Waikato add to HBU coach's troubles

OOPS ... what now?  If the 5-0 drubbing against Auckland City before Christmas was expected then what can we make of Hawke's Bay United's 1-0 loss away to Waikato United on Saturday?
Liverpool is about 18,800km from Napier, as the crow flies, but that hasn't stopped Bay United coach Matt Chandler from developing a modicum of affinity with Roy Hodgson.
"I know how the Liverpool manager feels, you know, but we're going to keep fighting to the bitter end," Chandler said at a brief stop during the bus trip back from Fred Jones Park on Saturday night following their first ASB Premiership soccer game this year.
The word was beleaguered Hodgson's head was going to be presented on a chopping block regardless of whether the English premier league powerhouses win or lose their remaining games, including the FA Cup matches. By yesterday morning Chandler's chilling prediction was spot on - Liverpool had unceremoniously dumped Hodgson.
Anti-Hodgson type graffiti hasn't cropped up at the Park Island clubrooms, the home of Napier City Rovers. It is highly unlikely because one lives in hope a sense of civility here will transcend anything boisterous English fans can conjure.
Soccer spectators in this part of the world, thankfully, seldom ever behave like juvenile delinquents despite questioning each other's pedigree at the height of some socially competitive testosterone-filled arena.
Assuming the mantle of a social misfit returning to his old school with incendiary thoughts for his shortcomings is widely perceived as the domain of illiterates.
Instead the parochial brigade huddles in a foetal position, wallowing in an embryonic fluid of apathy.
Gradually the groans, punctuated by the occasional angry outburst, at the Bluewater Stadium will dissipate to a hum and haw.
The numbers in the stand will plateau to those who have a vested interested and those who have a morbid sense of gratification akin to hecklers watching warring gladiators in a colosseum that promises blood, irrespective of factions.
If some were quietly sharpening their daggers before Christmas then now the grating noise of steel on grinding stone will be unabashed.
If a defensive Chandler hoped to quell any tide of dissatisfaction with talk of making the play-offs by beating those clinging on to the rungs of the premiership ladder below Bay United then his plan went awry on Saturday.
One point below the Bay, the Willy Gerdesen-coached Waikato now sit two points above.
Any defeatist attitude towards powerhouses above the Bay before Saturday's game also comes under intense scrutiny.
Only 126km north, Otago United, perched a point below the Bay, were a thorn in the backside of table toppers Waitakere United, who some correctly declared 2010-11 champions just before Christmas.
The southerners on Saturday showed ticker, holding the champions to 1-1 at halftime before succumbing 3-1 - the last goal coming to the tune of the final whistle. Yesterday, Auckland City pipped Canterbury 2-1 in Christchurch and Team Wellington had a 3-2 victory over Youngheart Manawatu in Palmerston North.
"We're disappointed we were a place above and now they're above us," Chandler said of Waikato amid appraisal of a first half to his troops.
He bemoaned All White Cole Peverley's 73rd-minute, long-range speculator that ricocheted off the woodwork. Striker Andy Bevin was unable to pounce on the ball to push it into the net past Waikato goalkeeper John Fletcher.
Three minutes later Waikato player Milos Nikolic instead outfoxed the Bay at their own game.
Nikolic chased a floater from Jack Beguely but an advancing Bay goalkeeper Richard Gillespie - working like a fruit-picker, if the premiership website live scoring is anything to go by - failed to clear the ball and Nikolic crisply pushed the ball from an acute angle for the only goal of the match.
"Football is a cruel game," Chandler claimed, absolving his players of any blame.
With Peter Doran unavailable and regular rightback Marama Thompson serving an accumulated yellow-card suspension, Chandler employed Peverley at rightback while Maycenvale United midfield duo Tom Biss and Chris Greatholder started.
Latest signing Scott Gannon, a midfielder from Adelaide, was unable to obtain his clearance from his Australian clubs.
How cruel the beautiful game can be is best reflected in the Bay franchise's dumping of Vale's Solomon Island age-group international Joachim Rande three days before Christmas to beat the transfer window of January 17-21.
A sweltering 30C temperature at Fred Jones Park isn't a mitigating factor, unless, of course, you are from Otago or Wellington.
Waikato coach Gerdsen was happy to take the three points.
"We're probably lucky but not undeserving," the German said, delighted to remain in play-off contention with a youthful, "totally new-look" side.
Having lost 5-2 away to Manawatu before Christmas, Gerdsen warned the bottom dwellers packed a lot of pace out wide and up front but their defenders were permeable, something that is reflected in their goal difference.
Oddly enough the Bay, who host Manawatu at Park Island this Sunday, have pretty similar statistics.
Results - p12.