Soccer: Knights sunk again as pressure rises

Frustrating. Luckless. Embarrassing. Call it what you like, it's all been said before.

Beaten for the ninth time this season, the Knights have established an unprecedented ability to cling to the foot of the table with the rest of the A-League moving ever further away.

More than 2580 fans turned out last night - a crowd no doubt hopeful the Knights would repeat their one-and-only A-League win over the Mariners. But this defeat will surely doom the embattled club to poorer crowds and an even poorer future.

They actually played well in patches last night, dominating proceedings in the opening spell before a Stewart Petrie double and some curious refereeing from Neil Fox denied them a point they probably deserved.

But playing well in patches won't hold much traction with long-suffering fans (some might call them masochists) because the Knights are doing nothing for the image of football in this country, nor the reputation of the once revered John Adshead.

It begs the question, what's being done to fix matters? One of the key frustrations of fans and football followers is that the Knights now seem caught in a familiar whirlpool sending them down the A-League gurgler.

They seem to be doing little other than trying to fix matters on the training pitch - a forlorn effort if, as seems apparent, the team isn't good enough at this level.

In football, when things go wrong, heads normally roll. But the Knights just continue on their fixed way - turning up, trying hard but tied to the bottom of the table.

The January transfer window is virtually irrelevant because there are only five games of the season left when it swings open, meaning supporters can only pray things will be better next season. How often have they been doing that?

The only thing happening is that the whispering campaign is growing. The Herald on Sunday has heard from several well-placed sources that changes need to be made at management, coaching and player levels - but that the club aren't likely to go down that road and are sitting tight until next season.

They talk of a club controlled by an old boy network and mention chairman Anthony Lee, Adshead, assistant coach Tommy Mason, new chief executive Steve O'Hara and even former Kingz supremo Chris Turner as members of this club. One source even described them as "incestuous".

"I have no sense that the board is running out of patience and that scares me," one source said.

The calls for Adshead's head will beat louder with each week and each defeat but Lee expressed "every confidence" in the silver fox turning things around. "He has a two-year contract with us and it's our intention that he fulfils that," Lee said. "John and I go way back and my comment to him was that 'if you're still happy and enjoying it, then why stop at two years?"'

Irrespective of whether the coach is about to fall on his sword - and he said he would "never" resign - or whether owner Brian Katzen is losing patience with his lieutenant, the cupboard is not exactly overflowing when it comes to alternatives.

The point is that the Knights have to do something at management or coaching or player level. Or all three. At least to be seen to be doing something.

Because to do nothing and to try to hold out until next year is to invite the whispering to grow into shouting and the Knights to pave a new level of cellar-dwelling infamy for New Zealand football.

NZ Knights 1 (S. Yeo)
Central Coast Mariners 3 (D. Heffernan, S. Petrie, 2)

- HERALD ON SUNDAY