Nix Transfer Speculation 2019-20

Also, hopefully Singh isn't the last player we'll sell for a profit - and looking at our Academy we should find in a position to make some decent coin in the next few years...

This model works for some teams worldwide, we just need to make sound financial decisions.

Absolutely, if we could even do a 10th of the ajax academy, we'd be on the right track. That's the type of club we should be looking at being in australasia. Hopefully we don't have to sell key first team players every season, but every other would be fine. It would prove that the academy is working. 

I am curious how long will Krishna stay on in India.  Williams may want to return to an Australian club, and he was always a Rudan pickup. However, I am not ready to give up on Roy - would be an excellent long term mentor for younger guys joining us (especially for those who also moved to NZ for their footballing future like he did).

The beauty of having a good Academy is that if you produce enough talent, you can then choose who to keep and who to sell - for example, Cacace will definitely be getting offers, but it is up to us to renew his contract and keep him at Westpac for as long as we want - he could be a stalwart and play for us for 20 years, or he could stick around a little longer until we receive an offer we can't refuse.

Also, with our future more or less secured, we can also play the trading game and it's not just Academy players that will be sold. If Piscopo does really well, we have two years to negotiate a transfer fee with a bigger club... 

Has that Solomon Islands U17 wonder kid arrived at Weenix? If so apart from freezing his arse off, has he been playing Central League or Cap Prem?

Limited to school football. Poor lad.

He came off the bench in the Phoenix v Wests game

Thomas James?

https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/uk-bad-boy-reinvented-as-wollongong-a-league-target-529829

The title of the article doesn't bode well.. (link not working for me on mobile)

James is a visa player, which means his chances of playing in the A-League are tougher given most clubs will look to Europe or South America to fill those spots.

We will have the cap space available that we could aim higher than a NPL player.

Signings look youthful with potential. 

Be nice if the Nix went all in and brought Rojas back from the margins of Europe to compliment Posicopo on the left and had a connection to a visa striker of quality (tough given the northern season has started with quality strikers signed already).

Wonder if any of the other Newcastle or Hammers players that toured in 2014 with Taylor are up for a southern outing?

Piscopo is a great signing to get over the line, overseas player that doesnt take a visa spot, and still young enough to develop.

(2nd thoughts on Rojas, thanks to "Sofascore" and all their great stats, Rojas has scored 2 goals in 5 games for his new club, I would say he'll be looking to build on that - good for him).

So once Piscopo is announced we'll have room for 4 more signings and then presumably one will be an import ST what positions do we want the other 3 to be? for me, I'd be happy with a RB, maybe a versatile forward that can play 10, ST and out wide and even maybe another CB (with DeVeres and Taylors injury issues)

Talay pretty much ruled out signing a replacement right back when Fenton was unavailable so not sure if he will sign one now

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/114487950/troublesome-foot-continues-to-sideline-wellington-phoenix-defender-louis-fenton

So TAHW and Elliot are the right back cover?

I have been banging on our need for a visa ST and I stand by that, however I'm quite worried about our CB situation as well. Wasn't impressed by how we defended against the Strikers and don't have too much faith in DeVere. He's OK as a CB replacement but I'd want someone better to play alongside Taylor - not sure what options we have there at the moment.

Would rather a visa CB 

We have one.

A naive question as I don't understand the salary cap or how the Phoenix budget for any given season, but if we only sign 21 players, does that mean we can pay the existing players more, or save more money for a marque player??

You could pay more per player but the fact that half the league ignore the salary cap means it's really just an arbitrary number anyway.

A marquee is specifically outside the cap.

https://www.a-league.com.au/salary-cap-system

• You have to sign at least 20 players, you can split the salary cap how you see fit (all equal or 10 min salary and 10 split the rest). 
• If you have 2 marquee players in the 20 registered then the salary cap only has to cover 18 players. 
• There are a few other salary cap exemptions which means all/some of the salary of non-marquee players is not included in the salary cap.
• There is a minimum amount of the salary cap that clubs must spend, the salary cap is $3.2million and clubs have to spend at least $2.88million.
• If a club spends less than the salary cap they can bank those savings (at most 2 seasons) and then use that banked savings in a season  up to a maximum of 110% of the Salary Cap for that Season.
• There are scholarship players so clubs can pay young players the min wage (league specific min wage, not legal min wage) and not count towards the 23 squad limit or the salary cap. Any payments to these players over min wage is counted to salary cap.
• A guest player can be signed for up to 14 games, there is no limit on salary, nationality or squad size for these players - can earn whatever, can be a visa player even if club already has 5 visa players and can be above the 23 squad limit.

I think that covers most of it. The link above has more detail.

I have a feeling DeVere won't be playing as much as we think he will. Personally I was impressed by McGing v Strikers despite the result.

Would have been interesting to see how TAWH went along side DeVere in the strikers game. McGing looked pretty good on the ball but is still young and inexperienced at this level for a CB. It was his headed clearance that went straight to the top of the box when they scored there second goal. Wouldn't be surprised if we see Steinmann spend some time at CB as well when Taylor and Devere are out injured.

I think Elliot deserves a crack at the RB position. Fenton will take a while to get up to speed if he's not even kicking a ball yet. Give Elliot some regular game time there and a chance to show his worth. 

So reports out of Adelaide suggest that a 6th visa slot will be added into the A-League during the January window.

That seems an odd choice when we're assured the Phoenix are taking places from true blue Aussie battlers who would be playing A-League if it wasn't for the NZ club.

Player announcement Friday morning, I wonder who that could be ...

I think we have enough cover at CB.

We have Taylor, McGing, DeVere, Wihongi and Payne and Steinmann if needed.

Not so sure personally -

Taylor: Has the goods but getting on with age and unsure we could rely on him to play every single game

McGing: Unproven at this stage - could turn out to be a Dylan Fox type player, adequate but more of a squaddie

DeVere: Experienced at this level, but significant question marks on fitness and ability to see the season through.

TAHW: No A-League experience and slightly injury prone.

Payne: Really a CM, not someone you want to rely on as a back-up CB, unless under exceptional circumstances.

Steinmann: Could end up doing a Kopa and playing CB for us, but he was brought on to strengthen our MF.

Payne has played CB the last two years hasn't he. More than capable of slotting in.

Excellent point. A lot of chat about attacking options (and tbh that's still where I'd like to see the Visa go) but I can't help but feel the season will be decided but how well (and how healthy) the CBs and CMs do. 

Both DeVere and McGing played the ball well against Brisbane and we all know Taylor's a footballer but DeVere's lack of pace got badly exposed on the break numerous times.

Steinmann will need to be better than Mandi and Rufer needs to continue his development, sitting in front of a back four is very different than a back 3/5.  

NB. Easy to see why Durante was let go at this stage, if he was a our starting CB my nerves wouldn't last the season.

We were hoping for him to stay on in a different capacity but sadly that did not come to pass.

Fabio Ferreira has confirmed that he now has Aussie citizenship, not really a striker but wouldn't be a bad depth signing for a club.

He was playing for Adelaide City in the NPL SA and in the SA Cup final Adelaide Olympic did the job on him. Although, they did sign him about 3 days before the cup final so maybe the lack of fitness was the difference there.

Looks like we are just gonna sign that visa striker and see what the January window brings

https://newentertainmentorder.com/soccer-stoppage-time-19-08/

Makes sense to me.