Phoenix Ownership - Rob says FTFFA

I'm wondering if in Gareth's total football demand if he remembered to recommend some defence. since the change we have been very poor defensively

For god sake we resorted to our oldstyle of football in that game. Back to longball and crosses. The players said they wanted to go back to winning ugly. They got half way there. Now they are losing ugly.

Can't blame Gareth for this I'm afraid.

If Welnix really want to have a profitable club they might need to bite the bullet and show Ricki the door, and splash some cash on a marquee. They are all business men, surely they can understand that sometimes you need to inject capital in the short term for long term profit. If they let Ricki keep managing for 2 more years without access to marquee players it might be cheaper for them but how many fans are gonna stick around? How much money will they lose asa a result of dwindling public interest? And yes, I know it's not all Ricki's fault but sometimes organisations just need fresh ideas. Managers of football teams are ultimately accountable for on-field performances too, that's just the way it is.

 Maybe part of the problem is that despite them being succesful business men they dont seem to understand that operating a succesful sporting franchise is a completly different thing.They seem to be trying to approach it  the same way they have been succesful and im afraid until they realise maybe that wont work things will not get better.We are told constantly there isnt the money for quality players to come in and that isnt the way they want to go.Well im sorry not sure we can expect things to get much better if they choose to take the young player development route.Will probably be 2 years before the best of them are able to offer a consistant level of performance that will allow us to compete and by then they will be looking to move on to bigger and better things and we are back to square one.

Maybe they should look at how the Breakers have gone about things,yep different sports but dont try and tell me that their away trips and schedule is easier than ours.They seem to have the mix between local players and hard nosed overseas players right.Just maybe there could be something to learn from them.They also seem to have owners who dont try and push themselves into the limelight constantly and seem to leave those who are employed to run the club to do what they there to do.

Agree. Throw in the fact Herbert has major AW's responsibilties this year (on the back of the Oceania debacle) and it's a no-brainer. The public interest IS dying off. Was before last nights hiding. Will be a record low attendance this week. Public aren't going to wait 2 years for some Kiwi academy kids to come thu. They just want to see the Phoenix win the A League sooner rather than later. And that ain't gonna happen ever with Herbert. He has run out of ideas and is constantly outcoached. Time for Phoenix Mk2

your taking my expression of passing the ball too literally, the team was hired to fit into Ricki's version of football, direct, long and "ugly". The owners have asked this group of players to play a posession based style which isn't where their skills lie. The players we hire is down to the owners and the coach, the players inability to play a particular style is their own lack of ability shining through

the players were going to get a Welnix presentation on their five year plan prior to leaving for Oz. They got told by one particular player that getting told what will be happening at the club in five years isn't really of relevance to them - they won't be here. What is important is digging out of this rut right now and getting the three. Meeting abandoned (maybe they should have had the meeting haha)

Complete speculation from me - but earlier in the season I did make a comparison to the old team "family" spirit and this season's rather flat feel about the team.

Also monkeyfish I think asked about team culture.

Bidwell - maybe do an "investigative journo" piece on this?  Would make for riveting column inches and if you hang around Fenton and Boyd's showers for some goss I'd re-subscribe to DP (as long as I get my freebie set of Ginsu steak knives).

This interview below says it all really - Deaker and Danny Hay.

   
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/player/ondemand/1747804994-danny-hay-on-phoenix-performance

Also -  Chote told Radio Sport this morning that Herbert's got to standup to the owners and say his squad can't play the way they want them to (short term) and go back to the defensive structure and breakaway style the Phoenix are renowned for.

So if RH has soldout to the owners (to secure his personal future for another 2 years) - and the players hear about the total football/style change thing from the media first (not RH) - then Herbert tells the media about current players being discarded - then Herbert's lost the ONE thing he is good at - being loyal to his players. This now can only be terminal for RH, and his exit needs to happen now.

Dear Gareth.

I grant you that you have put your position out there in the media and that you are a well made man of solid financial advice. Here is a footballers school of economics that you might need to get learned on. Its not what you are going to want to hear but its an unfortunate reality.

Other teams have marquee players. We do not. On the whole, the majority of marquee players have been value for money. Last night, you saw just what having a marquee player can do for your team and for polarising your fans. Granted that ADP is a special player the likes that this league may not see again. For 38, you have to admit, he still has it and made a few younger players last night look like amateurs. He has earned his paycheck this year in my opinion because even when Sydney has been rank awful, he has still been pretty good, save for round 1. The flip side to this is that it did cost Sydney a bit of money. Who and how it was paid for, I can't answer you but they found the cash and made it work. They also have a Socceroo in Brett Emerton. If you have not heard of him, he was a team mate of one Ryan Nelsen (I am sure you have heard of him) and made a good name for himself in the English Premier League at Blackburn before he decided that the lights of the Opera House were more his style. Emerton is not in the same class as ADP but he is a handy footballer that performs more often than not.
Now I know you have this whole 5 year plan about developing locals and becoming a self sustaining club and thats quite admirable. If I was the man behind it the club, I 'd want that too. However if you have not also noticed, Sydney this month also signed Joel Griffiths. Joel too polarises fans but in that 'I'm a bit of a dick way'. He is still a good footballer in his own right and you saw how he went last night on his 1st game back. He happened to leave a seasoned defender for dead in the 1st 10 mins of his 1st game. Not bad aye. The amazing thing with this is that Sydney could sign him, and stay under the cap.


Where am I going with this? Well I can't profess that this is my idea. I did read it on another thread in this forum and even I went 'my god is it is that simple'. So lets play economics.

You run Gareths Fruit World, which is not a bad little store but the big bad LaPaglia Fruit World up the road has more of a market share and do a better turn over because the customers feel a bit more in the 'customer service' area than what they receive from your store.  It does happen. Now you might have a wage bill at your store of $2 million. Being an ordinary world and same same industry, you would expect that LaPaglia Fruit World would have a similar budget. For the sake of semantics, lets just say $2 million as well. Now you kinda need about 20 employees to run your store so on average you would say that the average salary of an employee at Fruit World is $100k a year. Not too shabby for a Fruit World worker I must say. Now market statistics say that the average wage for Fruit World workers is higher than that. How is it that your workers are getting an average wage but the workers at other stores are above that average and make the 'market statistic' average. Well its just so happens, there is a subsidy from the Don Key government that a couple of guys can be immigrants and via some shady loop holes that a Taito-Field tiler could not cover, they seem to work for 'free'. All fruit worlds being equal you have to pay 20 guys out of $2 millions and the big bad LaPaglia Fruit World has to pay.... oh lets say 18 employees out of $2 million. Well naturally for that extra 'average' wage, LaPaglia Fruit World can attract a better class of employee than Gareths Fruit World because they are likely to want to earn a little more than you might pay them. I know right? People all over the world change jobs for more money! Who would have thunk it... Its a crazy thing. Because of the better class of employee, the customers get a little more love when they go into the LaPaglia Fruit World and hence why they rate highly in the 'customer service' section.

Can you kinda figure where I am coming from on this Gareth? A couple of marquee players (and yes I know its a dirty word to you) can actually leave you with cap space free in case someone comes onto the market in the transfer window, or, you can spread the money a little further and get in a couple of extra players, or you kind find a better class of player because you are able to offer them an extra little bit more cash.

I know its tough to swallow but you see when 9 teams are doing this, and 1 team is not, well.... I guess I don't really need to spell out what happens to that 1 team that goes it alone. And there endith the lesson.

Thank you for your attention.

I hope you sent that directly to him? he won't answer it from here. In fact he's even gone quiet on facebook where I've posed the same question to him

Interesting fruit analogy.

Fruit is seasonal.

Fruit need to be handled with care otherwise they bruise easily or go off in quality.

Some fruit are way over priced.

American fruit is big and showy but of no real substance.

Fruit doesn't travel too well.

How long should you hold on to your fruit before you go and buy some more?

Coupla days!

Put it on his blog!! #occupyGareth!!

Take it to the internet! Hey you know we could probably all download Low Orbit Ion Cannon and DDOS his Kiwisaver!

[Note to various security/terrorist agencies

I am not a terrorist/hacker/anonymous/activst/hacktivist THIS IS A JOKE!!!!]

But seriously we could...

I'm happy for someone else to post it. I'm not interested in signing up to Gareths blog.

Honestly, if you actually want him to answer it, post it on his blog, and he will. If you didn't want him to answer it, what was the point in writing it? You can log in to his blog using a range of different accounts (facebook, twitter, google) so you don't actually have to sign up to his blog.

Exactly the same reason anyone vents pointless negativity on this forum. To influence the ideas of other forumers, and perhaps be some kind of "big shot".

I'm feeling pretty negative, but that ain't going to stop me getting drunk, chanting and making a fool of myself at Eden Park.

god Deaker is a mong

No, it was a stab at useless negativity. I think you should actually put your letter somewhere where Gareth might see it.

Jeff

Not all teams have Marquee's ...  all teams do not have big budgets ... if it was money the Mariners would have died a long time ago ...

The message from Gareth is very simple ... play a style of football that will get folk tho the gate... from the outside it seems like shooting the messenger...

The squad and playing style are the coaches ... and being as fair as I can the Nix arguably play the most negative football in the A-League... the TV rating in Australia are by far the lowest of the away teams and this has not always been the case... 

While Gareth is well out his depth in selecting players and formations he is spot on in saying the Nix need to lift their game and play a better style of football... I have often posted that in NZ the football media has rarely discussed the technical side of the game [maybe to many rugby folk who knows why] in Australia that's all we read about for maybe Hal 2 to Hal 6... and in Hal 7 & 8 it still is constantly talked of ... I guess I am saying it is possible to say something is bad without it being an attack on football .... me thinks maybe so many years of negative press has created rejection of any criticism maybe I am wrong...

Jeff it's not just money and your post above essentially is about spending money whereas I would content you need to create a football culture first.... NZ football needs to invest in technical developments of coaches in general... the turn around is much faster than you may think look at the difference Arnold made to the Mariners and AP did to the Roar & MV ... Gareth IMO is by and large on the right path I think he needs support from football folk to put what he is saying in football terms .....

Problem is, as some of us are saying, we don't have the playing personnel to play this attractive football that's being talked about. So Gareth asking for this change, while understandable, is hypocritical as apparently he's not prepared to go out of his way to help recruit the kind of player we would need.

I don't think he's being hipocritical, I just think that he doesn't understand that players that can play this style properly will demand a lot more in wages than the crop of players we currently have. Either way, unless Welnix are prepared to spend more money on players, this style will continue to fail dismally.

Maybe hypocritical was the wrong choice of words, but saying "I want the style to change" while being told, as I'm sure he has, that we don't have the cattle to play that way but still maintaining that he won't open up the purse to recruit more suitable players for his vision, is suicidal

Solved! Either blow the bank on quality or play 7 assorted defenders, 2 mids and a striker for the rest of the season.

 And the myth gets perpetuated again, "Gareth asked for the change."

See Pineys blog about how it happened.

Noone said let the defence be leaky, from what I can see, no matter what system is in place

No matter who asked for the change. It appears to have been asked for.

A squad, more or less, which has featured in the finals for the past 4 years has become a dysfunctional rabble on the park this season. Players like Siggy and Dura, who have (for the most part) been consistent for their Nix careers have suddenly become the Laurel and Hardy of A League defenders. Guys like Vinnie Lia and Manny, who could usually be relied upon to put in a shift every week, have unravelled to the point of invisibility.

Players lose form, but having that many players losing form all at the same time is more than a coincidence, in my opinion. There appears to be something very wrong at the club, on and off the park.

To be honest, the only person that I really trust to get to the bottom of exactly what happened is Piney. The Dom Post reporters are having a field day, Gareth is opening his mouth without thinking first, whereas Piney has obviously talked to several people close to the club (who he has formed a fantastic working relationship with over the past 6 years) and made a good attempt to find out the facts. For now, I'm taking his version of what happened as gospel.