Alex Alejandro "A-Rod" Rodriguez Gorrin

Wonder if he was just offered 1 year or if he rejected an initial longer contract. The main reason for wanting to keep him is surely future  potential? 

I'm thinking it was the +1 that was already in his contact. Maybe he wants to his out for more money or return to Europe or whatever.

A 1 year contract is Fairly typical for a player using up an import spot isn't it? Leaves you with a bit of flexibility. 

All the above seem valid comments.  I was thinking, though, that he is an import we took on as a young player, and looked to develop.  The idea of loosing him back to Europe with no transfer fee, just as he is getting really good is ... annoying.  And I would think contrary to Welnix's business model.  But that's the game I guess.

The same comment (sans the import bit) applies to some of the other one year extensions.

That makes sense.

If he has an even better year next year he could cost us more to keep, But if his next season is injury prone it gives us an out.

Can't get in the team ahead of Lia

Rodriguez is rubbish, end of. I had pretty high hopes for him at one point, but he doesn't have it.

Obvious troll is obvious

When a bunch of stats have been thrown up showing how good he is, you are definitely trolling

I dunno, I think JD has a little bit of a point, and I'm a big A-Rod fan. Basically why re-sign him for a year if he's going to ride the pine? 

I wouldn't read too much into the team selection last night seeking as our season is done and Ernie could have been trying some stuff, but with Finkler coming there's 4 import mids and WeeMac and it seems that we can't play them all at once. Unless Roly is going of course...

Having said that I think Riera is declining a bit, he seems less mobile and to get caught out a bit more than the last couple of years. A-Rod seems like a ready made replacement in waiting. But that just shifts it so another import is benchwarming (Unless Riera gets his kiwi citizenship)

Too many unknowns in this equation, CT.  It pretty much does my head in trying to double-guess Ernie.

Phoenix haven't received an offer for Roly.

Possibly from Mrs. Bonevacia?

"Let him go, and nobody gets hurt"

Guess no one could rule it out. But I'd doubt the signing of Finkler has anything to do with Roly's future. Reckon it's more about giving us two creative midfielders.

I really think it will bring the best out of him.  He needs more help and he needs more players who make good runs

teams can also no longer nullify us by fouling Roly every time he gets the ball. 

The one who was happiest about the signings of Finkler and Kosta were Rolys ankles. 

Meanwhile our confirmed squad for next year has 2 CBs (one of whom is about to turn 34 and the other has only played a handful of A League games) one LB, and no specialist RB (unless you count Fenton). I know there's a long way to go before next season and there's talk of Riera and Krishna maybe becoming locals but we haven't left ourselves with a lot of options for addressing our obvious deficiencies at the back, yet we've strengthened our midfield when it was already the best part of our squad. I just can't see how it makes sense.

Surely stats alone can never prove anything?  They are one tool in assessing a players contribution.  For example, passes completed and pass completion percentage.  Often CBs will end up with very high passes completed because they make simple sideways passes under no pressure - but what does that actually mean?  There has to be some context to stats otherwise they are meaningless.  I think it is interesting that Lia was preferred to him last night, maybe that is Ernie having a final look at Lia before making a call.  I also think it is interesting that the standard defence of A-Rod is that "he does the stuff that you do not notice".  Which indicates that he is not particularly noticeable from which you can draw multiple conclusions...

Depth is good. Just takes someone to do an ACL for everything to fall over. Sounds like the club is advanced with some Aussies centrebacks. Let's hope that get them across the line.

I was so obvious last night, defensively they just had to funnel the play back inside and wait until it got to Powell or Watson who inevitably turned it over.  I know we don't like to just throw crosses in but jesus you wonder what Watson is on the pitch for, trying to play balls into his feet on the top of the box is only going to end up one way. 

As others have said, Riera does not seem to be the player he was last year. He is just half a yard slower to the ball and that has seen him cop far more cards than someone like him should be getting.  Rodriguez is the only player we have capable of doing the  Riera Job for us,

With Ernie deciding on Kosta and Finkler as forwards, it looks like diamond mid again next year - and I see a-Rod playing an important role there - for all the reasons already posted. Our front 5 should all get into scoring positions. It won't happen unless Dura gets injured but I'd like to see this line up. Good bench options.

Krishna                  Kosta

               Finkler

     Roly              Rodriguez

                Riera

Doyle Fox New CB New RB

              Moss

Bench options from: WeeMac, Dura, Powell/Watson, Gulley/Fenton, Ridenton/Rufer, Italiano

I like that, and would suggest that Gulley needs to be the understudy to a good new RB if we can find one.

And just like stats don't paint a full picture, whether some fans notice a player or not doesn't paint the whole picture either. In fact, the whole reason that stats were brought into this argument was because people were saying A-Rod was doing nothing, which is empirically not true. Stats are fallible because they can be misapplied and don't capture black swan events or things which aren't easily counted or codified (like quality runs off the ball, or good defensive positioning to shut down a passing channel). However subjective opinion is also biased by pre-conceived notions of a player's quality and on the sort of events which catch your eye - last ditch tackles, killer balls which put a man through on goal, even costly mistakes, etc. A-Rod doesn't do that stuff, therefore doesn't get noticed. That doesn't mean what he is doing isn't valuable to the team though. For example, in that win in Sydney a few weeks back he was being pressed in midfield by 2 players, managed to evade them both and thread a pass to Doyle which led to a goal for Roly. However on the replay they only showed it from Doyle receiving the ball. If you missed A-Rod's contribution in real time you wouldn't see it on the replay or highlights but it still made the space for Doyle which stretched the Sydney defence and led to a goal.

I've compared him to Busquets before  and I still think the comparison is valid (Busquets's cheating aside). Obviously A-Rod isn't as good (who is?) but the role he performs in the team is the same as Busquets does for Barca. And you could watch a whole Barca game and never notice Busquets because of the MSN frontline and Iniesta and Rakitic in front of him and Alves bombing down the right wing but what he does is absolutely vital to the team.

I just think our midfield was deep enough Ridenton and Rufer are both coming along nicely now, until Rufer's injury at least) and we should have been looking to use a big chunk of the salary cap and our last import slot on fixing our backline

...and a better CB pairing (ball playing, mobile, good defenders) in conjunction with Reira allows the fullbacks to bomb forward more often and generally sit higher when in possession.

You don't add depth and then expect them ALL to start though. That's the whole point of squad depth. Someone will get injured, someone will be out of form, Wee Mac may get into white hot form now that his starting spot is under pressure. Way too much credence is placed on the money/import/must all start argument.

Ye Gods let this be true! Sure they can't kick lumps out of both of them simultaneously all game. 

How did we think Lia did when he was on yesterday?

This year we desperately needed depth in defence and we didn't have it. We had a number of suspensions and injuries in midfield (Lia was out for ages, Rufer had been getting game time before his injury, A-Rod wasn't fit at the start of the season after injury) and by and large our midfield has been fine, so it's not like this is addressing a major issue we have had. 

Now we still need at least two quality defenders, maybe more. And we can only get kiwis or Aussies for those roles. And we might not be able to offer as much as some other clubs because we've spent money on building depth in an already strong and deep midfield. The "but depth is good" argument doesn't account for the opportunity cost of using import slots and money on squad players.

Way too slowly. 

A lot of assumptions about salaries going on. But given the Phoenix will move two players onto marquee status at some stage frees up a tonne of cap space.

Agree that he does a decent job of receiving the ball in space but for me that's simply not enough.  He has zero impact in the front third of the pitch and lacks the ability to make a penetrating pass.  He is a 7/10 player which has always been my issue

if you look at this average position, most of the time he is in and around Riera. Certainly a lot further back from Bonevacia. So you wouldn'y expect him to be the creative player.

We don't have a player that is in that play making role though, both WeeMac and Roly are too long on the ball, Gui is a type of player that we don't have in the squad. If we have fast strikers who can move quickly then we need to provide service to them. Their speed is nullified if WeeMac gets the ball and then stops and looks around for someone to pass to, or Roly tries to take on two players before passing back. 

We need Roly to draw in those two players, then pass the ball to Gui who quickly and instinctively moves it to Kosta or Roy who are already making dangerous runs into the box.