Well the club do have money, and they have shown they will spend it ever since our place in the A League was guaranteed. We don’t have the sort of money that a couple of the top clubs do but we spend within our means and what we are prepared to spend. Over the last year or so Doloras has been a bitter figure when it comes to our club and everyone will be happier (including her) when she can support an Auckland A League side.
That rant over - the old cliche: In top level sport, it is the top 2 inches is real. Our performances dropped off around the time it was announced Ufuk was leaving and Sail announced the same. Until that point, the clever money from the Aussie pundits was on us being top 2 in the league. Apart from the results, we saw a drop off in the sideline intensity of Talay, we saw Sail lose his composure on the pitch and with some ill-considered aftermatch comments, the little things going wrong on the pitch and Gauchi showed us how a keeper should dominate the 6 yard box and instil extra confidence in the defensive line. Again, talking about mentality, and this is down to the coach, to a large degree, we do not have an attacking mind-set. This is evident in the way we seem to play the back pass as a first resort, rather than looking for the immediate attacking option first. That has become a bad habit and signifies a mixture of laziness, low confidence and adventure. Partly this is because of a lack if one certain type of player, a Devlin, Buzzer MacKay type and I cant help thinking Rufer might be an issue in that regard when he is on. Essentially a player who has attained his level and lacking that last little bit that would take him higher. That “level” description probably applies to Wooten as well but his pedegree suggests he might be better in front of a better keeper and I suspect he doesn’t have the onfield personality of a General himself so needs better support or replacement of him itself.
A change of coach can do wonders and we are still to see what kind of head coach Italiano will be and new signings will be critical.
I would love to see more of the humming Nix that we saw for the bulk of the season and even at times during the Adelaide game, just a few tweaks necessary.
All in all, as a real Nix fan: exciting and interesting times ahead for us, much post-season anticipation from me.