2015/16 Transfer Speculation

You seem to be inventing things in your head again, JV. Sure, there are some of those opinions around, but most people just seem to be frustrated but  understanding of the situation we are in. 

Wow. People are disappointed that we are currently coming 8th on the league and have signed one player in the transfer window. A lot of people seem to be arguing with themselves. It is easy to make posts about the shark attitude of the fans but those same posters who are doing that aren't responding to the specific points those fans are making.

I have no clue what Jeff is on about. Can Jeff please name the members in this thread who want to see Merrick sacked? I have been one of the biggest defenders of Merrick's position as coach but one of the biggest critics of some of the decisions he has made. Two things can be true at once, ya know.

JV mainly interested in forum politics now it seems - bit like Anna Pavlovna in War and Peace.

A few years ago I would've been excited about a new signing like this ... hope he does well though.

Tell Leister City that lolz

People wanted us to sign a striker. We have. Now STFU.

The thing is this, there are two pathways as I see it. 

The first is you can spend millions of dollars on a team that is not sustainable in the market and be competitive. That is great while you have willing owners but the minute your owners bail or get arrested for tax fraud or whatever you're team goes into receivership.

The second is you can buy and develop young players, building stars in house and making a decent bit of money selling them. That way you're kind of competitive and sustainable. You're never going to win the league that way though because as soon as your players are any good they are gone.

The beauty is that the two systems are not mutually exclusive, you can develop young players, make them stars, sell them off, and use the funds to subsidise the rest of the playing squad including potentially foreign marquees.

The truth is that the nix are never going to be able to outspend Sydney or City so we have to do something different. The playing squad this year is bad, but we can all guess of a reason as to why we were unable to recruit last off-season, and in general we do spend above the cap when required to be competitive. 

The point is to be competitive AND sustainable while being based in a smaller market.

This is the path to the championship as I see it.

Year 1: Rebuilding year. You give your young players a go and work out who has what it takes for that level.

Year 2: You make the top six. Your young players have now developed to a decent level. You sign up some good solid players. Your team just lacks that special something.

Year 3: You go all in. Your young players have reached maturity. Your solid players ably support them. You sign up a marquee attacking player on a 1 year deal. He is the point of difference in close games. You buy again in January if needed. You make the top 2. You have some luck. You win the title. 

Year 4: The marquee leaves as you cannot afford him. Your young players are now fully fledged pros and ready to take on Europe. Your solid players remain to guide the next lot of guys through.

Yes, yes I know that real life is not Football Manager. However, I think this is the sort of thing we need to aim for. Basically, we need to realise that we can't compete year in and year out with the Victory. Basically, we need to look for a year in the future and target it as a year we can win the league. If you go for the title and miss out then that is just life. I don't think we can afford to have a marquee player every year but I think we need a marquee if we want to win it all. Therefore, I would try to only have a marquee player 1/3rd of the time.

One advantage in being a smaller club is that you can actually afford to have bad seasons. Victory fans think they always need to be awesome so they will act in a way to make the top 6 every season. This sort of thinking can mean that big clubs sometimes don't think long term. The only solution for small clubs is good long term planning which involves the things you have pointed out.

The reason I'm disappointed is because I hoped we were in year 3 of my imaginary cycle. This season it feels like we have gone back to square one. I think we can absolutely make the playoffs next season but I think we are now at least 2 years off a title challenge.  This is why Merrick has intelligently given game time to players like Fox, Danaskos, Gulley and Powell. We may not make the playoffs this season but I think we have seen enough from Fox to say he may have the ability to be our long term defensive leader. That isn't what we wanted from this season but if Sigmund had played all those games we could have still missed the playoffs and not known this pertinent information.

You never had a club.

Hell yes I did.

As long as it gets us into playoffs.

Bear in mind that a certain Shane Smeltz was only playing Conf league football prior to coming to play for the Nix

Last year though- if Burns didn't work he had Krishna, who he had been working with for some time and Kenny who had a scoring record in pro football and good things were expected from McGlinchey. As well as Tyler Boyd, who'd actually played a fair bit with Huysegems and done well. This year McG has been in a bit of a lull and isn't a goal scorer- and beyond that not much proven goal scoring material anywhere with Krishna down.

He can be criticised for that, but we just don't want to because we're still in the after-glow of a season where we were top of the table for a while and blew teams off the park.

and cos we trust him to get us there again.

ah but that's not what i said - Fox was the replacement for Boxall - but can you afford to have a 4th Centre back in the squad?  traditionally they can't play many other positions so while it's a risk only having three, it's also a risk having four.  Perfect scenario may have been a young kid in the youth team who could play a bit (who was the tall lad from the U20's world cup, he was handy).  

But Fox was a risky replacement even for Boxall (who was good enough to be starting player in the A-league, whereas Fox was a big unknown). Fox really should have been CB number 4 - and yes, in a squad of 23 (just see how many CBs the teams will take to the EUROs with their squads of 23), it makes perfect sense to have 4 centre-backs, and it makes even more sense when you actually account for who are 3 CBs actually were (or still are actually).

But I think the seed of this problem was signing both Dura and Siggy on 3 year contracts when they'd both already well and truly hit their 30s. It may have been a loyal gesture, but paved the scene for exactly this scenario to happen.

massive difference between a short format tournament and a season - i take your point about Fox being a risk, i think Ernie would have liked a more established player but it's not an easy sell to a already established first team player to be playing backup CB (which was the reason we lost Boxall in the first place right?)

Yes, there is a big difference between a tournament and league,but based on your argument, teams would be less likely to take 4 CBs to a short tournament (less likely that you'll need the 4th one in those situations), yet pretty much all teams do - and even 5 is not unheard of.

And yep, I acknowledge that difficulty, which is why I think the original problem was those 3 year contracts for Dura and Siggy.

Hate to say it but if he was actually any good, he would have already been out on loan in L1/L2. Having only been at a non league team probably shows his real level.  

He's not especially young and lower diversion sides cry out for people who can bury the ball in the back of the net so its no wonder he's jumped on a "summer gap year" trip to NZ, especially since the weather is soo rainy and sharke here in the UK right now

Correct but Shane had played at higher levels prior to that final stint.

Does someone have to bring up the example of Jamie Vardy? Playing non-league football until he was 25. Or Kevin Phillips, cut as a youth player by Southampton, ended up playing as a CB for a non-league side when he was 21. Both those guys had no problems scoring goals in the premier league when they got there.

Not that I expect Jones to be as good as them, but you can't write someone off because he hasn't played at a higher level by the age of 21. And the fact that he's still got a contract with a championship club at 21 is encouraging. Most youth players get cut before they are 20. Birmingham obviously think he's got some future there.

Also, what did people expect? This is an injury replacement for Krishna, we need a striker who is willing to sign for us for a few months only. A loan from a European club was the best we could hope for. And of course we weren't going to be picking up any Barcelona or Bayern reserves who are itching for game time. All things considered I think this is a smart move.

I'd like to see our name on this list on the BBC website again:

our entire world cup squad were centrebacks in 2010.

I'm just gonna blame Supersport for throwing a ridiculous amount of money at Boxall.

I cant speak for everyone but I was expecting Suarez or Messi.

Gallop was hoping the same.

Some of our support, in a nutshell:

"Oh God. We need a striker. Why the hell won't we sign a striker. Why?"

We sign a striker as an injury replacement, on a short term loan

"Never heard of him. He must be useless. He didn't play for Barcelona and score 170 goals in the Champions League. Rubbish signing"

I haven't seen that much negativity so I'm not sure where you and the other 2 grumps are seeing it.

Most of what I am seeing is speculating in the speculation thread, and people being cautious about the person they've never heard of.

If anything the grumpiest looking people are the ones saying stop speculating or discussing.  You got a striker so stop talking.  Clearly saying that speculation doesn't belong in the speculation thread, and if they sign a position you wanted you can no longer have opinions.

Pro tip: if you don't like speculation, avoid the thread with speculation in the title.

Except no one has said that. 

From now on every post should be: "yay" "woo" "yay we signed a striker". "cool! can't wait to see him play!" "yay! a striker!" 

That will be a great forum. People will come from miles around to read the glorious forum of dull sycophants. 

fudgeing A

Yawn. Bit touchy there, chaps? Have a cup of tea and relax.

I said "some of our support', but if the cap fits. I think the kind of thing I'm talking about is quite obvious in the quoted posts at the top of this page. Right, you can go back to being defensive now.

Oh, and speculation isn't complaining about signings we've made. It's discussing signings we might make. Just saying.

Genuine lol.

Where are you seeing this? I've seen one post which was negative.

Re: Fox... someone said he should've been the 4th CB, and for me he was... with Manny being the 3rd

I like Mr Fox

Off topic, I ran into an AFC Wimbledon fan online and when he found out I was a Nix fan he was all like "Smeltz ruled!"

In this thread, though:

- angry, frustrated people

- people getting angry and frustrated with the angry and frustrated people

- people getting angry and frustrated that some people get angry and frustrated when others get angry and frustrated

Me, I'm chillaxed because I'm not watching the games any more.

in that case, we should all be attacking you!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH