Its obviously not Des - the initial delay in announcing the coach was subject to his availability no doubt about it. Talay will be last cab off the rank - simply hasn't done enough at club level. Bazeley potentially as he's a NZF pipeline coach - players know him and he's a nice guy, he's not going to upset anyone - safe bet for NZF who have been told to make everyone happy by a report. Interesting to know who the other two are - I'm guessing offshore who are in club roles and do not want their names out in public - again with the delayed announcing it could be around these negotiations. If it was Talay or Bazeley they would announce it in the next few days.
Your comments on Bazeley I actually agree with. Think that Mckinnon report is going to have a large influence in who they appoint, especially now that Des has been ruled out.
Be interesting if Emblen (currently an assistant coach at Colorado Rapids?) has thrown his hand in. Are him & Bazeley mates?
People are going on about Bazeley being a route one, old school English type gaffer, but his most recent team the U19s didn't play like that, and neither did Hay's AWs. Coaches evolve, plus match tactics to what players they have. Well the good ones do.
Blind Freddie can see that the new AWs coach, will have in their squad the best group of technically gifted players in the team's history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfpVCRt0KgU
Why hire a national coach based on their record in Oceania and not not at the Club World Cup? Also do you remember Beazley coaching the U17 team at home age group world cup? He and Hay had 3 years working with the same group of players in the national league for the world cup tournament at home and all they could come up when the tournament arrived was 10 men behind the ball. Anyone but Beazley. If Hay took NZ back to the 90s and had no idea how to structure an offense the Beazley will take us right back to the 70s.
Look I get some people just outight don't like Hay. He's been a pricky, polarising figure on NZ football scene for many years. Very different to Buckingham, who in NZ always came across as a super nice guy, and very selfless.
But for FFS offer an objective half intelligent assessment. To say Danny took us back to 1990s is garbage.
He had 2 big games with OlyWhites & AWs, really to judge him on. In the first the OWs went toe to toe with Japan in their Olympics QF. He made a gutsy call to take off a crocked Reid, and bring on McCowatt rather than another defender. That 2nd half & ET, was truly exciting to watch, as we had a real crack at the Japanese only to lose on pens. That was a Japan, with about 6 starters who would in Qatar featured for their impressive WC team
The 2nd big game (that everything preceding had been leading up to) was of course the Costa Rica playoff. We had 68% of the ball verus CR. That ain't the 1990s. But they couldn’t find that equaliser, after conceding a very soft early goal that shouldn’t have happened.
I'm sure is some things Hay with hindsight would have done different, but the team created plenty of half chances, and fired a few shots without hitting the target enough. As good as this hugely promising young brigade are, none of Greive, Garbett, Just, Stamenic etc are scoring goals consistently at a high level. They all seem to panic a bit when close to goal. But then that CR match was incredibly high stakes. It still all rides on the Woodsman if the team is sans Singh.
I'd throw in the Peru 'friendly' as a 3rd big game. As it was played in front of 40,000 mad Peruvian fans, an intimidating atmosphere especially for the younger players, after 2 years of no crowds. Basically a foreign experience for the team.
Yet after barely hanging in the first half, as they adjusted to the cauldron (some of the players definitely froze in that first half), they were only a defensive howler (from 2 Nix aguys who have been in poorish form since), and a Waine offside from grabbing a draw.
The Peru coaching staff themselves said we were several levels above the AWs team they played in 2017. They were surprised by how good were were on the day, and far more an attacking threat than 4 years prior.
And these 3 games were without our best creative player Singh. A huge loss for a country like NZ with it's shallow talent pool. That was a constant in Hay’s reign. When Singh was available we scored goals and won games. Without him a struggle to do either. I’d wager good money would be same for any coach with the same set of circumstances. Singh (and Thomas to lesser extent) such a point of difference to AWs
Anyway as always it’s the players who are the best judge of whether the coaches are quality. Not us arm chair critics who really know fudge all, about what is happening within a AWs camp. Esp because they always happen overseas!! When is the last time any of us witnessed an AWs training live??
Chris Wood is a hugely experienced pro of 15 years. He’s seen all types of coaches up to arguably the best league in the world
If he says Hay, Bazeley or whoever are quality, or they are rubbish - then that be the case. If Wood says so, then it will be so