrong. He has not score 30 yard screamers, made amazing outlet passes or done things that are memorable but he has not let the side down. To me, he plays the same role as Rodriguez and last week, some people advocated that if A-Rod was to play, then Lia had to play in a support role. This week, it seems he has to be dropped despite not doing anything wrong. Thats scapegoating. Judging him by historical standards that may or may not be relevant to the conversation at hand or putting the burden of blame on someone that was not necessarily a party to the issue. I also want to add that I am no fan of Lia, however I am not so emotional that just because I am not a fan of him, I can't have an objective opinion of him. I've had to do it with Sigmund as well whom over the last 2 years, has actually turned into a footballer with a little bit of discipline (much to my surprise)

Listen to the podcast. Put their name to Lia playing well too. This just has Lochhead written all over it again and he just gets blamed for everything. How has LB worked for us since Lochhead left? How did the midfield work after Brown left? Just cause the guy is not the star of the show, does not mean he is not doing his job.

I hope to stand out of the way but retrieval has its hazards from past experience...

I think Lia has been decent this season - his biggest issue is that he's often a step or two behind because of his lack of pace, which results in a lot of fouls.

I don't listen to the podcast, and therefore i won't comment on what they've said, as i believe it's just more opinion.

Left Back has been a problem for a long time now, before and after Lochheads departure. Taking two seasons to fucking sign a natural Left back is just stupid to be honest. Bertos was never a fullback. Fenton is a much better wider player (Work rate still makes him look the best fullback we have though). Doyle is a youth player and will get better. Lochhead was a scapegoat because he would get caught out all too often and also wasn't the brightest when it came to putting crosses in. (Also remember these were the days of Herbet.)

I disagree with you saying it was not Lia's fault, with the pass to Sigmund. As a midfielder you should be able to play a pass easily, not overhit a bobbling ball to a tired centre back who wasn't expecting it (Slight blame on Sigmund for this i guess). However Lia caught with his back to goal passing across to a centre back, with the ball in front of him and bobbling. How can you then explain the backpass to Jeronimo?

He gets caught on the ball too much and gets driven backward which pisses me off. Midfielders need to be able to keep their heads up, and not play bobbling balls which are a horror to control. I'd play Rodriguez over Lia any day. I just think that 'Not letting the side down' (Which i disagree with) isn't enough. I'm not asking for screamers or magical passes (Lets cut the crap he can't do these), just something more than poorly weighted passes or passing back to riera too often. Link player with no ability to pull off a great pass or do something to catch the opposition off guard? Easy to defend against.

A decent footballing brain can make up for a lack of pace. If he's aware where he needs to be positioned more often then he wouldn't be caught out so much. Same goes for Durante. 

Lunging tackles by centre backs shouldn't happen. Happened too often against perth.

Isn't everything on here just opinion?

Facts in an alternative universe.

Yeah but wildly differing opinion. But that wasn't the point of my post.

It kinda was. In your opinion, you are right and everyone else is wrong regardless of what is said.

Be good if Lia was able to be as defensive as you are here :-)

JV you be sucking, cause you're waaaay to defensive on the whole Lia thing.  Relax old fellah!  Its simple really -  Some of us, like me, can't believe he got a two year deal, and somehow is pulling a starting line up position with our current sqaud. Some, like yourself, think that by Lia's standards, he's been passable this year. ( I think that's kinda like when you're coaching under 8's and the parents are picking player of the day...one of the mums whispers to you, "Who hasnt got Player of the Day yet?", and you say "Well, Vinnie hasn't, and by his standards he had an OK game today"... But that's by the by.  The point being, that together your views and my views together make the rich kalediscope that is yellowfever.co.nz. 

Who is warming up for Sunday with the superb Yellow Fever extraganza!?

Free Uber to Dave Farrington Park, 

Discounted Tuatara beer in the tent.

Sensationally good sausages on the bbq.

TeeDubs taking on the Champions of Oceania, Auckland City from 3pm.

Free Uber home.

What a great way to spend Saturday afternoon! Get along. Get involved!

How Manny at right back?

Sounds like theres moves to pay respect to Phil Hughes at a few A League matches this weekend:

What are the alternatives to Lia.... Ridenton, Rufer, Hicks...... I'm ok with Lia there thanks. As much as there is RYdenton fandom here, I thought he was rather ordinary last year and well overplayed.

midfield of Roly, A-Rod, Reira and wee mac in any formation would make me happier than seeing lia starting and passing the ball to the opposition every other week,

sorry, sorry about dat. Shoulda read how about Manny at RB? You know, what with him being more a RB than a LB and Doyle being a left footed LB and all...

I kinda like that Rodriguez guy.

Or we could change formation and not require him. Ridenton is what, 18? I don't think there's a massive gap tbh.

I like A-Rod as well and I would never have dropped him. Am definitely a fan. At least we are in agreement.

So you are suggesting a change of Lia for A-Rod..... Not much of a formation change from last week. 3 in the middle and 3 up front.

There is a huge gap between Lia and RYdenton. RYdenton takes a lot more time on the ball. You can actually see the cogs in his brain spinning. He does not actipcate his next pass depending on what kind of ball he receives i.e. I have a player here, here and here. If I get the ball like this, that guy is my option. He tends to look at his options after receiving the ball so he does not have a 1 touch game.

What about a 4231? I've always preferred weemac playing in a more advanced central role, and Boyd definitely needs to be on the pitch. However I'm not sure where Roly would fit though, perhaps on the right? Burns up front and Boyd on the left, with A rod and Riera in the midfield 

The thing with Lia is, most people agree:

- he's slow

- he doesn't shoot or score goals

- he doesn't create goal scoring chances

- he doesn't run with the ball or beat a man

- he does commit quite a lot of fouls

- very few of his completed passes are forward passes

- he doesn't get hold of the ball in dangerous positions in or around the box

However, he does

- keep the ball by making simple sideways passes in the middle third

- switch the play quite well with a long pass from time to time

Personally, I think that's a very limited skill set for a guy who has played the number of games he has, is supposed to be a senior player, and it's not surprising that he doesn't really do much other than "be solid" and "be a link man" when you look at how limited he is.

7 season and we've only finished in the top half twice.  He's been ever present.  I, personally, just do not understand how he is still at the club let alone starting.

Pretty well covered.

It's not enough at this level anymore. With so many teams in the A-League now being so midfield ran now his skill-set seems so narrow. It worked (kind of) in the Herbert era with the hoof ball - Vinnie never needed to move as the ball was most of the time going over his head to hit a target man up front.

Let's not forget Vinnie has played some SUMPTUOUS long balls in his time with the nix - but most Centre Backs in the league can do that now too and also seem more mobile than him. I like Vinnie, but if we're gonna push for a top 4 spot we're gonna need more in such a pivotal position.

Keep Riera as our stopper and sideway passer, A-Rod to pick up second phase and Roly to drive down the middle to spray a few diagonal throughy's and make late runs into the box.

By the same definitions listed there (and they are pretty much on the money), you could also say 'Ben Sigmund' yet he is much loved.

I'm being simplistic once again but I go back to the point, you can't have a team of 'Paul Ifills' with every player being star of the show. There needs to be guys that just do a job. A-Rod is like that, Lia is too. Read back over the last 2 months. There are a few folk whom question A-Rods signing, he goes invisible, he does nothing on the pitch. No he simply does a job and the stats back that. Just like Lia.

To be honest I think Siggy has actually improved a lot in his weak areas - namely distribution. Some of his passing this season out from the back has been much better than Dura's. Lia hasn't really improved that much for mine.

Fudge me, what a post!

Wondered if there might be a minute's silence or something so would be good if there is something. Nothing to do with football but still a fellow sportsman. The club have posted a message on Facebook and Burns has tweeted about playing school cricket with him. Would imagine a number of players around the A League knew him from Australian sporting circles.

I don't see why, people die all the time and he has nothing to do with the nix or NZ.

Just shows a bit of class and respect I guess. A 25 year old sportsman dying playing sport, also from the country the league is based in is not quite a case of "people dying all the time." A Nix player has also sent out a message about being a school friend of his. But yes, nothing really to do with NZ or the Phoenix so I'll leave it there.

Completely missing the point. It takes a small effort for the clubs to do something like this; why rail on it? 

Actually a couple of those 'agreed' points can be easily disproved if you look at the data and don't get emotionally biased. Take chances created (5), he has more than Riera (3) and Roly (2) and equal with ARod even though he has less minutes than all of them. He finished last season with 0.98 chances created/90min and was closer to 2 until Riera got injured and then dropped into the DM role. He has a better pass completion rate in the opposition half than the other CM in the team and overall is 81.4%. Last season the stats showed a majority (not just a plurality) of his passes are forward - far more than Riera last season (442 had a statszone for last season where you could break down passes by forward, sideways or backwards - unfortunately not doing it this season so hard to go on by the data provided by HAL website). He conceded less fouls per 90 min last season than Riera (to be fair Riera was committing a lot fouls (and cards) early on but once he got a handle of the league that dropped).

He is far from perfect, welcome to the HAL, and I don't know if I would have him in my preferred lineup but if we play the 442 diamond with McGlinchey as a forward/winger and Roly as the '10' then Lia is next best to play in midfield and does a job there.

FFA have confirmed that there will be a minutes silence at every match this round, and rightly so. Nobody should be lost while playing the sport they love.

I'm not railing on it - I just don't see the point really. I'll be silent along with everyone else. But you know we don't do minutes of silence for people who we know have died, it gets arbitrary when you do it for people not connected to the club.

Someone like Lloyd Morrison passing away, or Liam Sweeney and John Alder are all deaths that warrant minutes of silence, likewise large tragedies, but a sportsman from a different code, from a different country seems too tenuous. Would we mark a minutes of silence if it was a NZ cricketer? Or an All Black? Players have relatives die, do we mark a minute silence for them?

I don't mean to be disrespectful, and I know it does sound this way - I just wonder where the line would be drawn, because it seems to me that there is probably a case of a minutes silence every match if this is the criteria.

Seriously, is it something worth debating, though? He's an Australian cricketer. This is an Australian league. It shows a sort of solidarity for all clubs to do it. Hence, we will do it also.