Ward on board.

I don't get the Lia mocking at the moment (not having a dig at you Malk). He has been bollocks the last couple of weeks- but last season he was fan's third top player wasn't he? So there must have been some proven form/quality there for that to have happened.

I don't think he is a bad signing as some people would suggest. He has potential, as shown by Young Player of the Year when at Perth. Ricki has a record of bringing the best out of 'rejects' so he could play well for us.
If he plays badly, at least we have depth to replace him. Also its only a one year deal

He did a lot of tracking-back early last season before Ricki gave him his current free(ish)-role.

mjp22010-09-01 16:32:38

I'm sure Mr Ward will be grateful for such small mercies from the almighty paullt ...

I'm ok with us signing Ward (in fact until I read the angst i was almost *happy*) and I reckon he can give us something extra

if Fred had been on the shelf I'd have expected Ricki would have grabbed him, but you can only buy 'what's in the store'

oh well there's always the option of the *shock* Dom headline

"Nix fans in player signing angst"

Caceres wasn't really interested in staying here.

Agree. Can't really understand all the angst - I mean, we hardly have a stellar central midfield, so adding in another player who's played at a decent level in the past and can challenge for a starting spot in central midfield is hardly the worst move in the history of signings. Who, exactly, were we expecting? Xavi? Iniesta? Ozil perhaps?

So say all of the victory forum too K.P

When i heard we'd signed him i wondered wtf for

u r

ps if some of you think this signing is poor then the club's in pretty good nick i'd say

is this the same Nik Ward that troy ran at a few times last season and beat and in the end the only way he could stop him was to pull him down and in doing so was red cared

Yes.

I thought this was a decent signing until I read this thread. But then I can't really recall how he's played against us in the past.

To be fair he was decent at times before he got injured, and then got staph infection, and was seriously ill last season. After he came back, he was utter, utter pants. Probably cost us the Grand Final by contributing absolutely nothing except repeatedly turning the ball over.

now he's got a decent coach we might end up with having a different view



yes, I know he drove the fastest milk cart in the West but really ...

Well we do have a track record of reviving players/their careers. Smeltz, Reddy, Ifill...

Mulligan, Diego, Elrich, Kwasnik...

It's still a good strike-rate.

Love the Nix, but this is starting to bug me a bit, we seem keener to give young Aussies or journeymen Aussies a go rather than Kiwi's... (not necessarily referring to Ward here, i don't know enough about him)

NZ doesnt produce enough good players, period

You gotta remember there is hardly any New Zealanders in the league, in fact, in the whole history of the A-League there has been more Brazilians than Kiwis. We just don't have the depth. Behind Clapham, what other kiwi should we have? Boyens? Bright? Well these guys are better playing overseas, someone like Jared Smith or Cole Peverley could possibly, but I haven't seen enough of them.

What Kiwis are we expecting here? The good young Kiwis are most likely overseas and we have two good young prospects in Musa and Rojas. We have tried a journeyman Kiwi in Mulligan, but signing Fallon, Smeltz, Killen etc is hardly likely. Vicelich and Elliottt may or may not have turned us down, I don't want us to be signing Kiwis because they are Kiwis. If they are not good enough then I'd much rather a good enough Aussie. Clearly Clapham isn't good enough. Having had trials with three A-League clubs.

You can't tell me there is no one in NZ who could do the same job as Ward or Diego (get on the pitch once or twice a season and pass the ball to the opposition a few times)



Ferrante, possibly Lia, probably MacAllister, Dadi did a job I suppose, Caceres was ultimately a failure, Hearfield has gone off the boil..

This signing just frustrates me because I've seen how horrible Ward has been first hand and then we are the club who nips in and picks up Melbourne's scraps yet again.

Has anyone signed a Nix reject yet? Do you see anyone picking up Mulligan? The only one I can think of is Karl Dodd but we probably would've kept him if we could.

Moss and Smeltz we would've kept. Kosta too.

valeo2010-09-01 21:16:20

No. Mulligan didn't even manage that, he made the world cup squad, so he's gotta be one of the best in the country.

I do remember Karl Dodd wanted to stay. But we told him to go because McKain wanted to be playing at CB and we didn't want 4 quality CB's (fair enough). And that is why he had a go at the club after leaving. A bit hazy on that though.

So Dodd is the only one and we still would've kept him if he could have?

Dodd wasn't exactly a huge success at the Fury either.

Signing other clubs Aussie rejects doesn't raise the standard of the team.

Reddy was the only exception for me - I thought he was really bad at Brisbane for the most part but was outstanding for us.valeo2010-09-01 21:49:36

Caceres wasn't really interested in staying here.

He was more interested in playing semi-professional football in the WA state league? I can't believe that, tbh.valeo2010-09-01 22:00:34

That's not why we signed them though, is it? There's a difference between signing a player you expect to be good only for them to end up below standard, and signing a player you know to be below standard. We didn't sign Diego to "get on the pitch once or twice et al". We signed him to expecting him to have the qualities to be a regular player. If a potential signing doesn't have those qualities, he shouldn't be signed. Yeah, there's Kiwis who can do the job Diego does, but are they any who can do the job we expected Diego to do?

If Ward proves to be as crap as many on here expect (or perhaps even want) him to be, the same applies, just replace the names where necessary. Ward hasn't been signed to play a bit part. The Nix expect him to challenge for regular gametime or else he wouldn't have been signed.




As for your second question, CCM signed Kwasnik. We didn't want to keep him. GCU signed Rees, we would have kept him but we rejected his price IIRC.

anyone else getting sick of reading Valeos cynical comments?

underwhelmed when I saw who the "key signing" was in the end, but in Ricki we trust ....

Only in the recent signing threads I'm getting sick of typing them tbh

Rees was slightly better than O'Dor and Old but that aint saying much. Wasn't re-signed. Didn't mind him though - played his heart out.

I think the conparison we should make, as someone mentioned, is Simon Elliott or Ward, obviously Ricki had that choice and went for Ward.

Sounds like Elliottt didn't want to come to me - might be regretting it now.

really?