Lia - Another Year

At the beginning of the year if someone had suggested we give him another contract I would have laughed, cried and possibly slapped the person into a coma...

however, now. I'd be quite happy to take Vinnie 2013 / 14 for another season or two.

With recent contract extensions and talks of negotiations, his name has yet to be mentioned and he's off contract come the end of the season. Why no noise?

Absolutely, he's been fantastic this season.

Taking this moment to acknowledge how wrong about lia I have been :) <3 Vinnie In Ernie we Trust

Personally, I am no less than STUNNED by the transformation in Vinnie Lia. He has be OUTSTANDING lately.

This might be crazy talk, but what happens to the balance of nature if Lia doesn't get some sort of suspension this season?

i personally think hes gone from shit to average, a huge transformation non the less. I would keep him in there untill ridenton develops into a starter, perfectly happy for another year.

Yep, keep him and I wasn't saying that early in the year. How do you think Toto would have gone under Ernie? (Tongue in cheek emoticon)

Awaits JD to say its a dumb idea and keeping with the same players will get us no where.

The reinvention of Vince Lia

Picture this: You're at a football club, but not a regular member of the starting side. The coach tells you he has no real problem with you looking around for opportunities elsewhere, so you do and carve out a pretty decent career, playing over 100 A-League matches for your new side. Then, the coach who released you six years earlier turns up as coach of the club you're now at.

That's the scenario that faced Vince Lia when Ernie Merrick was appointed Phoenix coach ahead of the 2013/14 A-League season. From day one, Merrick preached a possession-based, attacking style of football which appeared to be at odds with what Lia had specialised in under former coach Ricki Herbert - a no-nonsense, tough tackling physicality in the heat of midfield battles, based more on substance than style.

Would you be nervous? Sure. Daunted? Maybe.

But Lia has undergone a transformation under Merrick that few would have believed possible. So much so that following the win over Adelaide United at Eden Park on Saturday night, the coach pronounced it as the best game he'd ever seen Lia play in the decade and a half he'd known him. Far from being on the fringes of the playing eleven, Lia has started every game of the season and will continue to do so.

So how has this reinvention happened? What's behind it all?

It’s nothing drastic, really. Contrary to what his detractors would have you believe, Lia has always been able to play. His passing range has always been wide, but under Merrick's system, the six-yard pass is more common than the sixty-yard one. Furthermore, the Phoenix of previous seasons would often bypass midfield with long balls, meaning Lia would less regularly receive the ball in the middle third. Now, the first thought of the back four is the short pass into midfield, from where the recipient looks for the next ball forward. It turns out Lia can receive and pass pretty well, thanks very much.

But the real reason is simply this: Lia worked out pretty quickly that if he wanted to be a part of the Phoenix's brave new world, he'd have to adapt his game. No-one in the squad that Merrick inherited from Herbert (with the possible exception of Ben Sigmund) has worked harder to tailor his game to what the new coach is after. He put in the hard yards in pre-season and was rewarded with a spot in the starting side which he's never relinquished.

Lia can certainly give a nod of thanks to new team-mate Albert Riera's performances in the defensive midfield position. Riera’s discipline in that "number six" role has allowed Lia greater freedom to roam further forward and make himself a menace in and around the opposing penalty area. He was inches from scoring just his third Phoenix goal against the Roar last week when his fierce shot cannoned off the inside of the post.

Another happy side-effect of Lia’s eye-catching performances has been virtual anonymity in the eyes of match officials. Lia has always been a player whose name finds its way regularly into referees’ notebooks; in fact, there hasn’t been a season prior to this one in which he’s received fewer than five yellow cards, including one campaign when he was booked nine times. By contrast, his yellow card in the round 15 match against Melbourne Victory was his first – and remains his only – of the current season.

Prior to this season and with Lia's contract up at the end of it, many thought the Phoenix’s number 17 shirt he’s worn since day one at the club might have a new owner sometime soon. Instead, it’s now highly likely Vince Lia will have a new contract placed in front of him between now and April. That would be just reward for a player who has made necessary adjustments to his game for the greater good of his team and is now reaping the benefits.

No thanks.  Lia is a valued, and well liked  part of the senior player posse, plays the tunes on the bus, and does the occasional team talk.  Its an important role.  Because of this he's had a spot created higher the pitch where he is best suited, a midfield spot that in another universe Fenton should have been contesting....

Lia is giving the absolute best he can give.  He's improved, and as general rule is now performing in an anonomous, and sometimes passable fashion. 

Passable is not good enough for a player in his 30's come contract time.  We can/should do much, much better.  Apologies if this sounds a bit c**tish.

With the greatest respect, I disagree with about 95% of what you've just written. The bit about him being liked, playing the tunes and doing the odd team talk being the 5% that I agree with.

And I don't think you could claim that Lia and Fenton are vying for the same spot.

IMHO he was not up to standard until this season.

Whilst I still think he is a player with a narrow skill set Ernie is getting the best out of him and he complements the skills of the players around him - he is doing his job and doing it well.

I would re-sign him but for a "fair" (to both parties) salary given his skill set and contribution - Ernie and co will obviously determine what they consider fair to be.

Ah ha but what you have now is a player that will believe he is worth more than what he is likely to be offered. Look at how he is performing....

I doubt Leo will be here, he can have his pittance added on.

Lia's improved, does a good job, and should be relatively cheap (I hope!), so wouldn't mind signing him.

That's just a negotiation - the owners know how to do that.

I think that under Ricki's tactics playing normally as one of the deeper 2 CMs he was given the main responsibility to transition the ball between defence and attack and both sides of the pitch. Teams that liked to press high up the pitch could easily focus on Lia (and the other CM next to him) which made it tough for him - even more so when that other CM was Brown who's MO was not building play from deeper positions and isolated Lia even more. When teams didn't press as much, such as MV last season that look to counter (also along side a ball playing CM in Sanchez), he was very efficient with his passing and one of the key attributes to our team's runs to the finals was his ability to switch play quickly and accurately to our wide attackers. He has generally done a job in defence, sometimes shutting out the oppositions main play makers (e.g. dominating Fred). This season our midfielders are rotating laterally and horizontally (we used to rotate horizontally which was easier for opposition players to follow) and with the extra CM it is harder for opposition teams to target their pressing. It is also interesting that he is one of the most forward playing passers in the team, most of his passes this season are forward and creates more chances per game than Riera (for comparisons sake). 

His consistency is probably the best it has ever been for the Phoenix, I think mainly due to a more structured attacking setup. Plus, the only player to play all seasons for the 'Nix.

Lia has been fantastic under Merrick this season, so does deserve a new deal. But I expect whether we re-sign Vinnie for another couple seasons will come down to how much he wants vs how much the club wants to pay him. He is a valuable member of the team but I fear that his wages will have been inflated over the years, as he has been here since the start.

Mate you're dreaming

Think his performances have been madly overrated.  

He's played well when the team has played well but yet to see him drag us into a match we're losing or be the dominant player in our midfield - he's still very much third behind Hernandez and Riera when it comes to overall performances.  

No doubt he looks a better player this year and he's part of an effective midfield but how much of that is down to him and how much is down to the fact he's playing with much better players this year?  It will be interesting to see how he goes when riera is suspended for 5 yellows (which will come up on the next couple of weeks probably)

He's had the freedom to attack and has no goals and one assist (basically a pass to Hernandez which may or may not have even been meant for him).

I still think if there's players in the starting XI you're looking to improve on he's one of them.  He may be worth a contract next year but not a priority to re-sign for me

Haha well I'm nothing if not predictable :-)

I've always said there are two ways you improve a squad, try and sign stars and improve your best players (i.e.Sydney FC), or year on year target the weakest members of your starting XI and try and upgrade them.  I favour the second and clearly that's the club strategy.  I still think you have to commit to that and that means every year looking at who is off contract and where you can improve the side.  Now if you go out and have a look and you can't find anyone then sure, stick with what you have.  But you do have to be hardnosed about it.  Leo last year is a perfect example.  Influence had waned, couldn't get in the starting XI any more, he should have been cut.  Especially with young players coming through now, you need space in the squad to get them game time and experience 

Yep, and I think you can say that with anyone in the squad. Though obviously the better player they are, the higher the risk as you'll be relying on the player you replace them with to work out. So I don't think it just applies to Lia. 

I'd like for him to re-sign, I think he has shown enough this season that I'd be happy with that.

But if we release him then go out and find someone who turns out to be better, I'd be happier (obviously). 

You are not likely to get an upgrade on Lia for just Lia's salary.  And you don't get any starting side improvement by keeping him.  

You do get an upgrade on Lia if you let him AND Leo go, to sign a better player and a development kid.  Ridenton and Hicks, and possibly Rufer, all give you at least what Leo can offer now as a squad player and will be better for another years experience.  So you can afford to spend most of Leo and Lia's combined salary on one decent player.

The other improvement possibility is if you let Ifill go and replace him with someone on his bigger salary, who is fit and starts.  Or (unlikely in my view) Ifill comes back at close to his best.

No-one else comes off contract at the end of the season who would release sufficient funds to make any improvements; other than Stein who, I think we are now all convinced, would be hard to replace with any-one better at the same price.  Krishna I expect is a cheap punt.  If he doesn't work out then releasing him will only give us a chance at another cheap punt. 

If you don't let Lia go then I don't see how you improve your side for next year (other than the Ifill possibility).  

Ifil wont be resigned.

I see him getting a coaching gig and maybe getting a short term contract as an injury replacement should he maintain his fitness.

Similar to how Gould sat on the bench for us a couple times... just more likely to get off it.

We may actually start think of a completely new t-shirt for the finals run. Does anything rhyme with Lia?

Hell yes.

"Mamma Mia,

Here comes Vinnie Lia

My my

How can/we they resist him"

Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me
for me
for me

Oh Vinnie Lia, Vinnie Lia, Vinnie Lia there's the goal (pointing to the goal)

The fever is a level just below row Z....
....Row Z
....Row Z (pointing to row z)
air guitar solo

Probs shit but just came to me haha. As you were.

Suitably demonic. Perfect for the Newcastle game, sung loudly in the general direction of the TV set.

Time to see whether he can step up without his mate alongside him.  This I think the next month is the test of whether he's a player we want to see again next season

Here is me hoping that he plays with Ridenton rather than Hicks next to him on Sunday.