2015/16 Transfer Speculation

No, you need the FFA to approve your international marquees. But it might not be a very high bar they set, they allowed Ricardinho to be one!

Rob Morrison said that they paid for Burns outside of the cap as an example of the Phoenix doing things for Australian football.

Ryan > Ryan54

Can you provide a quote?

This is the quote I have been working off:

Q: It’s said you are against the idea of bringing marquee players to Wellington - is that correct?

A: We aren’t against marquees - we have a marquee player, Nathan Burns, and he was voted as Player of the Year by the Australian media just recently - am I missing something?

Nowhere in there does he explicitly state that the salary of Burns is paid for outside the cap. He just says exactly what I said he said: that Burns is a marquee player. As I said in my post that you quoted there are various definitions of what a marquee player was. I think Morrison was probably just saying that they brought a really good player to Wellington in Nathan Burns who is good enough to be a marquee player. I tend to believe this because he said Burns was a marquee player because of his achievements on the field.

Now in this thread, a user called Ryan M said (and I have no idea whether this is you): 

No Burns is the Marquee player for the Phoenix, his wage does not come from the FFA grant. They said last year that they were at the cap, and this year they said they have spent more on players, so you can assume that Burns was the marquee, at least for financial reasons and outside the cap.

Do you have any sources for the above (if it was indeed you)? Given that we lost Hernandez and Huysegems who seemed to be on good money as well as Bertos, I think it is reasonable to assume that last year's squad did not cost much more than the previous year's. Supposition isn't proof so I don't buy this particular argument.

It was reported, that Burns would only stay if he was given marquee status.

He was definitely given marquee status to ensure we were below the cap. Which basically means he wasnt on massive marquee money. Just used as an accounting trick.

we probably have some players on contracts where they have some match day/performance payments. To not fall foul of the salary cap and not knowing exactly what our end of season salary total will be (at a min under the cap, estimated max over it) we put one player outside the cap and gives us some wiggle room.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/70715946/Wel...

Interesting: "

Merrick said the reserve team has been a real success and indicated that the Phoenix are set to promote two 17-year-old players to fulltime professional contracts - most likely forward Logan Rogerson and midfielder James McGarry - and he said it was key for the club to keep developing young New Zealand talent."

He says that the Phoenix pays for Nathan Burns implying that he doesn't come from the subsidy, he goes on to say he's marquee.

http://m.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/wellington-phoenix-chairman-rob-morrison-talks-to-fox-sports-simon-hill-about-the-clubs-future/story-e6frf4gl-1227337263974

The rumors that say that burns would only stay if he was on marque wages are odd considering he was already contracted. The fact that he is a marquee also doesn't necessarily mean he is on marquee wages.

Both players have been impressing, particularly McGarry. Ridenton and Rufer falling further back down hte pecking order? Singh would have to be the other outside player.

Is it correct we can only have 3 players on youth contract at any given time?

We have the 3 Wee Nix contracts outside the 23 senior contracts. Atm Oli Sail has one, so we have two free. I would expect McGarry and Rogerson to fill the other two.

With the progress he made during the ASB Premiership season, and the way he played against the top teams in particular, and combined with the club's desperate need for full backs, I hope DiMairo doesn't slip through the cracks.

I'd say he would've already been brought in if Ernie thought he was up to it, considering our lack of FB's?

Wouldn't say no to either of them at the Nix, tho I thought Brotherton had committed to a US College?

so according to that stuff article a few days ago, despite having an increased budget we haven't been able to sign a burns replacement,  every player we've targeted has wanted a mill.We could be entering the season with either Powell or Apiah starting with Krishna.

.

Doom and gloom

We lost our accounting marquee in Burns and have no other player we can nominate, maybe if this marquee rule change goes thru we might be able to pick up one of these million dollar strikers?

Yeah he's only been played in the back 3 in the preseason games I've seen.  Not even getting a run at wing back.

how much we can pay depends on how much we sold Burns for,I doubt we will pay a million for any player.

wrong thread

I wonder how Joel's rehab is coming along? Are we stil assisting him?

Oh we do have a no dickheads policy ...

\but but but we signed Joel..

"Merrick showed last year with Burns, and previously with Robbie Kruse at the Melbourne Victory, that he is capable of turning a winger with the right attributes into a deadly striker but he said another key part of the profile was making sure any potential new recruit meets their "no dickheads policy."

Allegedly way less of a cock off field than on.

Always a cod to me.

I'm sure most people are less of a dick off the field. I turn into a bit of an angry idiot when I play football; not surprising that professionals are the same.

Unless their name is Griffin McMaster, of course, who is apparently worse off the field.

The closest McMaster got to 'on the field' at the nix was a white deck chair, so we've got no reference point for his on field: off field douchebag ratio.

Kiwi Burns scored this morning in Frankfurt against Eintracht. 50000 croud, Germans came from 0-2 down to win 3-2

Live on Frankfurt FC TV, tuned in for second half only to find both Tokyo scorers subbed off. ?

I've tried to edit croud 3 times beats me.

Here the Highlights:

http://tv.eintracht.de/de/saison/testspiele/150802_fra_fra_tok_hl/page/1880---91-.html

This is a piss poor example of transfer speculation.

Getting things back on track

From 442:

• pat_m_9 wrote:

   World Cup Winner Christian Zaccardo has allegedly received an offer from Australia. Reported in the Gazzetta.
• Troisi?

Would need to pay marquee money if we wanted Troisi, which we won't do.

Sad state of affairs:

WELLINGTON PHOENIX

IN: Blake Powell (APIA Leichhardt)

OUT: Michael Boxall (SuperSport United), Tyler Boyd (Vitoria Guimaraes), Nathan Burns (FC Tokyo), Josh Brindell-South (released), Kenny Cunningham (released), Joel Griffiths (released), Jason Hicks (released)

Overlay that with no license renewal.

Very but maybe they are going to make a super announcement when they announce the kit. Im looking for positives here!!

yeah but shirt will probably only be a variation of stripes, im with whitby Boy...sad state of affairs

Yep, by far the worst transfer of any team and that includes Perth which had all the good players jump ship.

I'm hoping Ernie was just playing things down when he said that they still looking for someone:

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/league-squad-ch...

Makes for depressing reading.

still 60 days to bag a goodie.  

I guess I'm in the wait and see camp. Cunningham, Burns (marquee), Boxall and even Brockie leaving must have freed up some money. If we haven't made any signings that would indicate that the owners don't want to spend money. It would seem bizarre if they don't want to spend any money after making Burns marquee last season. I'm convinced that signings must be coming.

Although only one of those we lost was a regular first teamer. I rate Boxall but he spent most of his time benchwarming or playing out of position when he was on the pitch. Griffiths was only at the club for a handful of games before he busted his knee. JBS was just taking up a squad spot. Boyd packed a sad and clearly had a falling out with the club or coach, although he played well when he did get the chance last year. Kenny was a fringe player last season and was taking up an import slot. Hicks was injured a lot and only made a handful of appearances.

I'm assuming the club is holding off signing young kiwis to contracts while they see what happens with the rest of the squad but I'm sure there's enough talent in the WeeNix to take up the squad spots that the likes of JBS and Hicks left.

Only one player from our first choice 11 is gone and that's Burns and I think it's fair enough to take a while finding a replacement for him. If anything I think that post shows that the core of our team is actually really stable.

What is annoying/concerning is how long this license BS is dragging out for. You wonder if that's making it harder to negotiate contracts or to market the club to foreign players/agents. 

Even though the majority of those weren't regular 1st team starters, it meant we had guys on the bench like Cunningham, Boxall, Griffiths (and Boyd) who we could rely on to do a job and that gave us some depth in the squad. On the face of it at least.

Agree with the starting 11 still being relatively stable, but it's what happens when suspensions, injuries etc kick in that worries me. 

Yeah fair enough - I guess it comes down to whether you want to put your faith in the young guys to step up if needed. I don't know what the deal with Ridenton is but Rufer looked decent at the U20 WC.  Blake has impressed me when I've seen him too, I wouldn't mind if he got a contract. We also added Appiah near the end of last season, and we just brough in Powell.

A 3rd CB is really a necessity, especially if we are playing with back 3. Given that we've only got one import slot and that'll probably go to a striker, I don't really know who will take that position - Eagar? Musa? Tzimopolous? A random Aussie? Are there any decent Aussie CBs off contract at the moment?

Merick has said that the owners are investing all the money from the sale of Burns back into that position, so he should have more money to spend than before.

As said above the real loss is of depth. Cunningham came on a couple of times last season and rescued the team, as did Boyd and Hicks. Even Boxall scored.

I looked at the Ultimate A-League website and the players we've lost scored 28 goals last season.

We should be getting more goals out of Bonevacia who has had a year in his new position, Rodriguez who has had a year in a first team environment, and hopefully Fenton who won't be quite so far back if he's playing as more of a winger, but still. There's a lot of goals to replace.