Jeff, people are pissed off because in the past year we lost Brockie, Boxall, Cunningham, Burns, Griffiths and Boyd. For them we gained Sarpong and Blake Powell. We can go out and sign better players because we had better players before. If you replaced Sarpong with Brockie, Cunningham, Griffiths or even Huysegems then I think we would be a lot higher on the ladder. I would wager that Sarpong is on more money than the likes of Brockie and Cunningham were. Sarpong has basically replaced 4 players for us. This is also why we can't just give him more time - we need him to deliver now.
If this was the off season, sure, I absolutely agree with you. It's the not the off season though so those players simply are not available until April or whenever. Hence why what you are saying is just bollocks. Make your point again in May when contracts are up and I'll praise you for the genius you are.
So tell me, right now, who is out there that is not an import, is NZ or AU citizen, is better than what we have, has been missed by every other HAL club and is prepared to come to Wellington today. You must have a list as long as my arm because the way you talk, we just wriggle our nose, blink our eyes, click our fingers and the queue to transfer to the Phoenix would go out the door and around the block.
For all your talking, you have not even suggested a name, even a bad one.
Well, as you will see in my other post I don't actually want to make any big name signings at the moment. All I have said is that I want to cut players who we have reason to believe won't be successful next season and give that game time to players who may prove to be. I have repeatedly named the players I would give more game time to. For your convenience I will restate it here.
I want to spend the rest of the season taking stock of what we have and giving the kids a go. This is why I would like to see Dylan Fox given time at centre back. If he performs well, great we will go into next season with Fox and Durante as our centre backs. If Fox sinks, then we know we will have to recruit a centre back for next season. Same thing with the wing backs. Pick Danaskos and Gulley for the next ten games. If they perform then great. We have our wing backs for next season. If they don't perform then shark, we have to go out and buy some new wing backs in the off season.
I would also give Andrew Blake and Joel Stevens game time. We need to see more of Rufer, Ridenton, Appiah and Powell. If we pick Powell as a striker for the rest of the season and he blasts in eight goals then great we don't need to use a visa spot on a striker for next season. If Powell doesn't perform then we probably will need a visa striker next season. Rogerson may be too young to be expecting results yet but I would probably give him a run at some point too.
I think those people who are suggesting we sign a guest player are doing so in jest. However, if I take them seriously for a moment they are clearly wrong. Guest players and marquees are not the type of players you build your team around. The core of the team must be Australians and New Zealanders. We should pick the best squad we can with local talent and then look for something a little bit special to add that extra dimension. We should have looked to sign a guest player last season, when they could have made a difference. A good striker could have broken down Melbourne City or arrested our late season slump to 4th place. A guest player should be the cherry on top, not the whole cake. Even if we signed a good guest player they may not do well in our system and what's the point if they can't win us a title.
I think what you see here is a result of frustration. 1st season from Merrick we started like shark, were a bit unlucky and then went on a terrific run. Sure we finished at the foot of the table but we all felt positive because we had that little run we could point to. In the 2nd season, we against started indifferently and then we played fudgeing awesome. We got results in places we had never got results before. Again we got figured out, the season went to shark and we were knocked out in a limp effort against Melbourne City. Again, I felt confident at the end of last season. Merrick had shown enough. He would learn from the mistakes.
The frustrating thing is that this season we have regressed. We are playing this season, exactly how we played when we looked clueless how to break a team down against Melbourne City. For whatever reason, license, money or lack of recruiting ability, our recruitment stunk. It seems like our problems are ones that management should have predicted before the season but didn't.
If you want to see evidence of a team who took time to rebuild, look at the Wanderers. They had a shark year last season but went away and worked out which players were worth keeping. The basis of them being 2nd on the table now was formed during their miserable season last year. Then they worked out what they needed and recruited sharply.