History for coochiee

maynardf

We will be unlikely to get European players as from memory January isn’t a FIFA window. If that’s the case I am quite worried what sort of squad we could actually get for this tournament.

carlind

I wonder if Morrison/Dome/Talay has thought about loading fixtures early or late to avoid having many games in January.  The OFC qualifiers are reported to be in the Middle East and if quarantine is still  in place for overseas arrivals by January, it could create some issues. If that’s the case, Phoenix (and a couple other teams) could be without players for 4-6 weeks even. Could theoretically lose Sail, Lewis, Waine, Payne, Fenton, even McGarry, Sutton or Rufer if they have good form.

Apart from England, virtually all the Euro leagues have a winter break in January. For at least the first half of the month. Often they have club training camps in the Middle East.

Throw in the MLS/USL guys, plus Joe Bell, Matt Garbett, Max Mata etc being in their off seasons - and it should be a relatively strong AWs team. Dyche may even agree to release Wood for any OFC tourney semi final/final. Would greatly help if the tourney is in say UAE (7 hour flight from London) as has now been mooted, as opposed to 20+ hours away in NZ/Islands.

Lastly is a possibility that by January, fully vaccinated people returning to NZ/Aus, from specifically listed countries with low Covid risk, may just need to home quarantine for 1 week as opposed to 2 weeks MIQ. UAE for example already has 60% of it's popn fully vaccinated (2 doses). So that would benefit any A League guys called up to a January OFC tourney for AWs.

A 'possibility'. But this idea has certainly been mentioned in Australia.