R25 vs Melbourne City | Mon 28th Mar | 9:30pm | SS4

Ernie said repeatedly that there was money left over in the budget but they couldn't find the right people. That to me shows that even the nix realised early in the season that recruitment was bad, and the fact that Sarpong was signed so late shows that he wasn't their first choice. I'm sure that they didn't realise how bad recruitment was but they knew it wasn't the best they could do.

I agree to a certain point. I would argue we should have learned that lesson after the previous season, when Riera got injured and suddenly we saw our season had turned to custard from that moment. Not being able to sign good backups due to license drama is a strong mitigating factor in all of that. 

The lesson from that is that a blind Freddie can see that if Dura plays on next season, he needs to have a backup, or we need to recruit a good CB in his late twenties and Dura can be a backup to the new guy and to Fox.

Injuries and suspensions had a big impact this season. If the same happened last year we probably would have not made the top 6 (even with better squad depth), or to put it the other way round if our best players missed as many games as last season we probably would have been closer to / in the top 6.

And, on another topic, has there been any hint of apology on this forum to Doloras, for telling her off when she tried to discuss / analyse the next year's squad before the transfer season was over?  I noticed she has been quiet since then.

Let's look at the moves we made:

Boxall, current international for Fox, 19 year old state league player.

Burns, player of the season for Sarpong, journeyman who had never scored goals anywhere ((9 (nine!) in 136 matches).  I am not convinced this was just "bad luck" and he had the "pedigree".

Boyd, a good player who everyone turned against for some reason (and now playing in the top league in Portugal) for Powell.  Another All White replaced by a state league player.

Doyle, from ASBP - raw at best.

Danoskos, state league filler.

Hicks, not really up to it, technically squad place probably taken by Ridenton.  You'd say an improvement because it means a young player is getting an opportunity/

That to me constitutes a pretty average off season's work.

At what stage did he say this?

History literally being rewritten as we speak Greenie

He said just before signing Sarpong that all the strikers that they approached wanted a million bucks, he also said before the season started that there is money in the bank for a big signing in the January transfer window. He also said that this is his best squad, so you have to take what Merick says with a grain of salt.

I'll be the first admit I'm drawing conclusions based on not much information.

Boyd: 4 goals in 47 games for the Nix, playing as a striker mostly. 2 in 30 in the Portuguese 2nd tier. He's only played 74 minutes in 2 games in the Portuguese top flight so far.

He carved up for half a season in the ASBP and scored 2 crucial goals in one game off the bench against Adelaide, but I don't really think he was actually ever that good. Powell has scored twice as many goals in less than half the games.

Agree about the rest of it. Sarpong did seem like an odd signing but I don't think anyone expected him to be as bad as he was. I pictured him maybe not scoring as many goals as we would like but still actually being useful, rather than the complete waste of space he turned out to be.

Boxall, Burns and Cunningham were the big losses IMO. Don't forget Brockie/Griffiths either

Don't be a dick.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/683...

Merrick has been given a budget to buy a striker, some cover in central defence for Andrew Durante and Ben Sigmund and he wouldn't mind a fullback as well.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/707...

"We do need to sign a key striker but I'm afraid we're no closer to that. Everybody in the world wants a goalscoring striker so if you target a player that's got a good record, there's a chance you can't afford him,"

"We got a financial gain and the board have been generous enough to give me the money to sign the right player, but even then you talk to an average striker and they want a $1million salary."

http://www.goal.com/en-au/news/4021/a-league/2015/...

"We certainly will look around during the January window period," he told Fox Sports.

"We've got a spot, we've got the money, it's just finding the right player. That would be ideal really."

and then a few weeks later

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/754...

But Phoenix coach Ernie Merrick said there would be no January moves to bolster his squad, saying the team's search for more attacking threats will come from within.

***************

So if you look at above, reading between the lines, and coming to conclusions based on not much information then it seems that the series of events goes like this:

• They want to sign a striker, CB cover, and a full back, the money that they got from selling Burns has been put into the player budget so they have an increased budget to find these players.
• Then they are struggling to sign a striker, i.e. they are talking to people but everyone wants too much money - potentially it is because of the risk associated with going to a club without a long term future, who knows.
• Then they are going to make moves in the January window.
• Then they are looking within their squad for improvements and not moving in January.

That tells a tale of disappointment in the market to me.

In one of the articles above Merick said they have the money for a guest stint even, so it seems there was money, there was the will to sign, but signings were not forthcoming.

Standard

Boyd got completely hung out to dry in that first season when Ricky just started playing him every game when he patently was not ready.  I have always been a big fan but ok, take your point that on paper maybe did not have massive impact.

Good point as well that we lost Brockie, an All White basically eventually replaced by Joel Stevens.  Brockie was not the right fit but he was not replaced adequately.

Cunningham was another international who was basically replaced with a youth team signing.

But yep, all about that license extension

Not sure why that gets them off the hook?  The job of management is to get good players to play for the club!

Okay, say you were offered a job, the jobs are identical, the pay is identical, the terms are identical, the company and location suits you just fine in both circumstances, and you have to move your family to the other side of the world to take up either job. 

The only difference between them is that one of the companies may or may not be around after a year, the other company is going to be around for 20 at least.

Are you going to relocate everything, including your family to a job that may or may not be around in a few months? Or are you going to pick the safe option, everything else being identical?

Why on earth would any player who is in demand and has offers from other clubs choose us? So we're looking at players who either have no offers, or want to come to us purely to get a taste of professional or first team football and are willing to take the risk.

cool story bro

Constructive

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

The five players we lost were all better than their five replacements.

I'll leave that to JD who somehow seems to have the fortitude to engage

Ok that is a completely hypothetical scenario described which I suspect bears almost no resemblance to the challenge of getting good footballers from overseas to the Phoenix

History is written by the forum Cassandras Ryan!

You're wrong - Jeff Vader says we should find these players ourselves! #solutions

Come on, seriously.

You make accusations or criticisms, people call you on it asking for facts to back your suggestions up, then you respond with not my job.

People in the forums aren't asking you to find players and report them to Ernie, just asking you back your statements up.

Accusations? Of what? The team performing poorly? I thought that was a fact. If you need evidence, I suggest you go to the A-League website and check the section called 'Ladder'.

I just really don't know what solutions or evidence I'm expected to come up with when I am simply expressing an opinion that we are playing shark and things need to change. Whether that's players, the coach, or both, who knows. 

How is any of this, as a fan, my job to sort out??

Many on here seem to be of the view that "well at least we still have a team" - that sentiment can only go on so long. I was as happy as anyone with the extension, but we can't expect to build anything for the future or get more fans through the door if we play the same every week, regularly get dicked 3 or 4-0 and just meekly accept it.

If you look in the transfer thread there is a link to the press conference, Ernie's opinion for what its worth is we need two starting defenders, and to create competition across the park so there are no guaranteed starters.

His opinion, however, is the main reason why we aren't competitive is that we didn't have consistency in our combinations, particularly the back line. He said though that good Australian defenders in the A-League are hard to come by.

He also was hopefully that at least one of Riera and Krishna will be NZ citizens, Albert being in NZ for 5.5 years and Roy for 7.

To be fair to Steve-O et al, it's only the angsters who are told to back their statements up. The rose-glasses crowd can simply say "I have faith in Merrick", "let's wait until the recruitment has finished", "that doesn't count because a player was injured", "the licence thing fudgeed us up", "no one wants to play for us", etc. It's a much easier position to be in than to try and come up with what actual players we should have recruited, what tactics we should use etc (although Conan and others do a good job of that). I'm somewhere in the middle but both sides have valid points.

Can't we just all agree we are all sharkcods?

We are basically empty space, literally. Atoms have basically no substance. if a hydrogen atom were the size of the earth, the proton at its centre would be about 200 metres across. It's a miracle we can exist and argue at all *freaks out*

But now they think there is another item inside the atom too. Saw it on Discovery last night and it allows for multiverses to exist.

Has Tom Cruise done anything of note this week?

I fight my point to the end, just like you do and I can respect that. 

However the reality is that no one on this forum has run a football club (although there could be some in disguise hiding behind nom-de-plumes). To that end, since your opinion holds about as much weight as anyone else, mine included (ie. fudge all) and you seem to be keen to express it like the rest of us, then don't get your tits in a twist when you get called on it. You go with the line of 'not my job etc' but you fight your position like you are some factual oracle without ever wanting to give anything more than 'sack the coach and the players are shark - oh and I may like Krishna. '

When all you do is whinge without solutions, then you're only going to like like one thing. HINT: its not a smart guy.

Endulge, engage with us and show us what a smart person you are cause I would really love to hear more than just 'burn this all down'

I finally understood how we can beat WSW or Melbourne City and lose to CCM and Jets within a space of few weeks.

I also think this injury thing is a really convenient excuse - all teams get injuries.  Part of the art of putting a squad together is being able to cover for injuries.  A couple of injures and suddenly our season goes off the rails, that's part of the problem with what we identified before.  Senior players were replaced with kids

called the "penis"

Come on Feverish instead of the one liners enlighten us to what his approach should be to this mass of players that want to sign with us.While you and JD are at it might pay to give the club some tips on how to back out of existing contracts.

I don't think it has helped that we are putting players in positions that they either don't like or are not good at.

Mac is a good example. He has always been a midfield player and as his skill level and understanding of the game is good that is where he should be. At CCM he was excellent, but has not shown the same for us. Fenton is a converted wide player-- who has done OK but he is poor as a defender. Some players can play in a few positions, these two cannot.

Perhaps they should engage the approach used to sign Finkler and Kosta on some defenders and a striker?