2014/15 Transfer Speculation

For the record I'm not a Miramar fan (in fact for six years I played for a rival club) and nor am I a friend of Doyle's. I've played against him a couple times and watched him play a handfull of times. I watched him training pre West Ham where he was obviously being watched closely by the coaching staff who all seemed very impressed. The two FUT games he played he looked far more comfortable than Caira has IMO. I have a feeling Ernie wasn't too happy with Caira last season - Manny was our LB towards the second half of the season wasn't he?

My thinking is that this is a similar case to Albert Riera, where Ernie has seen him play/train recently and has been impressed enough to bring him in asap. I think even as short as year ago Doyle may not have impressed him quite as much but his developement has been steady and they may think that he is now ready. 

[Credit Ryans Rovers for most of this info]

Also mine or your opinion doesn't mean anything in regards to who is better. If Ernie picks Doyle we should trust that he is right.

So why are we persisting with him then? If he hasn't changed (The Phoenix have), and is showing no sign of it, why do we continue playing him in a system he'll never fit? Squares don't fit in round holes...

Ask Ernie. If he thought he was no good he would let him go like he did Lochead and Bertos. He obviously fits into the plan for this coming season.

Well, Ernie can't have let him go :P 3 year contract for you. I would agree there must be a reason, but he just looks so out of place with the rest of the team. If McG signs, I'd be interested to see how Burns would do up top. He keeps quiet and gets on with the job.

you could argue that regularly chasing down the keeper, and sliding with no chance of winning the ball aint smart for many reasons.

its a great way to tear hip flexors

If we win the ball in the air from the keeper's clearance Brockies sitting on his arse in the 18 yard box and cant win the second ball.

If they win the ball in the air brockie's unable to screen/cover influence the direction of play among the back four.

Love the Ozzy bashing on here . Look at the kiwi young players and their chances for game time this season . with the strength now in mid field the likes of hicks , rufer , riderton and fentons  game time are just as limited as the ozzy young players  . And do you think Boyd is going to score the goals you need . 

In theory you can carry up to three attacking players on the bench but you wouldn't usually have more than one defensive player. Those attacking players (be it Kiwi Aussie or Senagalese) are far more likely to see game time outside of injuries than the 4th/5th/6th fullbacks will. 

theories are great still does not amount to game time , and the likes of Lia are on far greater wages than the young boys . these young Kiwi boys will also stunt their progress by not playing , does this hurt the all whites by importing all these overseas midfield players . Its easy to attack the ozzy players in a kiwi team . Cant remember 1 time Caira or Brindle South cost us a game . 

What's your beef jungle george? We aren't categorising the young Aussies at all. It just happens to be that Caira and JBS are squad players now and are pretty much surplus to requirements. As for the players you mention who might also get less game time, I'm pretty sure that has been covered earlier in this thread or other threads. They have certainly been bumped down the pecking order but fortunately for attacking players the pecking order for them has three seats on the bench. 

As I pointed out to someone else on here today - your opinion or my opinion on who is best suited to start means nothing. If Ernie Merrick is picking certain players over others we have to trust that he is right. He knows better than any of us. 

 So would it also be good for the young kiwis to look else where for game time ?. You must of forgot last season when we were losing defenders just about every second game , who's to say this season won't be the same . Do you expect these players just to up and walk away , they have rented apartments to live in and have bills and commitments to pay . These things just do not disappear when a club decides you are no longer wanted . Pretty easy job to stay get your contract paid out for a season of just training .

• Hicks: an import for any other A League side and was never going to be a regular starter. Why not sign him for one year and then see what's up? Rufer and Ridenton should be ahead of him on the bench if we want them to develop, and if we'd wanted an extra midfielder who can play in the attacking role after the end of last season we could have re-signed him at that stage, or even picked up Payne (who looks to be a better player).
• Lia: Had a good season last year, but can't effectively cover fullback or DM so can only really play the box-to-box role. Now we've got Gorrin to do that and a whole bunch of other backup options, and I'm guessing Lia wouldn't be particularly cheap. Again, Payne could've been signed to cover if needed (although obviously Ernie wasn't to know that he would be available). As well as Gorrin we now have Roly too who would surely be ahead of Lia in the pecking order.
• Brindell-South: tough luck last year getting injured just as he was getting game time following what was hopefully a never-to-be-repeated string of injuries and suspensions for us. However not a rising star and we've got a lot of FB options already. Considering Fenton, Manny, Caira, and Boxall can all do it why did we need him even before signing Roly and looking at Doyle?
  
• Krishna: I still think he could come right but Ernie seemed reluctant to play him following the contract extension. I know he might not have been totally fit because of a lack of pre-season last year but this pre-season he hasn't featured really either (although I think he's been injured). Again, would be an import with any other A League side too so why rush?  I doubt he would have been picked up. Now we have Burns too who you would think would be competing for the same kind of role in the team.

We have injury replacement spots and a domestic pool of players to look at for them if we're struck by serious injuries, so having multiple backups for one position seems a bit silly. Especially when we now seem to have a really one-dimensional looking attack. If that doesn't work then what's plan B? Admittedly only Lia of that bunch would have cost much more than A League minimum, but I think we would have been better having some young kiwi strikers (Watson perhaps for his physical presence) and maybe kept Adams at least rather than signing those players. Of the 4, I think Krishna's a bit of an enigma who could still come right, and I guess Lia still has experience which might be good to have in the squad, but I really can't see what role, if any, Hicks or JBS will play. Looking like being wastes of money and squad space this year.

After last seasons injuries, it is possible that Ernie will want to keep him around for his depth and that would be fine. Caira moved here for game time, leaving his WSW contract early. I just can't see him settling on being back up for too long considering the demand for left backs in the A-League.

And kiwis: Lochhead, Bertos, Brockie, Moss, Paston, Sigmund, Adams.

There are two places for full backs in a match day squad. We have Muscat, Doyle, Boxall, Roly, Caira, JBS, and Fenton who can play in those positions. That is excessive by one or two for a position which you very rarely change during a game. 

There are up to six attacking midfield/striker positions in a game day squad (three on the field three on the bench + one out and out striker). We have McGlinchey, Burns, Gorrin, Brockie, Boyd, Fenton, Hicks, Rufer, Ridenton who cover those six positions. At least half of those guys can play more than one of those positions. 

I'm not suggesting we hang anyone out to dry. Just saying if there is a better deal for them elsewhere we should encourage them. Caira did it coming here from WSW so I'm sure he knows how it is. In saying that competition for places isn't ever a bad thing, but I think we still have one too many. 

This thread is delivering.

Last year: We have no depth at full back and midfield

This year: We have too many players. People will sit on the benching rotting.

out of all those players, Caira is probably the most willing to move along because he came here to get game time, which he is now even less likely to get. 

Nothing to do with Aussie or kiwis. 

Saying "we had heaps of fullbacks injured last year so we need lots of fullbacks in case this happens again this year" doesn't make sense. Any outfield player is about as likely to be injured as any other outfield player. We should aim for relatively equal depth across the park, not heaps of depth in one position just because heaps of guys playing that position for us last year got injured. You could actually argue we had enough depth at fullback last year to cover it adequately enough in the scheme of things, it was really the lack of even one decent backup defensive midfielder that screwed us.

fingers crossed, touch wood, etc etc

Edit: And I don't think anyone's saying this year we have too many goal-scoring strikers... :P

I agree 100 per cent with this. Ernie looks Ike he is doing a lot right on the field but the above does negate his efforts. If you don't have the right players and flexibility then all the style  counts for zilch

lols if we just trusted Ernie and never offered any thoughts of our own it would be a quiet Fever chat site.  

Sure, if Caira is wanting to go, I'd have no problem signing Doyle as a replacement.  That is a bit different from arguing that Doyle's great, exceptional, we must sign him now.  [Though I'd at least wonder if we wanted Watson or another local striker instead].

Doyle's at least solid.  Possibly he may be better than Caira.  But Caira was asked to do a lot more at FB during the season, with less support around him on the field than Doyle was asked to do against the EPL sides.  I think that is fair.  Doyle played primarily defensively against the EPL sides and he had both Riera and Gorrin alongside, plus Burns.  And for those saying Doyle looks great at Central League, well how good might Caira look there?  We seem to be arguing that Doyle is better than an Aus U 23 that we are also saying another club is going to want to sign and give game time to?  

But I guess it is an arbitrage situation.  Doyle would be a normal non-foreign player for us.  Caira would be a non-foreign for any Aussie club.  So if we let Caira go and pick up Doyle that makes sense all round.  Caira is better off and at least Doyle gets a deal, if probably not much game time in our squad.

No matter, just putting a different point of view out there.  

A miramar guy next to me at the games at the weekend claimed that doyle and ricki didnt get on, otherwise he would've been in earlier

Not sure that's reliable, doesnt explain his whereabouts last season, but thought i'd mention it

doyle has signed

Shit yea

Dolye has signed

http://www.wellingtonphoenix.com/article/player-si...

Massive news that he is on board. This boys speed is really going to help us. Skillful, awareness, always trying to improve. Well done. Not letting the second chance go.

Happy with Doyles signing.

Funny thing is if Doyle makes a good shot at LB for the Nix he will be an almost  certainty for AW LB. Considering how short of options we are for wide defensive players for the national team. Reversely Fenton who made the AW's as a RB now would struggle to make the team as a wide attacking playing considering the depth of talent we have with Rojas, Thomas, Costa  and Boyd. 

It catches the eye but basically achieves nothing.

I was in the camp that it was Brockie's work rate and positioning was his big problem.  I don't think that's actually going to improve, so what he needs to do is score a lot more goals.  He missed far too many chances last year, and I think that's the thing to criticise him for because that should be his strength.  If he scored more goals the rest of it wouldn't matter so much

Always love to hear about young kiwis going pro.  It's living the dream

I don't get why everyone at the Phoenix gets 2 year deals straight off.  Just doesn't seem sensible to me

I can only imagine that this is part of gareths money ball strategy. Take the example of Rojas. Not the best example I know as he was also handed a two year contract but the first year he was injured so lets for the purposes of this theory call it one. In that one year he tore it up and most could see that potentially here was a star (Ching Ching would think Gareth). He therefore left as his contract ran down and slipped through our fingers. Now I know he went to Melbourne in the first instance so once again it isn't the best example as no transfer fee exists between a league clubs. Let's however pretend that he did get on the radar of a top side in Europe in that first year, they liked what they saw and hey presto, Gareth is in the money. Apart from the transfer of Mckain i don't think we have ever got a transfer fee for anyone and for many professional clubs this actually is a vital source of income. I don't know the stats but Central Coast would have raked in some decent coin in the last couple of years and without that they would be dead ducks. So I think Ernie has been given a brief in this regard. Let's offer these guys two, hope to god they tear it up in season one and off load them.

it may be for security of a possible transfer if they have a break out season. The club is probably worried about another rojas situation leaving on a free, its also not really long enough to harm the club financially if things go sour with the player i guess.

Im more perplexed as to why we handed a contract to brindell-south despite him showing nothing so far. He's gotta be ernies illegitimate love child looking at his skin otherwise theres no other reason.

makes sense to tie them up on a squad players wage for 2 seasons. As a young player they aren't exactly going to get worse. Its sensible. It's not like we're signing someone on big money to a 2 year deal. 

The two edged sword JD.

Great for a Nix newbie on a two year contract who excels.

Ernie and co look good, kudos all round and If they are good enough  maybe an opportunity to score o/s contract and benefit the club too.

If they don't do so well the Nix can't move them on as quickly as they might wish and the roster gets lumbered with dead wood.

Prefer the latter scenario myself..Think our selection criteria is more stringent.there's a logic to the signings and would be nothing worse than to see another young talent have a single breakthrough season  then move on, on a free transfer with no benefit back to the club.

EDIT that will teach me for having a cuppa,watching Commonwealth Games then coming back to finish the post without checking ! A "This" would have covered it nicely! cheers to AKLD Phoenix,Joey Johns  and Tegal:)

Lets hurry and move caira on now. JBS can go to and Gulley can come in

If I was offering 2 year contracts I would have the second year at club's option.

We've never sold a player other than John McKain so I think the negatives of a cluttered squad outweigh the positives for me

It actually makes more sense for Aussies where there is more of a market for them, but kiwis who are foreigners in both Asia and Australia don't have that many options.

you always need squad players though. And that's the sort of money these guys would be on. If they get better and are starting on a regular basis by their second season, then that represents good value for the nix. If they don't, then they stay on as squad players on squad player money, and there is no loss.