Maybe I watched to many Japan and Spain games, that was good football. But I can’t remember seeing anything exciting from us in this game, we need better players.
We defended well for a long time. We didn’t get bullied by Leckie. We got bullied by MacLaren, though.
This is against the best team in the competition, the best funded and the best connected. As someone said they have a deep squad. We shut down Leckie, they’ve got McLaren, we do a job on him too they’ve got Nabbout. They’re mostly able to cherry pick the best domestic players and A league socceroos. And we’ve over performed against them in the cup of late through a few talented but inconsistent or unfashionable players like Fenton and Sotirio playing at their best. And Paulsen!
Low expectations won’t necessarily hurt Chief. Anything above average is good then. It might also be a push to invest further as our squad is shown where it is- a comfortable 3 goals behind a top side with few top notch creative outlets. Though I don’t know how it will help him much as a new head coach to develop confidence.
It is going to be a painful transition in formation too. It’s going to be hard to assess the new style of play as the players in it are short of Taylor/Uli/Hemed level. Sadly even Ball and Wootton, while still handy players aren’t at the level they were.
The CC model had players like Storm Roux and James McGarry, as well as Nkololo. Players with a lot of journeyman experience at A league returned to form or above and some good, keen imports. And then in Kaltak and Vukovic, actually, a very solid defense of highly experienced sometime international players. And some young guns like Farrell and Triantis.
That’s different to saying no import refresh and play the kids. Which currently seems to be what we’ve done. Depending on how Al-Taay and Kraev perform, Rufer and Pennington are going to have a tough and frustrating season.
News on Sutton’s injury? He’d be a potential game changer. Old too will help. But question marks over how much either of them can contribute this season yeh?
We lack creative players, and guys with pace. We are going to be a very boring team to watch this year, our only goal threat appears to be long balls/crosses to Zawada who will be getting a lot more attention from defenders this year. Not many guys in the team who are exciting and who will help ticket sales.
DaVila was replaced by Sasse, who wasn't nearly as good but at least offered moments of flair and the odd goal... he's also now left and hasn't been replaced. Waine left early last season, and wasn't replaced... he was a huge loss as he was a goal scorer capable of 10+ a season and added some pace. Even Sotirio is still missed, he also offered pace and scored a decent amount of goals.
The attacking guys we still have, Kosta and Ball used to be good but are both pretty close to past it at this level - squad players at best now (to be fair, Kosta looked okay today in the first half today and like he is still motivated).
As far as imports go I'd say: Zawada (good), Kraev (okay), Wootton (not good enough for import), Ball (not good enough for import).
Davilla wasn't replaced by Sasse. He'd been gone a season when Sassev was contacted
My memory failed me. Yeah there was Sandoval the season in between (unless my memory is also failing there). I think my point still stands though... the squad depth (from a creative/attacking pov) has been getting worse... good players leave to be replaced by worse (or in Waines case, no one).
Davilla wasn't replaced by Sasse. He'd been gone a season when Sassev was contacted
My memory failed me. Yeah there was Sandoval the season in between (unless my memory is also failing there). I think my point still stands though... the squad depth (from a creative/attacking pov) has been getting worse... good players leave to be replaced by worse (or in Waines case, no one).
Your point does stand. The Nix were a pretty boring watch last season, even if they made the finals.
Davila (especially), but also Hooper, Piscopo, Sotiro & Waine of recent times could get you out of your seat. Bit further back Libby, Singh & Krishna. Apart from Zawada this team currently lacks any real X factor quality. It won't help the crowd numbers.
I thought it was a pretty poor performance by us. Just as well there is still 8 weeks till the season kicks off proper. Hopefully this will come as a wake up call on the recruitment process. Filling the squad with academy players is just not going to work. I can understand the thinking of trying to generate transfer profit in the future by giving kids a chance in a professional environment. But surely you can only afford to bring through a few young acadamy players at a time, otherwise your squad is going to be inexperienced and inconsistent, as young players will be. Add to that, we currently still have ex acadamy players like Old, Surman and Sutton still trying to break through at this level. They need experience around them. Being the only NZ team (perhaps for the last season) We have this huge advantage of being able to cherry pick the best of the NZ national league talent. But we seem reluctant to do this, which really surprises me. Do we have a lack of talent identification at the club. Eg. After being ignored by the Nix for so long, then seeing how well Brian Kaltak did last year. Surely there is talent out there in NZ national league that will give us a much more stable squad than introducing too many young acadamy players all at once. If CCM is the current A league model on how to generate transfer profits. last year was not all about acadamy players out of the CCM acadamy. They cherry pick talented Ozzie youth that were not getting starts at other clubs and bring them in and giving them opportunities surrounded by a solid core of experienced players. Talent identification and an environment that players can be the best version of them selves being the key to future transfer profits. Maybe I've got it all wrong and Chiefy has been waiting to bring in other trialists while giving acadamy players a run to see any more of them are upto it. Or he has other off shore NZ/Aus players lined up. But who fills the last roster spots are going to be interesting, and is going to be pivotal on how the teams goes this season. And don't get me started on offering ageing import players long contracts so they can see out there careers in comfort under no pressure to perform......
Not 100% sure on the system so far. Not sure what the FBs are trying to do, they're not really inverting and they're not really overlapping - so they're not asking difficult questions of the opposition and very easy for the opposition to control us in wide areas, e.g the FBs sort of go forward but end up close to our wingers (who are trying to stay wide) and too easy for City to hem us in. The double pivots sort of make it hard for our FBs to really invert as there's not enough space - we sort of end up with a fairly static back 6 while attacking. We need to make the opposition make difficult decisions, we need to pull them out of shape - it was far too easy.
So far the system is a net negative resulting in our players having to be playing very well to offset.
Davilla wasn't replaced by Sasse. He'd been gone a season when Sassev was contacted
My memory failed me. Yeah there was Sandoval the season in between (unless my memory is also failing there). I think my point still stands though... the squad depth (from a creative/attacking pov) has been getting worse... good players leave to be replaced by worse (or in Waines case, no one).
Yep. Sutton out injured who is a wide creative force, Pennington under a bit more pressure and perhaps having a worse game and then no one.
OVH is injured? It was him and Kraev who combined for a goal last hit out.
I think Ryan’s got a point about the new system too- players being familiar with the system and each other’s positioning, preferred movements etc is almost as important as anything else. Knowing how to find a player on muscle memory or instinct is when the football magic starts to happen…and we’re obviously not there yet.
Didn’t see all of Ball’s play, but he’s not getting glowing reviews?
As I’ve said before I thought Kosta was good. Tenacious in getting back to defend and found space and linked play going forward.
Agree about the fullbacks' role, or maybe City just didn't let us play how we wanted to. In the first cup game LKH had lots of runs down the left flank and created openings for us.
Kaltak recieved 3 red cards in what is a short season. I don't know if I'd use him as a marker of success personally.
Definately capable, but he needs to sort the above out to be geniunely good.
Wootton hasn’t picked up any reds iirc. Him or Kaltak?
Wootten of Kaltak easily. I'd rather have a defender of any capability on the field 100% of the time than one with immense capability on the field 75% of the time
Phoenix should be seriously looking at this young NZ U17 Rep player Emlyn Wellsmore. He is absolutely killing it in NPL Vic as a RB and Midfielder. He scored goal of the week last week in a game where he also won a pen and got an assist playing as a 10. This weekend he played RB in the Vic NPL Preliminary Final and got another assist doing an overlapping run down the right hand side before fizzing in a precision pass into the box for the Oakleigh 9 to tap it into goal. The week before he played a full game as a RB against Melb City in the Aus Cup and had Mat Leckie in his pocket all game. City were lucky to win the game tbh. Ref called two questionable handballs and pretty much gifted City the win with 2 pens. Wellsmore is a NZ player so wouldn’t take a visa spot and after watching Payne try and play RB yesterday at Oakleigh’s home ground, Wellsmore is in another class. Who has contacts at Phoenix to get them to have a look at this talented player.
Kaltak recieved 3 red cards in what is a short season. I don't know if I'd use him as a marker of success personally.
Definately capable, but he needs to sort the above out to be geniunely good.
Wootton hasn’t picked up any reds iirc. Him or Kaltak?
Wootten of Kaltak easily. I'd rather have a defender of any capability on the field 100% of the time than one with immense capability on the field 75% of the time
Who would you rather have starting a final for you? Maybe Wootton is going to have a brilliant season and settle that and how to spell his name.
For me right now Kaltak every time. Even with 3 reds he started 24 games and came off the bench once, which was among the key core of players, similar to Roux and Nkolo, behind only Vuckovic, Silvera, Tulio, Cummings and Nisbet.
And he also contributed 3 assists, which either says good long passing or heading from set pieces. I did also see him head from the box over halfway which is the kind of strength that reminds me of Steven Taylor.
He was a key player in a title winning defense, not in a fractured team that limped out early again.
And, sadly, Wootton is probably paid more than him. Still thought Wootton was decent when he joined us and he played with an injury iirc at the end of last season. Be happy for him to change my mind this season.
Kaltak recieved 3 red cards in what is a short season. I don't know if I'd use him as a marker of success personally.
Definately capable, but he needs to sort the above out to be geniunely good.
Wootton hasn’t picked up any reds iirc. Him or Kaltak?
Wootten of Kaltak easily. I'd rather have a defender of any capability on the field 100% of the time than one with immense capability on the field 75% of the time
I'm fairly sure one of his red cards last season shouldn't been a red card irrc was against Sydney? And I think another one of his reds was harsh and that was against us. We'll see this season if its regular problem but even then I'd still take a dynamic centre back over Wootton.
Phoenix should be seriously looking at this young NZ U17 Rep player Emlyn Wellsmore. He is absolutely killing it in NPL Vic as a RB and Midfielder. He scored goal of the week last week in a game where he also won a pen and got an assist playing as a 10. This weekend he played RB in the Vic NPL Preliminary Final and got another assist doing an overlapping run down the right hand side before fizzing in a precision pass into the box for the Oakleigh 9 to tap it into goal. The week before he played a full game as a RB against Melb City in the Aus Cup and had Mat Leckie in his pocket all game. City were lucky to win the game tbh. Ref called two questionable handballs and pretty much gifted City the win with 2 pens. Wellsmore is a NZ player so wouldn’t take a visa spot and after watching Payne try and play RB yesterday at Oakleigh’s home ground, Wellsmore is in another class. Who has contacts at Phoenix to get them to have a look at this talented player.
Phoenix should be seriously looking at this young NZ U17 Rep player Emlyn Wellsmore. He is absolutely killing it in NPL Vic as a RB and Midfielder. He scored goal of the week last week in a game where he also won a pen and got an assist playing as a 10. This weekend he played RB in the Vic NPL Preliminary Final and got another assist doing an overlapping run down the right hand side before fizzing in a precision pass into the box for the Oakleigh 9 to tap it into goal. The week before he played a full game as a RB against Melb City in the Aus Cup and had Mat Leckie in his pocket all game. City were lucky to win the game tbh. Ref called two questionable handballs and pretty much gifted City the win with 2 pens. Wellsmore is a NZ player so wouldn’t take a visa spot and after watching Payne try and play RB yesterday at Oakleigh’s home ground, Wellsmore is in another class. Who has contacts at Phoenix to get them to have a look at this talented player.
Welcome to the forum Emlyn
Nahhhh surely not..... Probably his dad lol. Seriously though only this blokes second comment on the forum hahahah
The NIX should look at young kiwis in Aussie to bring over into their academy etc.
I know one player in the youth set up who for an Aussie A League side whose dad made contact with the club to ask about their youth set up (he's a kiwi through and through) as was told by the club, we don't have a youth program??
I know they probably get parents saying all sorts of shark, but they also need to be open to it!
That Bayliss guy is trialling currently with the Nix. Kiwi heritage living in Aussie. Was with the Jets or CCM briefly?
If I was Emlyn Wellsmore or some other Kiwi in Aus, who thought they had a chance at the Nix, I'd buy a flight over once the NPL season was finished (that happens soon), drive out to the Hutt and ask to train with the team. Nothing lost nothing gained.
I think was Michael Den Hejr (spp) did similar with a Dutch club and he got signed. Sure he's now long back in NZ with ACFC, but he'll never die wondering whether he could have 'made it' overseas.
But I guess alot of Kiwis who might see the Nix as a closed shop/Academy only ALM pathway, will see an Auckland team as a new opportunity. Especially as a 09 club will take time to get any Academy up & going.
As above, the Phoenix Academy is now well known locally as being elitist and you have to pay your way to be involved. Sadly for young footballers in NZ if you're not a part of the academy then you have next to no chance of getting a look in at the Phoenix. It's pretty poor of the Phoenix to be running this model, despite what others may think in my opinion they have a moral obligation to our youth players in NZ to provide them a professional football pathway.
That Bayliss guy is trialling currently with the Nix. Kiwi heritage living in Aussie. Was with the Jets or CCM briefly?
If I was Emlyn Wellsmore or some other Kiwi in Aus, who thought they had a chance at the Nix, I'd buy a flight over once the NPL season was finished (that happens soon), drive out to the Hutt and ask to train with the team. Nothing lost nothing gained.
I think was Michael Den Hejr (spp) did similar with a Dutch club and he got signed. Sure he's now long back in NZ with ACFC, but he'll never die wondering whether he could have 'made it' overseas.
But I guess alot of Kiwis who might see the Nix as a closed shop/Academy only ALM pathway, will see an Auckland team as a new opportunity. Especially as any 09 club will take time to get any Academy up & going.
Thanks thats a good tip. Yeah the Vic NPL finals finish in a couple of weeks. Do you reckon a player could just turn up and ask to train or would they need to make contact with the Nix first?
That Bayliss guy is trialling currently with the Nix. Kiwi heritage living in Aussie. Was with the Jets or CCM briefly?
If I was Emlyn Wellsmore or some other Kiwi in Aus, who thought they had a chance at the Nix, I'd buy a flight over once the NPL season was finished (that happens soon), drive out to the Hutt and ask to train with the team. Nothing lost nothing gained.
I think was Michael Den Hejr (spp) did similar with a Dutch club and he got signed. Sure he's now long back in NZ with ACFC, but he'll never die wondering whether he could have 'made it' overseas.
But I guess alot of Kiwis who might see the Nix as a closed shop/Academy only ALM pathway, will see an Auckland team as a new opportunity. Especially as any 09 club will take time to get any Academy up & going.
I think under National League regulations, any team can add two U-20 players between regional and national league phase. (Rule 27.4) So if there is any U20 players with NZ eligibility in the Aussie state leagues, I think there is a way (via all NL teams not just Phoenix) they can come back and have 9 games in the shop window
That Bayliss guy is trialling currently with the Nix. Kiwi heritage living in Aussie. Was with the Jets or CCM briefly?
If I was Emlyn Wellsmore or some other Kiwi in Aus, who thought they had a chance at the Nix, I'd buy a flight over once the NPL season was finished (that happens soon), drive out to the Hutt and ask to train with the team. Nothing lost nothing gained.
I think was Michael Den Hejr (spp) did similar with a Dutch club and he got signed. Sure he's now long back in NZ with ACFC, but he'll never die wondering whether he could have 'made it' overseas.
But I guess alot of Kiwis who might see the Nix as a closed shop/Academy only ALM pathway, will see an Auckland team as a new opportunity. Especially as any 09 club will take time to get any Academy up & going.
Thanks thats a good tip. Yeah the Vic NPL finals finish in a couple of weeks. Do you reckon a player could just turn up and ask to train or would they need to make contact with the Nix first?
I really have no idea. I mean I guess you would first send them a highlights package of yourself, and see if they were interested in offering you a trial. Players of all sorts of codes have been doing that for donkeys years.
I remember back in the 1980s some young NZ rugby league player sent the Canterbury Bulldogs a video of one of his games. Playing in the same game on the VHS tape was Jarrod McCracken - and the Doggies signed McCracken!
But yeah what has Ellsmore to lose, apart from the cost of some airfares and a couple of nights in an Airbnb. Would be curlish of the Nix to not let him train with them for day at least, given Ellsmore has a reasonable record in the VIC NPL. Getting into pro football, is so often a story of luck, and just grabbing that brief window of opportunity. And it can be very subjective judging a player's ability. Riera caught Ricki's eye in a Nix verus NZ domestic selection game from memory??
Is a big reason why apparently Ole have that setup with Torslanda in Sweden, to give their ex alumni a starting base in Europe.
Kaltak recieved 3 red cards in what is a short season. I don't know if I'd use him as a marker of success personally.
Definately capable, but he needs to sort the above out to be geniunely good.
Wootton hasn’t picked up any reds iirc. Him or Kaltak?
Wootten of Kaltak easily. I'd rather have a defender of any capability on the field 100% of the time than one with immense capability on the field 75% of the time
Who would you rather have starting a final for you? Maybe Wootton is going to have a brilliant season and settle that and how to spell his name.
For me right now Kaltak every time. Even with 3 reds he started 24 games and came off the bench once, which was among the key core of players, similar to Roux and Nkolo, behind only Vuckovic, Silvera, Tulio, Cummings and Nisbet.
And he also contributed 3 assists, which either says good long passing or heading from set pieces. I did also see him head from the box over halfway which is the kind of strength that reminds me of Steven Taylor.
He was a key player in a title winning defense, not in a fractured team that limped out early again.
And, sadly, Wootton is probably paid more than him. Still thought Wootton was decent when he joined us and he played with an injury iirc at the end of last season. Be happy for him to change my mind this season.
Wootton was past in the UK years ago and as I said at the time he was a bad signing for us. Seems everyone else is seeing it now.
at the moment the full backs are only suceeding in cramping their own space and reducing their decision and execution time
if inverting, it really needs to be only one at a time. if both wingers are staying wide, this introduces the issue of what the non-inverting fullback should do.
it's sort of like we are trying to be 'on-trend' with inovative tactics before we can even bed down a basic 4-4-2 properly. bring the variations in later.
i'm hopeful this will be ironed out before the season starts.
Bullion
Not 100% sure on the system so far. Not sure what the FBs are trying to do, they're not really inverting and they're not really overlapping - so they're not asking difficult questions of the opposition and very easy for the opposition to control us in wide areas, e.g the FBs sort of go forward but end up close to our wingers (who are trying to stay wide) and too easy for City to hem us in. The double pivots sort of make it hard for our FBs to really invert as there's not enough space - we sort of end up with a fairly static back 6 while attacking. We need to make the opposition make difficult decisions, we need to pull them out of shape - it was far too easy.
So far the system is a net negative resulting in our players having to be playing very well to offset.
