2014/15 Transfer Speculation

The statistics don't explain the whole story. Its what he brings to the team that matters.

A) He's a hard worker and often tracks back when others can't be bothered to defend.
B) He can Dribble past players - This is Huge.
C) He makes a nuisance of himself. Making runs in behind, constantly moving. 2 or 3 goals last season came because he dragged a defender out of position off the ball.
D) He's 19. 7 years younger than Brockie. And i believe there is little to none of a quality difference between the two

Oh and Brockies Strike rate for the National team is absolutely stunning by the way ;)

Edit: I'm not suggesting that a pure strikers role is his best position (Perhaps he would be better on the wing), what i'm trying to say is that there is no way that Brockie should keep Boyd on the bench.

Before your edit I was going to say that points a, b, c and d are exactly what I want from a winger. I would rather see Krishna tried first before Boyd.

Djinksta are u paulm in disguise? 

Might wanna change your avatar...

Yup, however it's completely wasted if the striker isn't doing his part. I agree give Krishna (Or new import) a go before Boyd but Brockie just doesn't suit the phoenix anymore. 

However i'm looking forward to a midfield that doesn't include Lia now which is good.

Boyd is a good player, and you are right that he does all those things, but he won't be an effective attacking player until he scores more goals.  It's that simple.  He needs to be a 7/8 goal a season player in that position in addition to doing all of those things.  If he doesn't score goals he won't get anywhere in the game, it's that simple.

Brockie on the other hand does almost none of those things but could hold his place in the side if all he did was score goals.  His problem is that he isn't clinical enough.  He missed too many easy chances last year, if he scored all his chances but did nothing else you might be able to carry him in the team.  He's too unreliable and his all round play is poor.  So you just can't pick him

Regardless of whether or not we agree with you, pinning our hopes on a "not impossible" occurrence is not a way to build a football squad. 

That kind of optimism makes for good debate on a football forum, but amounts to terrible management in reality.

Boyd banged them in when he was trialling which is what earnt him the contract.

Also under Ricki he was never going to score a great amount of goals - he is suited to long ball.

This year will be a better indication of where he is at and what he is capable of.

boyd is a player who relies on speed and tricks above strength, position and finishing. He appears to be wasted at striker and from his early nix matches you could tell he'd be a far more effective player on wing one on one, i'd imagine krishna doing well this season, he seemed to have confidence at the end of last season. 

I love brockie as a bloke, as good as you get, however it's clear that his pace, all round skill and now finishing are becoming a liability to our attack rather than enforcing it.

If we do sign Weemac then in a 4-3-3 we will have some combo of:

- Riera/Gorrin/McGlinchey in midfield plus Lia and Ridenton in reserve

- Cunningham/Boyd and Burns up front with Brockie and Krishna in reserve

It seems to me that our final major signing absolutely must be a defender.  Even though I don't think either that midfield or forward line is especially strong we've got a number of players in those positions.  I think we need to look at the defence and we definitely need a new CB  who can push for a starting spot.

I see what you are saying and there is merit. However is that not what Boxall is on the books for?

Durante and Sigmund both were caught out last year. I think boxall would be a better choice in the heart of defence. There isn't enough competition in that area. For some reason last season we couldn't stop a cross at all (Newcastle game in point)

To be honest, I thought he was a disaster at fullback last year apart from the first game or two where he had a surprise factor.  In the last 5 games teams just waited until he pushed up and inevitably gave the ball away then counter attacked down that side.  I am still far from convinced by him I have to say because I've not seen him have a good game at CB

I really do wonder what we expect to be different if we go into the season with the same defence

I agree with you but then what Ernie wants from his fullbacks and pushing forward, is different from what he would want from his CBs, which is his natural position

This has been raised before. I think he's been given a bit of a hard time considering the circumstances.  I'm assuming he was given instructions to push forward and when we lost possession he had so little cover that he had to charge back to get the ball. This was after Riera got injured. Would like to see him given more of a chance with better cover as he is a lot faster than I expected and will get better I'm sure. Mind you if we signed a decent FB I'd be happy. ( Sling in another LB, a couple of CB's, a couple of strikers, a new mascot, stadium, etc whilst you're at it)

edit: sorry JV you got in before me and put it a lot more succinctly.

What games were you watching? The guy, on the whole, did great at fullback considering it isn't his natural position. One of our best (not saying much)

Of course, he isn't a long term solution and I hope he isn't being viewed as such.

I agree and I think it was a tactical mistake for Ernie to keep pushing his fullbacks forward when those fullbacks were Boxall and Timmins..  He needed to change his approach at that point because he was trying to fit the players into a pre-designed system rather than set up a system to suit the players.

My main concern with Boxall is at CB, I'm still not convinced by him there.  His best game in that position was against Sth Africa where he was decent although the partnership was pretty shaky; he and Durante often seemed to be moving in different directions.  Before that I think he conceded 5 in the past 3 games he played centre back for club and country (Japan, Newcastle, and Adelaide I think)...

What do you mean by great?  Ran up and down and gave the ball away?  Look at some point we actually have to admit we conceded 51 goals and try and analyse why it happened.  Just saying things like, Boxall did great but it wasn't his position really ignores the fact that as a right back he had no attacking threat at all and was part of the leakiest defence in the competition.

Agree with james dean. If we were to believe people on here we'd think that Boxall, Durante, Sigmund, Muscat, Fenton and whoever else did well last season.

Sorry to say they did not and our defence is horrendous. We need at least 1 or 2 new faces back there.

We should try get one of WSW's many CBs ..Spiranovic would be ideal for any team

WSW would be foolish to sell Spiranovic and would want a lot of money for him. I think we could do worse if we were to nab either D'Apuzzo or Beauchamp who are both off contract.

Like who? Name these people that think our defense did well?

We definitely need to be looking at overhauling the CB pairing over the next couple of years - who thinks that was a success last season? Muscat did alright at left back and I think we've got no idea how Boxall will preform in a settled, less injury prone side, with regular football in one position whether it be at his preferred CB or RB. 

We looked good until Riera got injured and we had a revolving list of full backs.

There is the view that the defense in our ideal 11 is good enough, but that we lack cover and that Ernie exasperated the situation by playing a pressing game when the cover players weren't up to it or didn't have the time in their position to learn the system.

D'Apuzzo? Shakes head.

I think Boxall has always looked solid at CB for club and country when given a chance.

I don't think it was by accident Boxall started at CB ahead of Siggy against Japan and i believe it would of happened against SA if Siggy wasn't injured as well.

I'd like to see us sign a quality FB and let Fenton be the RB back up and also another attacking option if needed.

Well, if we pressed better further forward you don't need as much pace. WSW are excellent at pressing and rely on their tall CBs to win balls in the air when teams try and play balls in behind.

Fenton is the future at RB, ernie has made that clear. With Muscat at LB we have our starters. I'm just praying for a tad more luck with injuries to fullbacks. However if Riera stays fit we might be able to handle that as well, he was so key to our defence last season. 

I'm with JD in that we need to be looking at a high quality CB to challenge Sigmund/Durante strongly. I fear we'll go with Boxall which I'm not completely against, he could be successful there if he improves, but I'd feel a bit better if we could get something better than what we have, similar to the Burns signing. 

Looking at the breakdown of midfield/forwards in JD's post, we do look like we're fully stocked there if the Mglinchey signing happens. 

I feel we will see a breakout season in terms of goals from one of those forwards, chances are very high that one or two out of Burns/Cunningham/Boyd/Krishna will get into double figures if we play well. 

If Boyd can add composure to his repertoire he would be a high quality player. If he doesn't he probably won't get anywhere of note. 

Personally I have high hopes for Krishna. I think he's got something despite being written off by most of us. 

Why don't we sign Luke Rowe ..oh wait, does he even play football?

Fenton didn't put a foot wrong last season.

I'm not so sure about that. He looked great going forward but gave away the ball multiple times in our own half and opposition players were able to get behind him too easily. He is promising, but imo was only starting to adapt to the positional switch by the stage he was injured.

I never saw him play prior to signing for the phoenix, but on that evidence alone I have no idea why he's been so widely written off

Ernie seems like the type who bases a lot of selections on what he sees in pre-season and training throughout the season, going by some of his comments last year.

So I'll be very interested to see the team he puts out in Round 1.

Krishna will be great this season.

Valeo - Fenton was ok at times, but 'never put a foot a wrong'?

I'll grant you he wasn't involved in most or any of the hammerings.

As for Napier who said we need to overhaul out CBs in next couple of years - I'd say we need to do it now!

The guy only played 10 times.

Enough said.

900 minutes and not a foot wrong - he did well!

Is McKain a free agent now?

Good option for defensive cover imo

I love your optimism.  My issue is for us to do well we will need break out seasons from at least 3 or 4 players (Fenton, Krishna, Gorrin, Cunningham, Boxall possibly) - they will all need to perform above the level we've seen from them so far, I'm not that confident that all of them will do that at once.  Looking at who we have signed right now our squad is definitely weaker than last year although obviously we're not done on signings and I would expect McGlinchey + 1 other starting level player.

                Moss

Fenton-Durante-Sigmund-Muscat

          Gorrin - Riera

           McGlinchey

Burns - Cunningham - Krishna

That looks ok to me going forward but the defence is still really weak.  I don't think we'll be a top half team with that side myself