What do you think of Ricki?

What do you think of Ricki?

With so much negativity on the forum, lets have a poll to decide what we really think of our man Ricki. Tommy_Smyth2009-09-05 11:45:20

Somewhere between Great and alright there is no one better.  I would say good coach, right man for the job.  So voted great as thats the closest option, but wouldn't describe him as great if given better choices.

Both of you have questioned weather there is anyone better. There is a football world full of way better coaches than Ricki. Surely we dont have to limit ourselves to New Zealand coaches.

Yes, in the world there are probably better coaches. But would we be able to sign a better coach than Ricki up? Realistically the best coaches in the world ain't queueing up to coach us. I wouldn't want us to get some second rate british reject or something.

It's great we have a kiwi coach in there - surely this is about developing the NZ game so that's a part of it.  So best option for me and he is "alrite"

Our biggest problem is that Diego needs a rocket up his a*se and Brown has not yet shown that we can beat good sides with him playing at central attacking (a couple of better headers last night might not make up for what we have seen over a full two and a bit seasons).

All the formation aingst and half the criticism of Ricki flows from that (tho if he changed the formation for the 2nd half last night he sure screwed up - but I'm not convinced he did).

Surely that's a selection issue and a big part of the head coach's job - a balanced squad with strength in the right places.  Perhaps Ricki's two jobs hasn't helped with that and given the other two signings, Ifill in particular, 2/3 aint bad

Though I wonder what the heck we are going to do with Caceres given the number of talented wide players we have. If he was unhappy on the bench for CCM then he's going to be unhappy sitting behind Ifill, Bertos and Daniel in that order.  So you do have to wonder what Ricki's playing at.
mjp22009-09-05 12:25:32

Cup of tea. 

The A-League is getting a lot of positive attention and there will be more experienced coaches out there - but Ricki is good.

To me, even though I admire him, he really must choose between his two jobs. I'd much rather have his mind soley focussed on one job. Would be interesting to see how Trani would play the squad? He knows all the players now so wonder if he would apply the same tactics??

Ricki was given a contract extension to the end of next season, before this season began! scribbler2009-09-05 16:13:37

I think Ricki's main fault is his poor use of the subs bench. He often leaves the change well too late into a game for anyone to have any impact.

As someone commented on here about the 'Daniel in the 65th minute rule' or something.

Ricki is a decent enough coach, just needs to be smarter with his bench, and giving more of the squad time on the bench.

Also, with some of the people coming back from Europe to play in the A-League, I don't think teams would have trouble looking at overseas coaches.

Paul Nevin, Mike Peterson...

Great when we're winning, average when we're losing :P

Personally I think he is a bit defensive at times but the players seem to want to play for him so he must be doing something right. He has just signed a new contract and the club have had their best start to a season so far (I think) so this poll is a bit of a non-event isn't it??