2014/15 Transfer Speculation

Well... an artist formerly known as the next Harry Kewell.

Zing!

http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/wellingtonphoe...

I'm pretty excited about this signing - still leaves a foreign spot for a gun striker too!

Not sure where that leaves Wee mac though.

“Watching the World Cup whets the appetite,” Burns said.

who talks like that?

Russell Grey.

Seriously though this is a good signing. Still just 26, so basically in his prime. Has a good resume. Hopefully he can bang in some goals. In terms of Australian strikers within our price range, I'm happy with Mr Burns.

Didn't really impress at the Jets last season tbh. Makes me start to think the Wee Mac deal is off, leaving us a visa spot to use to replace carlos.

Doesn't really play the position I was expecting Ernie to be going after. Are we still after an attacking midfielder and a striker? Or is someone going to be shoehorned into one of those positions?

Depends  totally on how much we'll be paying him.

But in many respects this is the kind of signing we all moan we don't do enough. A decent Aussie at the right age. Definitely strengthens the squad overall. Hopefully he comes in determined to absolutely kill it.

Thought he was more a wide attacking player.

All going well we could be looking at a pretty good squad this season.

                Moss

Fenton Dura Siggy Muscat

            Gorrin Riera

            McGlinchey?

Burns                         Kenny

         (Import Striker)

Bench: Italiano, Ifill?, Lia, Boyd, Boxall

Let's use our foreign spot on Messi:

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/messi/profil/spiele...

So are we happy about this or meh about this?

His goal scoring record does not scream second striker...

Um Brockie / Krishna

Completely forgot about them two...

I thought Krishna was our import striker?

If that's the go, it makes a very loud statement to Brockie. It once again makes the Krishna signing look like a real dumb move.

Ernie Merrick says Nathan Burns signing ends the clubs pursuit of a striker.

— Simon Hampton (@SimonHampton9) June 24, 2014

Wow... 

So we have Bruns, brockie, Boyd and Krishna up front. None of them centre forwards, all wide strikers.

I'm a bit meh. I get the impression we paid him a fair bit and will only get one (relatively) high profile player. Most likely our strikers will be picked from Boyd, Krishna, Burns, Cunningham and Brockie which is really too many similar, mainly wide, attackers. Hope I am wrong.

Weird signing IMO - makes me think of picking up off-contract players on Football Manager just because you can, then realizing your wage bill is too high and your squad is wildly unbalanced. We already have at least 4 players well-suited to this role: Kenny, Boyd, Krishna, Brockie. Not saying Burns isn't a decent player but is he what we need?

Put that way

Ah, the natural order of things reasserts itself - Ernie doesn't know what he's doing recruitment-wise, and the assembled drunken yobbos on this forum should be picking the team by committee.

We now have a Muscat and a Burns.

Reported!

It's not often we sign a former Socceroo. He must have done something good once to get in there.

Holy fucking shitballs I am full of excitment (not excrement)

This is a huge signing and most of you are sitting here moaning about it... fuck me.

He was up and down at the Planes last season but you could see his quality.  Get him settled in and in form and he will score and assist a fair few goals.

You have a very valid point. I would say that in defence of that, we were chasing an international striker. This is not an international striker (and his record points to that) and is much the same as the others we have. His signing also ends the search. So if you know you need a striker, and say you are going to sign a striker, then don't and say that signing this guy ends that signing of a striker, what would you think the response would be.

It like saying 'We're buying you a bike son, we've been looking about and here it is, a scooter. Now you have a bike, you are sorted'

They are all mobile and hard working. Can see us trying to set up to press teams higher up the park without the ball and lots of movement in the attacking third, with our players attacking space with runs from deep positions.

Happy to have Burns on the books. Seems like a good guy with talent and experience who will give his all. Not a visa spot.

For me

‘This ends our search for a striker’ is a really stupid thing to say. 

You could not make that comment and the focus is on what a good player Burns was and hopefully he can do well for the Phoenix.  Instead you have made the news story that a far from prolific winger has been added to a bunch of forwards who failed to score last season. 

It shouldn’t be surprising at poor media use by the Phoenix though after the Petone clusterfuck..

He has played 106 Games of Club football in his 8 years.  13 Games a season - Injury Prone? Prone to form lapses?

He averages  about 3 goals a season over those 8 years.

Is he Brocki, Krishna or Boyd going to give us 15 or 16 goals a year? Brockie has once but based on last year?

You do know this is an internet forum, right?

People come here to discuss things to do with the football club. Sometimes that means possibly disagreeing with the club and /or each other. I don't see what the problem is -if we don't all agree does the club get taken away from us?

I personally think it's a weird type of player to sign given what's in our squad already but I'm interested to know how people think it might work out.

Signed as a youngster and never really broke thru into any of the teams he signed for.

But it seems like every recruitment decision made so far this off season has led to whining, angst or at least disappointment (apart from the Premature Weemaculation). It's like Ernie can do no right. 

There's a perception that New Zealanders are negative and will tear every little thing down which isn't quite perfect, and regrettably I see that coming through in our A-League fan-base. Perhaps there's bleed-through from the ill-feeling about the Petone schemozzle.

I am thinking that the end of the Nix might have nothing to do with Welnix pulling out or results on the field, but that the core supporters have gotten into this position where - as Mike Moore would have said - the "phone is off the hook", i.e. whatever happens won't restore people's faith.

Apparently he's the new Robbie Kruse? Gonna tear up the league then get us a nice German transfer fee?

Fair call Doloras. Lets use some perspective.

We released a guy we had called Stein. He was not a striker but was a decent footballer and very professional. The main reason (and I speculate) that he was released is that Ernie wants an out and out striker that could slot 15 goals a year.

What have we signed to replace that.........

Do you kinda see why its a little underwhelming?

Yeah I get that, but there comes a time when he should be performing at a consistent level. 26 he should be at or very near his peak.  I just see him as being not much different from what we already have.

When he played in the league he was less of a smug punchable cunt than kruse.

I sniggered.