Transfer Talk - 2018/19 Season

I don't see any difference between Ridenton and Rufer at all. If Rufer had been given the same amount of game time as Ridenton he'd be doing exactly the same things.

Both of them are pretty average and aren't really the sort of players that are going to drive the club forwards.

Apart from being wrong on your two main points that's a good post.

...but your formatting and grammar. Very good.

They are both average.

But are they Tim Brown and Ben Sigmund average? Cos that at a minimum is the kind of average we want from our home grown players.

hmmmmm... well an average A-League player is still better than a number of our imports and Australians have been this season.

Have not seen Rufer do more than a 10' shift during his time on the park for Handi or A-league. 

Living on a name.

Ridenton has been among the top midfielders in the league all season.

Ridenton has the same level of blame focus as Brown so there is a match there. Need to see how he goes with a lucky head bandage.

Amusingly, like the people slagging Burns the whole focus seems to be he missed a shot rather than any review of the actual work they do or their impact on the game.

I've been quite impressed Rufer in the A-League. Did a great job as a makeshift wight back and has done well when played centrally. Definitely worth keeping around and developing. Certainly of the ability to be a squad player for us and among NZers those are rare - we need to hold onto them.

0% chance anyone at the Nix is keeping him around because of his surname, that ain't how professional football contracts work.

I have watched every A league game live, and he certainly has not.

My opinion.

Disagree.

I'm not ranking Ridenton on the basis of a missed shot or am I blaming him. I've watched him several times and his passing accuracy is incredibly poor, amongst other weaknesses. Which seeing that he only passes sideways and backwards you would expect to be better. To suggest that he has been one of the better midfielders in the league is frankly preposterous.

I think there are a lot of fans who buy into the hype with him because he is a young Kiwi player who has come into the squad and had a consistent run. It's really not much of an achievement when you look at the competition in the squad that he has faced this season.

If his name was Ridento, he was Spanish and was a 21 year old with an Australian passport playing for an A-League club everyone would be hailing him as find of the season.

Yeah. He's been impressive considering what our expectations for him were at the start of the season, but in a completely different league to the top midfielders. Handled himself pretty well though in a tough league.

...or it could be people looking at the stats that say he's one of the best performing midfielders in the league this season. Particularly in passes forward and creating chances where at the mid point of the season he was the league leader.

I wonder if treating NZers as non-visa players in other HAL clubs than Phoenix would not actually benefit everyone, including Phoenix.

Has not been better than  Mierzejewski, Vidosic, Castro,Kitto, Ninkovic, Absalonsen, Budzinski, Holman just to name a few.

You really wonder what people want some times.Would hate to be Welnix or a Phoenix coach. On one side you get people demanding they promote  Kiwi youth, when they do you get another group do nothing but slag off a player who has been played under 2 different coaches . Who according to some of the experts has played pretty well at times yet still its not good enough for some. Like Brown i guess some of you wont realise what we had until he is gone and apparently he aint happy at the moment.

I agree that the players mentioned above are pretty handy and currently have a greater skill set that what Ridenton has, but don't some of them play more as attackers than midfielders? Surely you'd want to compare him to players who play a similar position to him? ...no?

I wonder if that rule could change if the clubs finally take control of the HAL and break some of the bonds with FFA? The Australian clubs might look at if they felt it served their self interest.

It changed to this. Originally kiwis were not imports and I don't see them reverting to that.

If they are adding +1 to match ACL rules then adding kiwis who would be inelligible would be a step away from AFC alignment.

...and who don't utilise an import slot.

Rufer in that Perth game away ... Ridenton has not been that poor. Up until that game I thought Rufer looked ok, gets into space, wants the ball, ok first touch and looks to move the ball quickly - but that game, such poor decision making and execution; how much of that is down to not having a decent run of games meaning he doesn't have the consistency expected of a first team player? Or, just more indicative of his level?

They all play in the midfield

Just show me where I slagged  him. I said he was an average player. I actually think he could be a much better one, but I responded to someone who said he was one of the best midfield players in the league. 

I have been promoting Kiwi youth for 10 years but HN has always said there is none around-- something I have strongly disagreed with.

You clearly have been picking a minor fraction of my posts for your opinion of my view Leggy but it's good to know someone has been reading my essays.

Thanks.

The question is what the balance is between the here-and-now needs of the club to achieve success and the longer term development of young NZ talent. I personally don't think Ridenton is one of the best mids in the league but it's really interesting to see him develop and improve with every game.

I can think of a lot of young players (eg, Dimi Petratos, Nick Fitzgerald, Matt Jurman) who when they first came on the scene I thought would never, ever make it, so average were they. Like them Ridenton's definitely got talent but he will be one of those longer term investments that will pay dividends for the Nix and NZ down the track. Whether the club will want to show that kind of patience I don't know but I sincerely hope they do.

I think he's defensively better than ARod.  I think his shooting has been better.  I think ARod is neater and quicker with the ball. I also think Matty has the ability to do something special,  be it a pass or whatever.  His delivery at set piece at start of the season was as good as we've seen at tge Nix. A nd he'll improve

Except he's top five in chances created and was leading the league when the team utilised its midfield. So you observations aren't supported by facts. He may be passing backwards more recently, I don't know, but Darije had the whole team playing much more negatively.

It's a thankless position and virtually every player who's played there for this team has been slagged off.

It probably is, but you said he was one of the top midfield  players in the league. Shows what you really know.

Loved the person that said it was ' preposterous ' to suggest that.

bit rich coming from a guy who thinks Castro is a midfielder... 

http://www.worldfootball.net/player_summary/diego-...

Shows what you know. My granddaughter is more knowledgeable   than you.

Ridenton has done well, when playing the man marking role, but still needs to be quicker in his decision making. He's looked a little lost playing further up, which is odd as I think this was his original position. He's a decent player and will get better, it is his first year as a starter after all. 

Rufer has done ok - would have liked to have seen him get more game time.

Always think chances created is sort of ruined as a stat because it includes set pieces, makes it hard to compare with other players.

Personally I do not look at Ridenton and say "yeah, but does he measure up to Mierzejewski?".

Instead I look at him and say: he is one of the better non-visa players in our squad, relative to his age and experience.

Ultimately we have only that many visa spots, and if you think he is not Bonevacia then that is fair but in my opinion he is not a player that I would need to replace with a visa player. He simply is good enough for us as a non-visa player in that spot.  

If you find a good Aussie player (better than Ridenton) ready to play for us in that position, then sure.  But I would rather not use a visa spot to replace Ridenton because there is no need. I would think we have other positions crying out for a better player (a visa one, if necessary).  Whether Ridenton is as good as foreign visa players in other HAL teams is simply a moot point for me while we are struggling to find a good left winger/striker.

I think his constant giving the ball away when under no pressure is a major blot on his copy book. Remove that from his game and he'll be great.

How do you measure anything without statistics? Shows what you really know...

Is this actually a thing?  I don't think he loses possession more easily than most of our team. Some of his best play this season has been retaining the ball under pressure from several players.  The more and better developed combinations he has here, the les he loses tge ball. This may also be tactical with him overloaded to create free players elsewhere.  Up front I think a goal would have seen him settle.  He made some good moves,  but was only a stop gap option 

He's been a positive out of a fairly rubbish season in my opinion. 

As a general comment, I think inaccurate passing stands out for me more as a problem for our team than losing the ball under pressure. 

Even if we retained the ball against the Jets better than expected, we had poor accuracy.