2014/15 Transfer Speculation

I am stoaked that we have got the squad assembled rather early this season.  This is the first season in a long time where we haven't been scrambling to get to the minimum 20 players on registration date.

While our squad is rather average we are getting them all together nice and early which will give Ernie plenty of time to work with them and get them well drilled/fit/together and provide us our best ever chance of over achieving.

I am feeling rather positive about this season

We can also only give 2 years as we don't have a license after 2016

What will happen to Michael McGlinchy then?

People are perhaps forgetting that we will probably have a reserve team playing in the ASB this season so these extra players will be needed.  JBS for example might think he is better off playing reserves and training with the top team, than kicking around Strathpine Park in the QPL. Caira, as an Aussie U23, might also fancy his chances of remaining first choice fullback. None of this is as clear cut as some of you think.

If we get the reserve team could we sign more players but only give squad numbers to 23?

Indeed and we actually have competition for places now which is practically a new concept for us. Nothing but good form will guarantee Doyle a starting spot, if he slows down and Caira looks great at training they could see their roles reversed.

I would imagine we could only have 23 named in the A League squad, the rest would be in the reserves and brought into the A League for games along the same lines as we have brought in players from NZ competitions in the past.

If we called up a player from Phoenix B they would have to be included in our 23 man roster unless they are injury replacements. If we were allowed to have these 3 spots, we could call them up without them needing to be injury replacements so expands our available squad to 26.

Interesting comment given we only have one space left and WeeMac is penciled in.

Very interesting ...

Interesting

Rather interesting

Sounds like Ernie will aim for 26 squad members ultimately and should be able to have them, to be fair.

As Ryan's Rovers says above, check Ernie's comments in mid article here..

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/10339602/Dra...

Maybe Ernie thinks we will be allowed to carry 26 players, and therefore that gives us three more signings to come later. Reading that article it sounds like he'd drop Rufer, Ridenton, JBS or whoever is young enough into those "three NYL spots" and sign three senior players, as opposed to signing three more kids.

I took this in line with his comment about the 3 contracted NYL players that all teams have "They can have 26 players" etc And that he was hoping to sign the three additional players to Pro contracts and drop 3 of our main squads young guys, Doyle, Boyd, Rufer for example into the 3 "Youth Contracts" outside the salary cap

Reserves team will be a great place to sit Ifill as well when he's back from injury. Getting game time, and just waiting for the injury-cover callup.

Sounds good to me

What... we might have a coach who drops players if the don't perform!!

Has the world gone mad, oh wait, its just Ricki's gone.

And the Phoenix world rejoices!

Give it 10 games dude!! :p

Much as I admire ernies attitude I havent seen anything yet that says we have a decent strike force. We have signed what look to be fairly capable midfielders but all the good work in the midfield is not going to score goals ( paul scholes and frank lampard aside) I have read that brockie is the best finisher at the club....in training but sorry he doesnt do it for me

So why no striker? We need Ernie to front and answer this. If all of us can see it and he can't, is there something screwy going on?

A Brockie strike last night was described as "would have been the goal of the season if it had hit the target" and in the context it sounded like it was close and they were not being sarcastic.  Plus we hit woodwork and forced some great saves.  Sometimes it doesn't fall your way.

Ernie is past his honeymoon on here, clearly, but we've yet to see much of Burns, Cunningham, Brockie, Boyd, Krishna building combinations and operating together with our strongest midfield behind them.  Two games against EPL sides is a bit of a look at them, but let's see how they go v A league teams and with a little more time together before we give up on Ernie's picks.  Surely we've all watched enough EPL and other top level football to know that the ratio of good strike opportunities to goals is around 4-1 or worse and even at top levels great shots get saved and good players can duff chances.  We seem to expect miracles from our own guys, maybe naturally enough, but they are never going to live up to the standard some people seem to expect on here.

Maybe I am being too hopeful but while there is some reason for concern, it's early days still. We are going to need at least one guy scoring ten goals and a handful of others getting into the mid to high single digits.  Seems to me that's still quite possible.  I am looking at a 10-7-6-3-3 season haul from our front three and subs, with another half a dozen from midfield and CBs at corners = 35.  Which may be enough and which could be improved on if the strike force do get on a roll and the midfield do better than just four or five between them.  D will need to be tight though.

Let's turn fenton into a striker this season.

Too many disbelievers on this forum.

THE CUP IS HALF FULL PEOPLE... and when you finish drinking whats ever inside you still have a cup!!

Unless the Bahrani AFC chairman takes your cup away and stomps on it

Bollocks.

The cup is always 100% full.

Sometimes it is 100% full of beer.

Sometimes it is 50% full of beer and 50% full of air.

Sometimes it is 100% full of air.

What it is filled with varies, but it is always full.

The cup is empty... With such fullness.

mmm...beer

two teams, one cup.

I really hope it isn't as sick as fhat video clip you might be inferring to. Yes I did see it before it was taken off youtube.

Good question

So much dumb

#offseason

I guess the cup is full of vacuum, like the vacuum of strikers in our front 3.
There you go angst about that some more.

Presuming that we get the youth +3 spots and some kind of reserve team who could we sign of Aussies and kiwis who could be an extra striker? The +3 don't count towards salary cap correct? So we could free up somewhere between 120-150k? Is there anyone good we can get on those dollars? Anyone off contract from other clubs?