Contracted Players - Return of the Long Pins

Rudan is ruthless 

Wow. I guess that really was Nichols last chance. Rudan is ruthless.

Feel a bit sorry for Way, but if he's injured then that makes sense.

Burns must be getting nervous, I have to say..

Thread title should be "No Way"

Nichols played 231 minutes and duing that time, we scored 1 and conceeded 7.

I see Callan Elliott is training with the first team today..

He's as hardnosed as hell and I love it.  I think over the years we have held on to far too many under performing players so I really like his drive to improve the squad

Would love to know whether Saturday was last chance before the match for Nichols, or this is a reaciton to a terrible performance

Some of them have simply stepped up and improved under Rudan, contributing to our better fortunes this season.

I think Dura would be a prime example.

be interested to see who comes in to replace hem.

Fenton, Rufer, Dura the most notable, for sure. Perhaps Doyle too.

This 

Top manager. Nicholls had his chances and well and truly fudgeed them. Look forward to seeing who is brought in to fill his spot ?

I guess cocaine really is a hell of a drug

Is it purely Nichols lack of performance on the park or has something else happened off-field that has made up Rudan's mind to end his contract? 

unlikely to be purely the former

Why not? He was shocking every time he played in central midfield and is well down the pecking order for the attacking positions. 

He's still got a lot of talent in an attacking midfield position. Guessing that with Burgess and Singh there, as well as the need to bring in defensive midfield backup on top of his poor performances, is why he's getting the boot. May be on a bit of money too seeing as he's been an A-League regular, and off field issues can't be ruled out

He does every training. He's a first team player. Taci Kumsuz, Gianni Stesness and Zac Jones are usually there too.

Certainly not the player he was say four years ago when he was a serious threat to any opposition team. I was hoping he might have made a positive difference here.

Any other Weenix players that are close to/are training with the first team? Hard to hear much from up in Auckland but I'd guess Sutton, Curry, Waine would have a shout

Wow. Did not see that coming. Ruthless as all hell! 

AND I LOVE IT

Waine would be the best shout, Ebbinge as well but he's off to Harvard soon

You mean out of the current squad who are being gubbed week in week out? Seems unlikely

Was thinking the same, not exactly setting the Heather alight. 

I know it ain't likely to happen, but I wonder if Tim Payne is having any 2nd thoughts on not trialling at the Nix (as alleged).

Get the feeling Rudan would get the very best out of him, and he would be that hard nosed DM, good enough for the A League.

I think there's a chance either him and/or Howieson will change their mind, and try and convince Rudan they would be committed enough.

Wouldnt Nicholls be considered an attacking midfielder? I guess we dont have to replace like with like though

We could have done a trade with Melbourne City and swapped Nichols for Fornarolli. :) 

'The streaking Wellington Phoenix have terminated the contracts of Australians Mitch Nichols and Rueben Way.

Both have left the A-League club by mutual consent.' Newshub web site

What does streaking mean in this case???

Unbeaten streak I'd imagine. Unless we're planning to play the Victory in the nude.

Very sensible. 42 degrees Celsius in Adelaide yesterday. Slip, slap & slop.

Luckily a very mild 24 is forecast for Melbs on Sundee.

He started on Saturday and was terminated on Monday. I'd say there's a better than even chance that Nicholls blew up after being dragged at half time

He's an interesting player. There are so many good facets to his play, but he can only really operate in the half spaces and he had virtually no impact at all when he played for us, witness 2nd Best's post above about our goal difference when he was on the pitch.

Not a Reason fan, but read with interest his comments on Nichols in this article. 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/109930638/ma...

"Nichols had some decent moments on the ball in the first half, but two things would really have bothered Rudan. On occasions Nichols' first touch was poor under pressure and the Mariners were pressing him. One shocking touch lost possession and led to the Mariners' second goal. But worst than that, Nichols had a chance to win the ball back and hurdled out of the tackle with Jacob Melling.

There was far too much of that. Nichols had a chance to win a number of tackles and was nothing like as committed as the Mariners' players. You have to be a Cristiano Ronaldo to get away with that sort of thing. And even a corps of Manchester United fans never quite took to Ronaldo because he didn't give his all for the team."

Yes that was very interesting... I was going to wind through the recording and find the incident, but then I remembered I had deleted it.

I'd imagine Nicholls will get a nice little payout while making space in the team for Essien.  

Have a feeling Mitch will be signed by the new Geelong er Melbourne team as he is a decent player.

I just hope that we won't look back at Essien's season for the Nix and say "and to think that we let go of Nicholls for this"

We didn't need to get rid of Nichols to create space, we were just over the minimum squad size as it was.

Guest contacts are outside the salary cap & visa + squad limits. We got rid of Nichols cuz he just wasn't up to it anymore.

while I trust Rudans move here. It still is a ballsy move getting rid of players while we don’t have replacements lined up. Hope this doesn’t bite us the arse. 

Just shows how incapable he was imo. His heart (or quality) clearly wasn't there.

There is a massive assumption in there...