Transfer Talk - 2018/19 Season

It's not *bad*, just not exactly going to fire you to the top.  Approx one goal every 5-6 games. Most of his goals came at Brisbane from 07-13, but he had a good run at the Wanderers with 11 in 53. 

From a very quick look over the period I've been looking at, it's 6 (in the regular part of the season, minus the play-offs). That was Adelaide the season just past. They had two players with 6, two with 5, and eight others who also scored for a total of 36 goals and 5th spot. That's (only?) 5 more goals than we scored last season, but they conceded 38 compared to our 55.

As above. The wingers and CAMs aren't the only potential goalscorers. Goals come from set pieces, broken play (goalmouth melees, errors, own goals etc), and occasionally from planned moves.

The defenders and CDMs should chip in, especially from set pieces.

FWIW, in the A league, Williams has a goal every 5 games, Nichols every 5.5, Singh every 3 [small data set], Krishna every 3, and Burns every 3 (though zero goals in 15 games in 2017/18).

That would point to about 30 goals from Singh, Nicols, Williams and Krishna, and maybe 10 from the other outfielders.

Assuming you get 30 from those five, the 10+ from the other outfielders would be a big ask, given that there aren't a lot of genuine goal-scoring options there. You might get a few from defenders from set-pieces, but not sure you'll get that many.

Otherwise, without a leading forward, you're basically setting aim on 5th/6th, with the idea of fixing the defence to ensure that 35-40 goals is enough. And to be fair, if that works out, it would be a very decent outcome considering what's gone on, particularly in the last two seasons.

The other point to note is that the Adelaide example above seems very much a statistical outlier. The next one on the list is Brisbane with the top goal-scorer getting 9, and those two seem to be the only ones with the top goal-scorer in single digits.

He's awesome, and rumored to be up to 7 years older than his official age

So looking at last season, you need a mix of different players scoring high and everyone to chip in goals to reach top four.

Sydney had 64 goals scored by 12 different players finishing 1st (top scorers had 27, 13, 6, 4, 4)

Jets had 57 goals scored by 13 different players finishing 2nd (top scorers had 10, 10, 9, 5, 5, 5)

City had 41 goals scored by 8 different players finishing 3rd (top scorers had 14, 9, 5, 5)

Victory had 43 goals scored by 10 different players finishing 4th (top scorers had 13, 8, 8)

Adelaide had 36 goals scored by 13 different players finishing 5th (top scorers had 7, 6, 5, 5)

Brisbane had 33 goals scored by 13 different players finishing 6th (top scorers had 9, 8, 5, 4, 4)

WSW had 38 goals scored by 11 different players finishing 7th (top scorers had 15, 4)

Glory had 37 goals scored by 12 different players finishing 8th (top scorers had 7, 6, 4)

Nix had 31 goals scored by 9 different players finishing 9th (top scorers had 9, 4, 4)

CCM had 28 goals scored by 9 different players finishing 10th (top scorers had 4, 4, 4)

Nah, no it wouldn't.  Not the way I see it.

We've got a licence to maintain and a lot of crap seasons to make up for.

And I don't think Rudan or the sort of characters he's recruiting would settle for that.

We need to be aiming for 4th or better.  And if things go wrong you could fall short of that.  Key player injuries.  Hard luck.

But with a decent season with injuries we should be aiming for better than 4th.

If we don't bring in a decent quality striker I'll be wondering what the fudge we're doing.  

Maybe I'm so jaded that just making the play-offs would be a success in my eyes. But overall, I fully agree that if the aim is higher than that, then getting a decent forward is an absolute must.

That's how you get to feel, innit? Celebrating not finishing bottom of the table. It's almost too difficult to want any better.

I think realistically you get 10 from Krishna, 8 from Singh.  18 between them with plus or minuses on who scores how many.

Burns 4.  Say 6 to be generous..

Williams 4 if we start him and don't have a striker.  Krishna plays up front.

Nichols say 5.

CBs from corners 4 if you're lucky

a few from the others, say 6 max

= 43

Which, according to el grap, just squeeks you into top four

And that relies on no significant injuries, so all the above stay on the field all season and all perform to their capability.

Odds of that are slim.  To just make fourth.

BUY ME A STRIKER!!!!!!!!!!   :)

8 from Singh is a huge ask. I think if he got 6 that's a very good return in his first full season.

Yes, i think that's valid.  

Really it was 18 from the two of them I was thinking.  So 13 from Krishna, 5 from Singh would do it.  That's probably more realistic.

But again, that only reinforces, for me, that without a striker we're aiming for mediocre.

Well last season playing 11 games (starting 6) he got 4, so 6 would be what I would expect/hope from him at least from a 27 round season. He knocked in another 4 in Prem as well from 7 games and 1 from 4 for New Zealand.

This, I like.

I'm a bundle of excite.  Come ON, spill tonya! ;)

Don't let me down. :)

winning 27 games 1-0 would work....yes 30 to 40 goals are needed but conceding less and scoring more always gets results. 

I don't know about you, but I trust tonya with my life and I can't wait for Eto'o to be unveiled next week.

Disclaimer: I do not know tonya.

If you're a Nix fan and you arent a bit jaded then I'd be surprised. Completely agree that we need to aim higher (i.e. top 4) but, being realistic considering our last few seasons, top 6 with noticeable improvements would be seen as a sucess.

Yeh.  I'd not trifle with Tonya.

There's not many others on here that I'd take that sort of comment from seriously.  

He said hopefully.

Eto'o would be adequate.  Prepared to accept better. lols

I'm getting my irrational exuberance in while I still can.  Bentley Greens dicking us on Tuesday 7th and the bubble's burst.  lols.

.@WgtnPhoenixFC off to Gold Coast for a camp ahead of their FFA Cup fixture on August 7.

Aussies Peter Skapetis, a striker ex-CCM and BR, and Liam Wooding, an AM/forward, are new trialists.

— Andrew Voerman (@andrewvoerman) July 27, 2018

So from the squad list for the Gold Coast, appears the striker maybe an Australian as we have both Skapetis and Wooding in there

https://www.wellingtonphoenix.com/news/wellington-...

Trial Players

Peter SKAPETIS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Skapetis

Alex RUFER

Liam WOODING https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Wooding

Josh WALLEN https://www.qpr.co.uk/news/under-23s-news/josh-wal...

Jacob TRATT

Andre DE JONG

...and Ben Waine and Andre de Jong. So 50% chance of 'strayan.

Suspect none of these are a starting forward option though.

Looking at Liam and Peter... no thank you. I don't want us signing a striker who up to this point has barely registered a goal... and that includes playing at a lower level in te case of Liam.

El grap's analysis was really good, but aside from that, I feel the discussion around goal counts for individuals is a bit pointless.

Call me simple but if we play really well, then we'll win games, and get top 4. How the goals are shared around will simply come out in the wash at the end of it. We have multiple players capable of goals, and to have the season we want to have, we'll need most of them to beat, or go close to, their personal bests. 

When we were top 4 under Ernie, Burns had the best goal return in his career. If we were having this argument at the start of that season, we'd have said something like "well we know Burns won't get that many, so where are the goals going to come from if we're going to make the top 4? We need to buy someone else". As it turned out we didn't need to. 

If we play well enough to get top 4, then I'd naturally assume that Krishna will have his best ever scoring season, and that we'd get a good swag from 2 or 3 out of Burns, Williams, Nichols and Singh.

But I don't think there's any real value of taking their average output and assuming that's what they'll get, and then agonising over where to get the rest of the goals to enable a top 4 finish. If all our players give us their average return this season, then we'll finish in an average spot in the league, end of story. If our players have exceptional seasons, then we'll finish exceptionally high. For example look at Sydney FC last season. Bobo and Mirezejewski both had their best seasons in their careers in terms of goals per game. At the start of the season, if their fans had this conversation, they would have deduced that to finish top they were probably going to need a crap load more goals from elsewhere... but they didn't. 

I'm not sure if that made sense...

Long sorry short - we need an out an out goal scorer who is gonna guarantee us 13+ goals per season. At the moment we really don't have one of those, Krishna could do it, burns if he is in the form of his first stint could certainly do 8-10. But I'd be more comfortable if he had a superstar striker that would be challenging for the golden boot all season.

Just to add when we had Burns and Krishna as a front two (and thus more central than when they play in a front three) in the 14/15 season they scored 13 and 9 goals. And we scored 45 goals in total. 

I tend to prefer those two to be up top by themselve, rather than having to do some defensive duties in a front 3.

Sure, but it's more likely that a striker who has scored goals somewhere else semi-regularly will score goals for us v someone like Burns having a once-in-a-career sort of season again.

Of course, finding a consistent goal scorer at A-League level is not easy to find.

When Burns came to us last season he hadn't played in months and was coming underdone to a team where no one was performing. With a preseason and a better team around him you'd hope he found some of the old magic.

That's interesting.  So to explore that 2014/5 as a comparison:

McGlinchey got 5

Bonevacia and Kenny Cunnigham scored 4 each 

Boyd, Brockie and Boxall 2 each

Muscat, Hicks, Griffiths, and Durante 1 each

Interesting that we got the four you'd expect from your defensive players.

But we got another 19 from starting and back up mids/strikers that season.  

If Krishna and Burns do the same again as that season, and we don't sign a striker, you need 19 goals from Nichols, Singh, Williams and .....  others.  

Plus four from your defensive players.

It was a good year, but unless I'm missing something I think it'd be a big ask to do it again. First Burns and Krishna need 22 between them.  Definately possible.  But you are already asking for the two of them to both go pretty well.

If you then match up Singh, Nichols and Williams this year with McGlinchey, Bonevacia and Cunningham's 13 goals in 14/15, again which is possible, but is asking a bit, you still need the likes of Griffiths, Brockie, Boyd and Hicks to contribute another half a dozen (plus those four defender goals).  And so far I don't think we have those sort of players.  But I guess we'll see.

If you have a striker getting around ten goals then the pressure on everybody else having to have a good year comes off a bit. 

Wooding - no 

Skapetis - maybe. Comfortable on the ball, strong, nice touch. Haven't see the 'lowlights' yet though. Still young. Cover for Krishna and Williams, and the CAMs.

Both are more wingers than strikers

Just reading the Skapetis wiki links, he's had two ACLs.  And couldn't score for (a poor, then) Brisbane in 9 games.  But seems like he was a bit of a star for age group Aussie teams (11 in eight games for the U20 and U23s), and got picked for QPR, Stoke and Derby.  So could be decent if he gets back to form?

if you score 24 goals, you definitely will win the league. Guaranteed*

*as long as you score them all in different games, score against all teams, and don’t concede all season. 

de Jong is well performed in Aussie right?

13 from Krishna is generous. Here's his scoring record since joining

To be fair though in that 14/15 season Burns poached a lot of the goals he would have scored himself, and the other three seasons we've been terrible so I don't doubt he'd be able to do a lot more in a better (i.e. playoff) team.

so not much better than Kosta?

Playing Krishna at centre forward would help, I reckon.