I disagree with this. Tade would be great in the A League, Exposito is the best import ever in NZ, this new Croatian chap is meant to be the dogs bollocks, Souto is a gun striker, Riera is a handy midfielder that the Phoenix should go after. All of the above have come from this forum from City fans. The reality is, taking aside Souto and this Croatian guy, those players could not win the ASB Premiership which is effectively and pretty much always has been, a 2 horse comp. In my opinion, only 1 of their imports would make it in the A League and that was Berlanga (and he has kicked on elsewhere) He was class and turned up every game.
As for the continued flow of imports - Pokie machine trust money rort. Every national league club based in Auckland does it (there is only one team in Auckland. That's the chant right....?) The money will be there for the imports regardless. Both Waitakere and Auckland have been paying their imports for a while so its just a con.
I'm not going to jinx ACFC's continued involvement in the O League because I want them to go through. I want 2 NZ teams in the last 4 and the money to stay in NZ.
Dog and bone again JV.
You conveniently overlook the fact that ACFC has earned much of its income (and spread sizeable funding around the ASBP) by winning the O League three of the last four times and did a double reward with its 2009 heroics. That means 4x$700,000 = $2,800,000 went into ACFC and the ASBP (not forgetting NZF's snout in the trough) through it's own efforts on the field. Waitakere earned, let me see, oh that's right, they lost the O League in 2010 and earned zilch for NZ football. Still ACFC's 2009 double winnings papered over that crack.
Dear axe grinder - just trying to have some fun. It's a pretty impressive fact - nevertheless.
The question I was asking is how do they get back to the top of the tree? Throwing more imports at it obviously is not working... This is where you show your football intellect and we have an intelligent conversation about it.