Transfer Talk - 2018/19 Season

Fair point. Blame the metrics in recent seasons I think.

Tade has gone to South Africa - he's with AmaZulu in the top South African league, so it's a moot point anyway.

And scores for them in the PSL on the weekend in a 2-1 win. So has one more official goal for them than Brockie has for Sundowns.

What about that Ifill guy?

ACFC fan here, honestly I feel the same and I know a lot of other fans do. He's a pretty damn weak finisher as well, though his touches and awareness are A-League quality. Moreira (now playing in Malta) and de Vries I liked more - de Vries would be a fantastic pickup if we pounced earlier

So the Handy premiership: everyone good has already gone, and next best- Gulley an de Jong aren't up to it.

It's not like it hasn't been tried in the past.

If there are no senior players ready to step in, I do hope Conroy and alike, decent young players get more of a look in. I feel in the past we have been too conservative with youth.

Pretty much - they're absent, aged, aliens, average or not available. Interesting also who isn't on the MVP list - Tade (despite golden boot) and TAHW (despite playing 16 games).

Agree with the suggestion of Conroy or the like (e.g. Awad).

What's Semmy like?

I'm still waiting on Tonya's big signing... its been a while.

Still waiting for this "big signing"......

Fan of him at Handa level but not A-League quality + he's an import. Only 23 though so may well do a Krishna

David Browne?

To be fair to Tonya, the rumor of Yoo would have been a pretty big signing. Korean international and k league golden boot winner.

Big signing? More like big sighing.

The guy's basically a Korean version of Hamish Watson. So guess he could be a big signing in that sense.

Yep agree - it's a shame the Nix didn't sign Krishna sooner, and start him sooner. Maybe there was a view that a player who plays locally and is from low-ranked footballing country can't be that good. The best import choice might already be in NZ.

Need to allow for the fact that Semmy's goals were scored for a team that came stone cold motherless last, while Tade and Krishna played for top finishing teams. One to watch for next season?

Krishna trialled for the Nix early on, and he also trialled for other A-league clubs after that, and didn't make the cut. It took him a while to become the player he's been over the 3-4 years, this is something that Rudan has talked about (i.e. that it takes a bit of time to adjust to professional football coming from that sort of background).

The other thing you need to take into account is that scoring goals in the Handy Prem (or the previous incarnations) isn't an automatic sign of quality (or sign that the player in question may be ready for the A-league). The level of defending varies, let's say considerably, across the different teams. 

Golden boot in the kleague is a tad better than golden boot in the premiership. Also caps for the Korean national team is better than age group in NZ.

Not saying we should hire him but if you looked at his pedigree before he came you'd be pretty excited.

He may have been a good player 3-4 years ago. He's not now, he quite literally looks like Korean version of Hamish Watson. If you know what I mean.

You're being too kind. I know coaches tend to err on experience for centre backs, but where are our good young defenders? Who were they for the top Youth teams last year - Canterbury and ACFC?

Young players don't often get picked for the CB role... old habits of mind perhaps.

Interesting little article on Yoo Byung Soo. 

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/0...

"There was a perception that formed early on, and proved to be hard to shake, that his game was too limited and apart from scoring goals, he just didn't do enough."

Which in short could transcribe to, if he's not going to be scoring for us then he's not going to be doing shark.

If he scores for us, I don't care :) We've got enough little fellas who like to do fancy tricks and never score.

Is he better than AK though? that is the bar I reckon

How I would like to have a player on our roster who doesn't do too much apart from scoring goals...

An early-season Kalu type player, eh.

Maybe it's just a cultural difference but where I'm from (Italy) it's actually seen as a good thing when you do bugger all but then score goals.

Telling someone they're an "Inzaghi-type player" is a huge compliment.  Maybe this explains why I've had totally different opinions of some players compared to other YF peeps over the years. 

But with a pairs of scoring boots would be good 

Or Huysegems?

Not panicking by any means yet, but realistically I would hope we have our squad complete within the next 3 weeks at max, the sooner the better though. We're 50 days out from the season and if we want to hit the ground running and have a team that gels, surely it's in our interests to have everyone signed up at least a month out from the season. Really surprised me that we made no signings this month other than re-signing rufer

And already playing a game per week to get fitness and team play up to speed.

I have seen no encouraging signs this pre-season, honestly. We need Krishna to get his citizenship, and we need another midfielder + another striker ASAP.

I always quite liked Amazulu

Good... good. Everyone's good and miserable about our chances this season already. 

That means if we come 5th, then it will be cause for cheer rather than misery!

Well most want us to aim for 6th place anyway. I'd rather we aimed to be number 1 and actually give a shark.