Transfer Talk - 2018/19 Season

Tratt is a quality player. We will regret the decision to not sign him. 

AS quality as Tratt may be, the manager clearly did not see enough to warrant signing him, besides last time he was here he suffered some kind of home sickness and clearly needed to bail - not something we need to risk again. Also, at this point of the season I'd be more concerned about our lack of goal scoring options. We need a pure front man, we have options in the defensive side of the team.

Erm, we tried very hard to get a top no.9 in - it just didn't pan out for various reasons. What do you want us to do?

try again I guess.. otherwise accept mediocrity and or fade into oblivion.  Noting of course that it is owners choice about how they spend or restrict their level of investment in their club.

Which is why after Eto'o the club went after Martins and after Martins went for Rossi.

And were after Essien before that.

Yea because we all that football managers always make the best decisions 

Ummm, have signed a number nine maybe?

Where was Cacase against City? 

I wonder if we are going to pick up a player or two from the national league. I havn't seen too closely, but what I have seen, other than Harris from the Nix Reserves, I'm struggling to see who it would be worth bringing in?

Like someone else mentioned in previous pages, none of Eto'o/Martins/Rossi are going to be any good if we can't get the ball to them in the final third. 

Other than Williams' dragged shot that led to the Singh handball against Newcastle, I can't recall our strikers having any clear-cut chances from open play. 

Think we will eventually need to move to four at the back if we are wanting to create chances on a consistent basis.

Krishna has had a few shots from accute angles, Singh has shanked at least a few wide of target. Burns hit the cross bar. Taylor has had a couple (including the one). Rufer smashed one last week and Nichols the week before. Burgess should have pulled the trigger once. 

But I agree if we are not getting very good supply to our strikers, because we are letting the opposition run the midfield We need more bodies challenging for the ball and putting pressure on there ball carriers in midfield. 

What I hate seeing is us letting the opposition run at us with the ball from mid field, by backing up into our penalty area. By playing so deep defensively we are sucking our attackers way back into our own half because of the big gap we are leaving there.

Suspect that he had school exams and couldn't get them rescheduled. He played for the Weenix on Sunday. 

I personally think we shoould've signed Justin Gulley or Jack Henry-Sinclair while they were trialling if we were going to go to a 5 back. Both would provide much needed competition for Fenton and in my opinion can provide a far better attacking threat than Fenton can. 

Very speculative, but hey. It's something.

His style of play is actually what we need, a solid 6"2 central out and out central striker, and from memory is fairly mobile and strong. 33 isn't so bad. 

https://www.themag.co.uk/2018/11/demba-ba-and-stev...

Can you copy the article? Link doesnt work..

Would take Ba in a second. Could really add what we need.

I'm also overly cautious whenever someone who's playing in Asia (esp China) is mooted as a possible signing as some of these players are on ridiculous wages and I struggle to see why anyone would want to give that up to come and play for us to be honest.

Apparently he faced quite a lot of racism in China.

Lifestyle is a big one. Wellington is far more family friendly than China and is a nice place to raise a family

Well no one likes to be racially abused.

That being said, I wouldn't mind being called a wog or something if I was getting that kind of money (used to get abused from free, so hey that's a step up)...

Unsurprising sadly.

Total speculation and nothing particularly new in here but I like the headline:

Demba Ba and Steven Taylor could be set for a reunion

Could even be this forum the source! Still this is rumour number 4 and hasn't hit more credible sources yet. Also- I'm late 30s and hit a couple of crackers at futsal this week, so!

Where are the Arsenal guys? We've got tons of attacking midfielders, but no  fit DM　or striker 

Tongue firmly in cheek with this comparison??

Burns had 3 seasons in Japan (the last a write off with injury) for 3 goals.

In two stints with Shanghai over 3 seasons also, Ba scored 25 goals. 

In his first stint with Shanghai he was on $USD6.7 million per year.

He ain't coming to the Nix. 

FYI - he's a practising Muslim who observes Ramadan, which for 2019 is 6th May – 3rd June.

Ba's an excellent striker, but if we persist with losing the ball before we get into the final third or hoofing it to Krishna and hoping he does something with it; it'd be a pointless signing.

We were pretty good at finding Kalu and Vidosic with crosses last season for a while

we were pretty good at finding Kalu

This season management and their signings couldn't find a hooker in a brothel

That's because they are looking for a striker not a fat rugby Twit!

So, according to the net, Burns was on Euro 512,040 in 2017 when playing for FC Tokyo. That's alsmost $800k in NZD (2017 value) - certainly a pretty coin.

However, that's nowhere near as much as some people are getting in China (especially those who are or have been linked with us). Also, he was 29 when he came back and still hoping to make the Socceroos, so that would have been an incentive. And at 29 he still had good earning potential for the next 5-6 years.

My question is whether this is really a fitness issue, or has he fallen prey to the infamous "Phoenix Impotence" illness that's been plaguing good players coming to Wellington for the past season.  I am sure by now Nathan has given up on a green-and-yellow jersey, but I still hope that we'll get him to produce some results for us. But he is also chiefly a winger like Krishna.

Is any of our current players able to play centre-forward? Williams?

Have we signed a number nine twit?

Sorry to bring this up for those that are looking for transfer news! But can we sign players now or is this it until January?

We can sign players who are free agents at the moment. Anyone else has to wait until January.

‏@ByPhillipRollo

Looks like All Whites goalkeeper Stefan Marinovic will be departing Vancouver Whitecaps after his contract option was not picked up. Not sure if his IG post was a hint at his next destination or not ...

https://twitter.com/ByPhillipRollo/status/10670789...

@ByPhillipRollo

Following on from that, Vancouver Whitecaps have also released Myer Bevan. If I were the Wellington Phoenix I'd be chasing both players. The GK situation is tricky though because Filip Kurto is good and is on a two-year contract. But he's also an import.

https://twitter.com/ByPhillipRollo/status/10670800...

Myer Bevan could barely get a start in the Swedish 14th division (hyperbole), that's basically pub football.

trial Bevan, go from there.