ANTONIS' NOT-SO-PHANTOM INJURY

 

While it's unfair to rashly blame injuries on pitch conditions or fixture scheduling, seeing Terry Antonis - one of Australia's brightest midfielders and a poster-boy of everything good about the Big Blue - go down in tears after appearing to mistread on the uneven pitch is a little sickening. Heart in mouth stuff.

It happened to Antonis and could have easily occurred to Neidermeier and Keisuke Honda as well, all of which had awkward falls at one point or another. 

It's too early to tell how bad it is, but surely at some point the A-League is going to have to start prioritising player safety over fitting an extra 5,000 into every big fixture. The atmosphere suffers, the stadium and television viewing suffers, but most of all, the players suffer.