2015/16 Transfer Speculation

I think the slight moaning over Burns was somewhat justified as it was very difficult to see where goals would come from prior to last season - but now Ernie has proved that he is capable of turning a player like that into a goal scorer, Sarpong is more of a wait-and-see. 

Yeah but i dont get why people are so quick to question his judgement on a player.He has been pretty good on those he has brought in to part.Dont see why Sarpong should be any more of a wait and see than Burns should have been.

This would be good although I think Oar is a pipe dream I would not mind Thwaite at all. I like the idea of saving 1 spot as well

Would like Troisi TBH he looks good as well. Can you imagine getting Oar though with Sarpong? Probably force Weemac or Sarpong further back into the mid most likely replacing Arod or having Arod come on as an impact for Riera. I like that.

Troisi would be way too expensive for us.

Conan summed up my concerns in one of his posts on the previous page. We finished the last two seasons on a slide. Ernie clearly knows how to get a team to play good attractive football. The problem has come in the past two seasons when other teams come to Wellington and just want a point. We got shut down badly at the end of the last season offensively. We scored 4 goals in our last six games and neither Krishna or Burns scored in any of them. I was okay with the way we went out last season because I presumed and still do presume that we will learn from it. Last year was a big step up from the season before and this season I was hoping to position ourselves for a genuine run at the title. 

As our squad stands, it seems to be too thin to make a genuine run at the title. Fenton gets injured and we have no defenders on the bench and no wide defenders who offer genuine attacking threats. Obviously things can change between now and the start of the season, let alone the business end of the season. I just think if you sit down and look at our squad we are worse on paper right now than we were last season. 

Again, a lot of this depends on Sarpong. We shouldn't forget that we are asking Sarpong to replace 13 goals and the best player in the league last season. Even if Sarpong scores 13 goals then that may only be good enough for 4th again.

Even if Oar was avalaible I think he's too similar to Sarpong for us to bother. I think he was a 'Maybe Plan B'

User Actions Follow

Hasn't Oar been playing as a left sided wing back? I may be wrong.

Can we all just stop goal counting all the time.

With the likes of Roly, Sarpong, Weemac, Krishna (gonna be much better than last season) A-Rod, Riera, and then Powell and Fenton in our midfield and attack we're gonna have a large amount of goals. I will be surprised if we do not score more than last season. Anyone can score a goal when given a good enough chance.

Seriously look at these players... Roly, Sarpong, Weemac, Krishna, A-Rod, Riera. I think all these 6 are going to be very good this season. We will be competitive and I believe we can have a shot for the top

Ah yes. Both have ripped the Nix a new one in Brisbane

Surely IF we were going for a player like Oar we'd need some sort of aerial threat in the box. Not going to happen anyway but his crosses are his best asset and it'd be somewhat wasted on us.

I expect that him and Roly will get a few opposition players booked this season 

and between them the could make for some of the best football we've ever seen

hope he settles well 

* him * being Sir Jeffrey

And you can tell everybody this is Sarpong

He may be Not a Striker but when Ernie's done

He'll mesmirise you

He'll mesmirise you with his darting runs

He's here to play football and not for the sun

Agree with that. I think simply comparing Burns and Sarpong's goalscoring records is a little reductive. Even if Jeffrey doesn't score 10+ goals he looks completely capable of scoring at least 5 or 6 while also getting goals out of others. If he sets someone like Appiah or Powell up for 10 tap ins next year then we will still be looking good. We should definitely be looking for goals out of our midfield though. Roly, McG, A-Rod and Fenton can all score more goals from the right positions.

Tam DiMairo has signed a 3-day contract with the Phoenix as an injury replacement for Louis Fenton. Will be on bench tonight against City.

— Yellow Fever (@YellowFever_NZ) August 25, 2015

He looked good on Sunday, would have thought Blake would have been the next cab of the rank but good for him.

And this is why you are Chant Savant and I am not. Superb work.

I prefer Patricks.

Could Powell be expected to be the Griffiths replacement?

Thats what she said!

Edit: Sorry, got my stats wrong. . But still, we definitely found it harder to break teams down after the Christmas/ Asian Cup period

So whats a 3 day contract worth to him - $1k?

But also to bring a plan B when teams began to try to shut Burns out of the game with negative tactics.

Brockie was basically Griffiths at the start of the season - something different (though he was originally our Plan A until Burns started firing)

Players that scored goals who have left;

Burns

Brockie

Griffiths

Cunningham

Boxall

Boyd (2 at Adelaide to win us the game then went gallavanting about to movies and such)

That is a decent chunk of our squad that we haven't really replaced. 

I worked it out at 28 goals that have left.

Hicks also scored from a free kick to draw against the Jets in injury time.

Not only are they goals that have gone, but these are players that came off the bench and really saved our arse. Cunningham and Boyd both came on and won us games.

Our first team might be good, but our depth is not.

If we look at our current squad, there doesn't seem a realistic way we can play 5 at the back. We only have 5 defenders in our squad right now (6 if you count Ridenton). Currently our best front 6 probably looks something like:

                   Sarpong

  Weemac    Bonevacia    Krishna 

          A-Rod        Riera

All those are good players but my concern is that we only have one proven goal scorer in Krishna. If you look at someone like Weemac he has been involved in a very good Central Coast team but he still didn't score in big numbers. I really think we need a way to fit Powell or Appiah into the front 6. That would mean you probably don't pick Weemac or A-Rod. In some ways this is a good problem because it shows we have a decent amount of depth in midfield. Lia and Rufer are also options there. Obviously, over a long season everyone is going to get a chance but it is possible that we have too many midfielders and that we would be better served re-balancing the squad by using more cap space on a defender of some sort. 

It seems clear that we will sign another defender of some sorts. We know there are a few going around but I guess it depends on how much money we have to spend.

Roughly reckon:

Krishna            Sarpong

  Weemac Bonevacia 

      A-Rod Riera

Weemac and Roly pretty flexible, sometimes one will be ahead of the other or coming to deeper. basically switching between 433, 41212, 4222. 

Why do people think we play 4-2-3-1?

We more often played 4-2-2-2 with the box midfield last year. The only time we seemed to play 4-2-3-1 was with Brocks spearheading the line.