Anthony Hudson (FAT Technical Director | Thailand)

so Peter Taylor was hired to watch Kiwis while Hudson gets to do this?

Did he win a "watch the game with the England manager" competition?

random EPL game with no kiwis involved > watching U20s win their final 5-0. 

I really hope that Hudson is not over there on the pay roll of NZ football and our subs.

If he is there on holiday and wants to hang out with big Sam, watching the great game then great. All power to him.

If however he is on work related business then NZ football should explain exactly what he is doing over there and the cost involved.

As my learned friend has stated above, we have just hired an assistant manager to keep a close eye on 4 of our best players in Europe (who will be in the first team in any case)

Having Hudson there on work related business is just inexcusable.

I am getting mightily pissed that we are paying this guy just to polish his CV, drink beer with Tony Veitch and to take selfies with whomever will give him 5 minutes.

If he ever cons a gig at a decent club, I'll be joining that clubs Internet forum the following day to set them right.

I'd imagine he's there to introduce PT to the players and talk to them about the upcoming window and WCQs (and their attendance). If he goes to the odd game then so be it. You can't spend all day talking so Winston. The way Liverpool are playing he and Sam might have  learnt what the players in he middle of the park do (other than stretch their necks). 

I would have thought that Peter Taylor could have easily introduced himself to Winston and had a coffee. I don't see why Hudson has to fly around the world to do the introductions.

I have no issue with him being there.

He's also originally from the UK, perhaps he's having a holiday back home and tied some work into it.

Some people will find anything to complain about, i just don't understand why they all seem to end up on the fever forum?

I have no problem with an employer sending an employee overseas for education either.

Didn't his dad play for Chelsea too?

For me, the issue is that the U20s had their WC qualifying on and that would have been a good chance for him to be around the young guys, scouting them and embedding that alignment he's always gone on about. There's so much time when there's nothing going on with NZ national teams that it seems a bit of a lost opportunity to be on holiday when there is a tournament in progress.

I imagine he has already seen them play and train in a variety of situations, including last year when he had the wider squad. How much would he have gained from going there... do we think he would have learnt anything new.

I expect him to go to the u20 World Cup and maybe some of the friendlies if we get some decent teams to line up against... a far better measure of their potential.

When are these U20 players going to be in contention for the world cup? Not the next one I expect, maybe 2022. They generally play in NZ don't they, no scouting required for that, just a drive down the motorway here and there to keep an eye on them. 

Plus ( and more likely in his case I think) if you dont intend to be around that long, i.e. expect to move on after this world cup, then whats the point

If we play the same shark style against the US/Mexico as we played in the OFC Cup then I will lose my shark. If aussies can play a high tempo game from the back why can't we? I'm sick of weak excuses like conditions and injuries.

We've been told that they played the way they did because it was the best way to win a cup comp in island conditions but now we'll see the "Hudson way".

He has to do something, he can't just keep releasing press releases and modifying his own wikipedia article without any substance can he?

I'm excited to see it happen as well. We did see glimpses of it at the start of Hudsons reign - probably before he got disalusioned with how crap we are, and now we should see it all coming together.

Because we don't have the players.

It's fairytale stuff to think AWs can play as well as Socceroos. Aussie have a bit of class in midfield with likes of Mooy (Huddersfield), Luongo (QPR) & Rogic (Celtic). These young guys are all likely to end up at bigger clubs at some point. NZ has no one near their ability in the middle of the park. Australia don't have to pick players from their state leagues (ASB Prem equivalent)!  Socceroos also play many more games together, and Postecoglou has had a lot more time with his players to embed how he wants them to play.

Still it's time for Hudson to show some progress is being made with AWs. I think we will always look a bit shark against Island nations - best players won't always be available, lack of motivation/dragged down to their level, poor pitches in Islands etc.

But for these friendlies and Confed Cup next year against quality opposition, good true surfaces, top referees etc - our players shouldn't lack for motivation to prove themselves on a bigger stage. They don't of course have to win, just show some evidence of a playing style, offer a scoring threat and be hard to break down. In short give the fans some belief, and reason to be enthusiatic about their national team.

we're missing that playmaker midfielder talent and some of our other guys- Rojas, Thomas and so on to kick on. 

Agree also that Ange has more time and experience than Hudson.

But defensively and up front with our full team we can match them I believe. Mooy and Luongo are a class above any creative midfielder we have, and we lack the solidity of Jedinak. 

If we had all our players available we aren't that far behind.

Each team has strength...

They have better goal keepers, but in Reid I think we have the best CB.

Neither or either teams have great full backs, although I do like Boxall. In midfield they do dominate, but our wide attacking players I think are quite similar and in Wood do we have the best striker?

Would be a good game to watch.

I would love to see an annual home and away tournament vs the Aussies. Endless marketing potential, whenever New Zealand and Australia meet in any sport it draws the Nations attention. Yes we may get our arse kicked, but at least it would be getting the Average Joe New Zealander talking about football a bit more. 

Except that's not feasible given the structure of international football, and to do it outside that structure is to defeat the purpose of doing it in the first palce.

A lot of sports featuring NZ v Aussie would pique interest in NZ, but not in Australia

Yup. Australia aren't interested. We don't pull in money or public interest for them.

Saw this online, obviously not verifiable - but was Anfony linked to Rotherham a few months back? (either in his own mind, in the minds of the press, or in reality)

http://boards.footymad.net/showthread.php?t=38131028

First he was linked to the CCM job, then the flurry of positive (spin) press, and now this... surely smoke == fire?

Would also explain why someone keeps changing his stats on his wiki page to embellish his record.

That's fudgeing hilarious.

absolute rubbish - you need to have working internet to have an IP address :-)

Yup had the Pacific Games semi and the final of the Nations Cup as wins.

Also had combined results for U23 and full sides which made his record look much.

I don't think that was proven.

surely it was from that cafe?

That thread is dated 20 May this year.

First that job, then CCM, then the flurry of press then :)

It still shows that there is something going on.

Hudsons talents are wasted, he should just establish a PR company and make trillions 

No, I'm 100% sure that the edits came from NZFootball. 

The edits came from IP address 101.98.11.217

A quick look at the DNS records show that  same IP address is also the IP address of NZFootballs mail server and their VPN server. So it's safe to assume that that IP address is the main IP for NZFs head office. 

Ergo, the edits were made by NZF. 

That IP address pretty much exclusively writes about Anthony Hudson on Wikipedia as well.... My assumption is that it's him, but it could be a staffer.

Of course it could come from an infrastructure provider, the IP address is owned by call plus, but companies that provide these sorts of services tend to have multiple IP addresses and won't be modifying Wikipedia from a hosted mail IP.

You don't need an IP address to recognise that it is written by someone who is favourable for him. If you have to mention that your in the talk for a Denmark job via a Danish tabloid paper link than you know it's just name dropping. I hope we are all wrong and he pulls out some magic for those upcoming games.