The Road To Brazil 2014 via Wellington feat. Mexico

Thank you, you have just proved my point Buffy. By that same token then Napier Phoenix, how do you say about Honiara? Do you really believe the island teams are better than us? Form is temporary, class is permanent. Mexico are a consistent high ranking performing side well above us or Honduras or Panama. Anyone who really believes we would be better playing them needs their head read.

you're in christchurch aren't you junior?

have you decided it's no longer worth the effort given how dire things are looking?  or is this a genuine sale?

It doesn't matter anymore, we're fucked no matter who we play.....  :( anyone want to buy a ticket?

Christchurch? CHRISTCHURCH?? RACIST-CHRIST-EFFIN-CHURCH????

No, mate. Wgtn.

And no, it's part of my 95% bollox quota of posts.

#wellingtontillidie

#thatwasbolloxtoo

Drop Lochy and Bertos and keep Durante as CB cover.

Bring in Tuioloma and Roux.

Drop Butler for Fitzgerald, Clapham for Henderson and Bright for Keat.

Maybe Siggy for Payne - invest in future and siggy shouldn't get near a starting spot so his position should be in trouble.

lol, no.

sorry bro!

My argument is there are no decent full backs. Roux and Tuiloma are no worse than Bertos or Siggy or Lochhead at present. Beyond those guys there is nothing. We have no depth so occasionally its deep end time

Tuiloma has not even played a national league game and we are talking about chucking him into a WC qualifier? I know he is at a decent club but he was playing reserves or youth and he was not exactly bouncing out as the best player in Northern League. He may well be good enough, but there is not enough evidence to say 'lets pick him' Maybe after November or WC2014 when a few will retire and we need to blood a few players. Roux has a bit more evidence in his favour but he was not the consistent stand out start for the u20s (had 1 good game I think)

Henderson has not seen a squad in a couple of years and Bright and Keat do not even remotely play anywhere near the same positions. Also why would you pick Payne, who is a midfielder, for Siggy who is a CB?

 

If you are talking squad places, well ok fair enough. If you are talking starters, I agree with ThreatD - no.

Yeah I get what you are saying... But then we also have Hogg.....? Surely we have not moved on from him just yet?

I'm still with JDs call of the back 4 of CBs and despite my previous statement and in light of the fact that Fitzgerald is now up in J League playing as a CB, maybe he does get a run in the October window.

I guess the back 4 composition (assuming that Ricki sticks with that) and the one DM spot are troubling.....

And did Howieson play NL? He essentially has been playing Burnley U18/Reserves while Tuiloma has been apart of Birkenhead yes but also LA Galaxy reserves prior to that. We've seen these U20 guys can compete.

Are you telling me Fenton, Roux etc are streets ahead of Tuiloma?

To be honest, I don't know. I actually don't know where they rank in the scheme of things. I know Fenton as a right winger from what I have seen at TW and Phoenix so hard to compare to a kid that's played left half for Birkenhead. He was one of the better players in the Birkenhead team but you would not have had him as one of the best 6 in the Northern league (Butler, Krishna, Pearce, Hicks, Ivan, JHM just to come up with some quick names) I've never seen Roux play but the bits I saw of the U20s did not impress me (I may have picked the wrong day I think cause I missed one game, was told he played well in one game and the one I watched bits of he was ordinary) . I know he is in the A League but I have never seen him play so again, I have nothing to go on.

Howieson is a bit different. This is not a opinion I have made based on age. Its more on ability and Howieson was given a test at the right time when there was nothing riding on it and he came through that test as well. Logically, you would expect that Lochhead and Bertos should win every time but they are obviously pants at the moment. We've established that up until Thursday, Lochhead was a better LB than Hogg and Rowe (both known quantities) but as of today...

Tuiloma has the talent. He has a natural touch. I have zero clue as to whether him and Roux are up for it. Like I say, I can only base it on instinct and that's telling me not just yet but again, you are never going to know until you find out. Is now the time to find out with one October window to get cohesion from our best 11 before our 2 of our biggest games in 4 years? If you were going to do it, you would have done it in the window just closed, not the next one where that needs to be our best 11 in our formation. For me, its too big a risk, not when US$10m is up for grabs.

Tuiloma has not even played a national league game and we are talking about chucking him into a WC qualifier? I know he is at a decent club but he was playing reserves or youth and he was not exactly bouncing out as the best player in Northern League. He may well be good enough, but there is not enough evidence to say 'lets pick him' Maybe after November or WC2014 when a few will retire and we need to blood a few players. Roux has a bit more evidence in his favour but he was not the consistent stand out start for the u20s (had 1 good game I think)

Henderson has not seen a squad in a couple of years and Bright and Keat do not even remotely play anywhere near the same positions. Also why would you pick Payne, who is a midfielder, for Siggy who is a CB?

 

If you are talking squad places, well ok fair enough. If you are talking starters, I agree with ThreatD - no.

OM reserves is a far superior standard to the New Zealand national league. The OM youth team would also be a much higher standard than then the Nz national league. If you disagree with that, then you are pretty misinformed. Lochhead isn't even playing club football..

In the window just gone would have been perfect. As it stands, I don't think you will see those two players until after November when we are knocked out and some players retire (I expect Bertos (31), Lochhead (31), Sigmund (32), Killen (31), Fallon (31), Ivan (37) and possibly Smeltz (31) ) or after WC2014 if we make it.

It will need a change of coach I think. Emblen seems logical but he does not have the tickets....Emblen has been good at bringing through youth footballers and giving them a crack at the right time. Payne and Adams got their break through him at Waitakere....

True but I can't see the AW playing until 2016 at OFC Nations Cup if we get knocked out in Nov though. 

Yeah you are probably right. NZF will see it as a chance to save money.

no, but he has played a handful of games in league one and quite a few more in league two

not bad for an 18 year old kiwi wouldn't you say?

card in friendlies are served at friendly games

The arguement on Roux and Tuiloma is an interesting one. I don't know much about Roux except CCM have given him a contract and Arnold is a good judge of a player.

Living here in France I have got a better feel for where Tuiloma is at. He did not make the squad for the first few OM reserve games and had 20 minutes off the bench last week. So thats the total sum of his OM Reserve experiance to date. He did get a hit out for the U19,s and scored and apparently did OK. The club rate his athletic ability and his skill set. There have been comments on the forums about the need to improve his tactical appreciation. When and where to pass, positioning etc. That will come with time and good coaching....which he will get at OM. But the feeling is that he is a "rough diamond" needing quite a bit of polishing.

As for the CFA2 grade that the OM Reserves play in it is 5th level in France. Which sounds crap but when you watch CFA or CFA2 games you do see plenty of highly skilled players.  Remember France has more than 2 million??? registered players so they all can't play top grades. IMO CFA2 would be easily higher level than Northern where Bill was.....better than ASB Prem...hard to say! Waitak and ACity would be better

So in terms of AW,s its way way to early to give him even a trial IMO. He will be a good player one day and probably a good AW but 2013 is too early. You put a 18 yo in front of 100,000 mexicans at Azteca stadium and they could well fall apart!

Hoping we get drawn against Mexico. Will be quality to have them come to NZ and if we don't beat them we really don't deserve to be in Brazil anyway.

History at least is on our side since last time Mexico ventured here in 1980 John Adshead's team walloped them 4-0.

That was a poorly performing Mexico side as today's one is.

But I have a feeling Mexico have the resources to pull themselves together and finish in the top three, thus qualifying automatically.

Their new coach, the former assistant to the one they sacked, coached Mexico to Olympic football gold last year, so could well turn things around.

We are actually going to be no better or worse prepared than we were in 2009 really. Go back and check some of our results from earlier that year. Lost to the likes of Thailand and Tanzania, and everybody ripped the piss out of Ricki for dancing around like a loon when we drew with Iraq at the Confeds Cup.

At least this time we will have played maybe 4 games (fingers crossed) in the 3 months prior to the first leg. In 2009 we only played once between the Confeds Cup in June and the first leg against Bahrain in October (against Jordan in September).

OK, you've convinced me, i withdraw my ticket from sale. i also hope we play and beat Mexico to qualify then play a friendly game against 3rd place Honduras and lose that game. Just to prove a point more than anythign else.... and i know it will mean nothing because we had both qualified yada yada