WPM 2026/27 Squad Speculation, Confirmation and Mutual Termination

ballane wrote:

 Joey Johns wrote:
Dont love the direction of the signings. Honestly, if the club wants to half arse each season due to financial constraint's then we should just make the call to be a development club and aim to sell players to MLS/lower European leagues for cash. Not going to compete in the league by signing NPL players or recycled A league players, would be much cheaper/beneficial to pour resources into the academy and try control that market. 

We have one visa signed and had Rufer re-sign not sure of any others announed. So if your upset about Rufer signing not sure why. 
Best to wait till we have announced some signings before complaining about the quality of signings.

ballane wrote:
Really just dont get the impatience of some the World Cup only finished just over a month ago. It was pretty obvious the Phoenix were waiting till Singh and Rufer had decided what they were doing so they could finalise what direction they took. 
Greenie has been pretty open that they are looking for players yet some just choose to ignore that fact. Weeks to go before im anywhere near worried about whats happening.
Wouldnt bother listening to some of the rumours shit Rufer was long gone according to some of them. 

imanixsupporter wrote:
Personally very happy with our business so far. McGarry, Rufer, Gray are as good in their positions as we could reasonably have hoped for. Nagasawa maybe could be improved upon but he is decent and brings a lot of experience, leadership and continuity. There is time for attacking signings, though I'll be concerned if we start to get signings in that department like Najjarine and Mileusnic. I want better than A-League journeymen this time around. 

ballane wrote:

 Joey Johns wrote:
Dont love the direction of the signings. Honestly, if the club wants to half arse each season due to financial constraint's then we should just make the call to be a development club and aim to sell players to MLS/lower European leagues for cash. Not going to compete in the league by signing NPL players or recycled A league players, would be much cheaper/beneficial to pour resources into the academy and try control that market. 

We have one visa signed and had Rufer re-sign not sure of any others announed. So if your upset about Rufer signing not sure why. 
Best to wait till we have announced some signings before complaining about the quality of signings.

imanixsupporter wrote:
Personally very happy with our business so far. McGarry, Rufer, Gray are as good in their positions as we could reasonably have hoped for. Nagasawa maybe could be improved upon but he is decent and brings a lot of experience, leadership and continuity. There is time for attacking signings, though I'll be concerned if we start to get signings in that department like Najjarine and Mileusnic. I want better than A-League journeymen this time around. 

Joey Johns wrote:

 imanixsupporter wrote:
Personally very happy with our business so far. McGarry, Rufer, Gray are as good in their positions as we could reasonably have hoped for. Nagasawa maybe could be improved upon but he is decent and brings a lot of experience, leadership and continuity. There is time for attacking signings, though I'll be concerned if we start to get signings in that department like Najjarine and Mileusnic. I want better than A-League journeymen this time around. 

Think Nagasawa stepped up a level last season compared to his first and outside of Eze was probably the import worth keeping, will see if he pushes up another gear but is probably the quality we need from our imports

PKB wrote:

 imanixsupporter wrote:
Personally very happy with our business so far. McGarry, Rufer, Gray are as good in their positions as we could reasonably have hoped for. Nagasawa maybe could be improved upon but he is decent and brings a lot of experience, leadership and continuity. There is time for attacking signings, though I'll be concerned if we start to get signings in that department like Najjarine and Mileusnic. I want better than A-League journeymen this time around. 

As a minimum they can't have a repeat of signing unfit at the time and 32, Nikola Mileusnic & Marco Rojas. Every new player must, must be fit. None of this hope so mindset.

ballane wrote:
Really just dont get the impatience of some the World Cup only finished just over a month ago. It was pretty obvious the Phoenix were waiting till Singh and Rufer had decided what they were doing so they could finalise what direction they took. 
Greenie has been pretty open that they are looking for players yet some just choose to ignore that fact. Weeks to go before im anywhere near worried about whats happening.
Wouldnt bother listening to some of the rumours shit Rufer was long gone according to some of them. 

Joey Johns wrote:

 ballane wrote:
Really just dont get the impatience of some the World Cup only finished just over a month ago. It was pretty obvious the Phoenix were waiting till Singh and Rufer had decided what they were doing so they could finalise what direction they took. 
Greenie has been pretty open that they are looking for players yet some just choose to ignore that fact. Weeks to go before im anywhere near worried about whats happening.
Wouldnt bother listening to some of the rumours shit Rufer was long gone according to some of them. 

I mean, normally this approach is appropriate when the club had a monopoly on most of the football public in NZ. But i dont think they can afford to do it while our now biggest rivals have achieved more in two years than the club has in its entire existence. Im not worried we are going to be shit, im more worried that the club seems to be going in the same direction after last year.

Joey Johns wrote:

 ballane wrote:
Really just dont get the impatience of some the World Cup only finished just over a month ago. It was pretty obvious the Phoenix were waiting till Singh and Rufer had decided what they were doing so they could finalise what direction they took. 
Greenie has been pretty open that they are looking for players yet some just choose to ignore that fact. Weeks to go before im anywhere near worried about whats happening.
Wouldnt bother listening to some of the rumours shit Rufer was long gone according to some of them. 

I mean, normally this approach is appropriate when the club had a monopoly on most of the football public in NZ. But i dont think they can afford to do it while our now biggest rivals have achieved more in two years than the club has in its entire existence. Im not worried we are going to be shit, im more worried that the club seems to be going in the same direction after last year.

martinb wrote:
The other thing is that our attack needs time to gel together and understand each other’s roles. 

At the moment we have Nagasawa and maybe Piper locked as players in our front 4. Walker, if he’s fit. And probably/hopefully add McGarry there if he’s bombing forward, and by the same logic Sheridan as part of 6 attacking players. 

The sooner we can start getting players instinctively used to each other and trusting each other’s runs, positioning and ability to find those runs the better. 

imanixsupporter wrote:
Personally very happy with our business so far. McGarry, Rufer, Gray are as good in their positions as we could reasonably have hoped for. Nagasawa maybe could be improved upon but he is decent and brings a lot of experience, leadership and continuity. There is time for attacking signings, though I'll be concerned if we start to get signings in that department like Najjarine and Mileusnic. I want better than A-League journeymen this time around. 

Joey Johns wrote:
Anyone more in the know than me know if Greenie has discussed keeping players in more defined positions i.e. Kelly-Heald, Sheridan, Piper etc i know theyre versatile but the seemed to be tinkered with alot under chiefy and it cant be easy to develop if you're out of position a bunch 

PKB wrote:

 Joey Johns wrote:
Anyone more in the know than me know if Greenie has discussed keeping players in more defined positions i.e. Kelly-Heald, Sheridan, Piper etc i know theyre versatile but the seemed to be tinkered with alot under chiefy and it cant be easy to develop if you're out of position a bunch 

Very good point. They suffered from being played out of position too often. Kazuki Nagasawa will be moved forward, the player said so. Won't be defensive midfield again, that was never his best position, not here and not in Japan. He is best between attacking midfield and central midfield.

Southernix wrote:
Needs some work on shooting & decisions, but I think Piper is definitely more a forward than anything else now, although could still slot into defense in an emergency.

Southernix wrote:
Needs some work on shooting & decisions, but I think Piper is definitely more a forward than anything else now, although could still slot into defense in an emergency.

Bradman99 wrote:

 PKB wrote:

 Joey Johns wrote:
Anyone more in the know than me know if Greenie has discussed keeping players in more defined positions i.e. Kelly-Heald, Sheridan, Piper etc i know theyre versatile but the seemed to be tinkered with alot under chiefy and it cant be easy to develop if you're out of position a bunch 

Very good point. They suffered from being played out of position too often. Kazuki Nagasawa will be moved forward, the player said so. Won't be defensive midfield again, that was never his best position, not here and not in Japan. He is best between attacking midfield and central midfield.

If Greeny plays his 4-2-2-2  Nagasawa should be one of the higher midfielders.  Hopefully Walker can remain injury free and we can what he can do.

Rufer and FRC for the two sixes.

Where does Piper fit in ...one of the forwards?

WanderingSheep wrote:
Fuck, all these responses and I thought we’d signed someone 😂

martinb wrote:
Is Roa Conchie ahead of Cassidy? Has Cassidy signed? 
Also Roa Conchie has done some good work further forward too. And his defense is okay, but he hasn’t become renowned for it. I wouldn’t have said that FRC had guaranteed an A league starting spot on his displays to date…
Has Greenie? 
And we’re definitely not getting Hollman? 

wilbaker wrote:
Gotta think we’ll be announcing a visa signing in the next week or so. Last year we had signed Eze a month ago and signed James around this time next week. 

The World Cup and not being in the Aus cup has probably slowed down things but definitely will be wanting to get the import attackers in soon to build some chemistry.

theprof wrote:
wrong thread

ballane wrote:
Dont forget its only relatively recently that they had confirmation of Rufers re-signing and would think until that happened they didnt want to commit which way their Visa signings were going to go.