2015/16 Transfer Speculation

Troisi may want a short term deal to push for marquee status.

No visa issues, but surely money issue - except we have insurance covering Krishna and Rufer when they're injured, which then covers their salaries, so maybe we would get him for the price of both.

From a domestic point of view (and a short term contract - no strings) - Emilo Tade would score goals in the A-League - AC are not far off A-League standard/speed. 

Will he get a bucket load - no - but who has? Can he score goals and is he a striker - yes 

- could he take another former AC players place and Overseas spot - Krishna - yip probably.

Also as mentioned earlier - Ryan De Vries is in good form and probably has an NZ passport by now.

Can't afford to get a player that will take a year to adjust to the level like Krishna though, we need someone who can score goals now.

Troisi not a striker so no.

I thought we were adjusting to a new 4-5-1 formation? 

James Troisi, come on down! We need more attacking midfielders!

Has a better goal/game ratio in the HAL than anyone currently at the 'Nix.

Pretty sure that Ernie said somewhere (after Sarpong signing) that they still had some room in the budget if something came up in January similar to Griffiths last year. Add on the Krishna/Rufer insurance money and we may be able to tempt him here for the rest of the season, depending on if he's actually keen to come to Welly.

I'm still not confident, but it is a chance.

Roly is currently buying confectionary at New World. Celebrating the new licence?

Living up to the standard set by Carlos?

farewell party for Jeffrey?

May be but he is still an attacking midfielder with something17 goals out of 58 matches over 3 plus years.  Will 6 goals this season from him help enough..I doubt it unless they were all 1-0 wins.

It worked with Krishna but I doubt we would make a habit of using visa spots on ASB Premiership players.

Krishna and Riera.

Remember it took Krishna a year to come good, we can't afford that this year.

I think that there's merit in looking at the ASBP. I suggested Tade a few pages back too. Not only are the players going to be known quantities and used to living in NZ, but they would be cheap. Plenty of A League imports have taken a while to adjust or have simply never looked great. Sarpong is an obvious example of an import who just hasn't worked, but he's just one of a number of examples. 

And let's be honest, if we want injury cover for Krishna we have to accept that established, proven, available strikers who would want to come here and who would fit in straight away aren't exactly common. The way I see it Tade would be a low risk bet. If he fires and bangs them win then woohoo, I not then he's here for 3 months and then goes back to the former 3rd best team in the world. There's no opportunity cost there because we wouldn't have found a proven injury replacement import striker anyway. That's assuming that Troisi doesn't sign or that there's room in the squad for both.

I'm sorry but every time someone mentions "Tade" I immediately sing a few lines of "Smooth Operator"

I'm sure there is room for both, we can move Sarpong or Bonevacia into an accounting marquee spot if need be.

Troisi would surely qualify as an Aussie marquee too you would think

Party Pack or Party Mix?

I think it only works if you pronounce it "thmooth operathor"

Aussie marquee is no longer, just 2 spots to be used for anyone this season.

Well if one of the metrics that the Phoenix have to meet from the FFA is marquee players as is being suggested on Fox (and also it was mentioned as Gallop initially as representative of the Phoenix's lack of ambition) then Troisi is a good start. Although he would hardly be a crowd drawing Marquee.

Troisi would draw crowds if he made us win. There are no crowd drawing marquees in the A-league at present anyway. All the marquees are Aussies or foreigners we would have never heard of were they not marquees.

So much this. We get good crowds when we win games, and win them in style.And even if we lose them in style, after scoring some goals, say in the finals.

A marquee can be someone of current quality with a lower name cachet, but who becomes crowd favourite when scores a few goals (in other words, Roy Krishna, Nathan Burns, etc).

If an FFA metric is that we have to sign a Marquee, I am all for it if he is a good goalscorer of a consistant strike rate of about 1 every other game!! That will bring in the crowds and the goals and the wins for us.

There is also no evidence to support the claim that a marquee (rather than the ones we have) would bring more pwople in.  Del Piero hardly gave us a sell-out when he visited, nor did Fowler.  Signing a big name Italian or Greek into Syndey or Melbourne might be a crowd puller but it's not going to bring Joe Lunchpail to a Phoenix game or change the mind of the blinkered Euro snob.

Win games and people will attend.  Your marquee can be a no name from Andorra but if he scores 20 goals a season you'll get a crowd buff, if he's a European big name here for a holiday and your team suffers through having him in it all you have done is waste money and given the papers a couple of headlines.

Berisha was hardly a name in europe but sadly his goalscoring record in the A League is supurb as much as it hurts me to say. Not suggesting we sign a cock but a goalscorer - yes please.

Tade was never the quickest and he's got slower - one of the reasons why ACFC are now playing him as a mid.

My thoughts as well.  I did wonder about Joao Moreira though if we were looking at ASB Prem players.  He'd offer a bit of a plan B.

But I agree generally. The other thing I think about it is that not only could having a former star as your marquee not be cost-effective, and potentially disruptive, but it could damage the credibility of the club and league. Say we sign Ronaldinho and everyone goes woohoo and Joe Lunchpail and kids come along and then realise that Ronaldinho is a fat lazy joke now, then that doesn't help people take us seriously.

We get good crowds at the end of the season when we win games. 

Wasn't ADP's first game here also our first game of the season though?

About 12k if I remember rightly. Quite a bit of buzz about it also.

Most of the crowd were Italian journalists, completely thrown that the first game for ADP was not in Sydney.

Apparently there was a big spike in CBD restaurants take in Welly that week!

The fury game with Fowler did get over 9k so it did help a little. However, I think the big name status will only get you a big crowd the first time the player comes. The novelty of having a big name player wears off very quickly.

Except he's even slower. And hates getting hit. De Vries and Lea'alafa the only two at ACFC with pace.