For a team 'without' a coach they sure are making a few signings!
Didn't Dome recently say something along the lines of you can spend $100K on ALM player signings and not really achieve that much extra. But $100K with the ALW team can go a long way to having a stronger team.
Looks like the club plan to have a serious tilt at the ALW. And I guess the Mariners winning the GF, shows a smaller club can do it.
we're making signings now, Priestman is making appearances at the Nix Women reserves games - I think it's pretty clear she's gonna get the job and will no doubt be heavily involved in these recruiting stages
Good Stuff. The article also said, Ellie Walker is the 11th player confirmed in the Wellington Phoenix 2025-26 first team squad, with more signings and re-signings expected to be announced in the near future.
Will be very interesting to see who re-signs from last season. A new coach usually means a bit of a clean out. with two import defenders signed and Wall already on contract., its hard to see all of Van der Meer, Barry, Lake, Jaber and McMeekan re-signed. Longo and Jale are the other obvious re-signings. But I don't thing Longo will be back. That leaves a lot of space in midfield and attack to fill out the squad. Both Leat and Esson are free agents at the moment so would be great to sign one of those as GK. And use that import spot up top.
PS. Very quiet on the Auckland women's team participation. Still 5 months out I guess. But good to see us active early in the recruitment department.
unless something changes in a big way there won't be any expansion of the A-League women's in the next season as the A-League is looking to consolidate and reduce or keep costs from rising in what they deem a critical period of the game as they seek additional investment from either corporates or from Football Australia specifically regarding the women's game.
Encouraging. Im looking forward to the signing of a centre forward. I hope we get two from Lake, Barry and VDM. Id like all three but it looks like we dont need three.
I wonder if the intent is to play more youth this year, but have them sit in amongst a 4 or 5 seasoned professionals who will naturally pull them up, both in how they play, but in what the demand of one another.
Nix management thinking this is the best way to justify their existence by buying a trophy for the woman’s team?
The concept of the Wellington Phoenix buying a trophy is laughable
Indeed.
And worth noting that the most important (and expensive?) signing the ALW team has made this off-season (thus enabling these signings) is outside the cap anyway. She just can't be announced till next month.
1 like and we will announce another signing tomorrow morning ✍️👀
— Wellington Phoenix 🔥 (@WgtnPhoenixFC) June 23, 2025
Ambiguous on whether it's a men's or women's signing, but my money is on Vic Esson.
Agreed, thought the use of “another” was key. Could be wrong of course 😂
I would of said I'd put the house on it being Vic Esson, but the lack of detail on which team it was precluded me from making such an outlandish statement. 😉
Maybe this can be how we get the most out of our scouting budget - sign couples, but build a clause into their contracts that says they can't break up.
Maybe this can be how we get the most out of our scouting budget - sign couples, but build a clause into their contracts that says they can't break up.
Maybe this can be how we get the most out of our scouting budget - sign couples, but build a clause into their contracts that says they can't break up.
Kyle Adams and Savannah DeMelo come on down.
That's some great sleuth work YH.
For those like me that didn't know 27 yr old Savannah DeMelo is a sometime US women's national team player (7 caps) who plays for Racing Louisville in the NWSL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_DeMelo
Sadly I imagine as long as her and Adams are dating, the floopy haired Kiwi CB will be staying Stateside. Pity as he'd be a good pickup for the Nix I reckon.
1 like and we will announce another signing tomorrow morning ✍️👀
— Wellington Phoenix 🔥 (@WgtnPhoenixFC) June 23, 2025
Ambiguous on whether it's a men's or women's signing, but my money is on Vic Esson.
Agreed, thought the use of “another” was key. Could be wrong of course 😂
I would of said I'd put the house on it being Vic Esson, but the lack of detail on which team it was precluded me from making such an outlandish statement. 😉
Maybe this can be how we get the most out of our scouting budget - sign couples, but build a clause into their contracts that says they can't break up.
Kyle Adams and Savannah DeMelo come on down.
That's some great sleuth work YH.
For those like me that didn't know 27 yr old Savannah DeMelo is a sometime US women's national team player (7 caps) who plays for Racing Louisville in the NWSL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_DeMelo
Sadly I imagine as long as her and Adams are dating, the floopy haired Kiwi CB will be staying Stateside. Pity as he'd be a good pickup for the Nix I reckon.
Social media is a great tool for scraping data and information. 😉
Women's squad coming together really really well, with everything about the recruitment so far screaming ambition and for us to really make a play for 25/26.
I was talking with someone about this the other week, and with Priestman coming in (c'mon that cat is long out the bag now) I do wonder if we push it a step further and not only fill the remaining two visa slots, but maybe look to sign a guest visa as well. I am assuming this is still a thing for 25/26 as it was for the season just gone - I haven't seen anything to the contrary. Priestman is bound to have a bevvy (see what I did there 😂) of contacts who she could theoretically call on. Would it be pushing the boat out so far to say that could be a suggestion for WelNix to consider?
Either way it's been good stuff so far and with the promise of lots more to come!
