http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/8449818/Applicants-line-up-for-Phoenix-job
This really does show that this whole fear that there were no options out there was a load of rubbish. Also I'm glad to see the Welnix aren't as shortsighted as others and nare open to the idea of a coach from outside of Australian and New Zealand.
Also who reckons we might have been in play-off contention if Herbert had quite earlier than he had? Greenacre has a 50% win record. With his first loss coming when he had hardly any time with the team to make changes and the otehr away against a team that has won 10 straight (and we were bloody unlucky to lose that).
I'm sorry but for me this shows that Herbert was well out of his depth. Not having a dig at him and good luck to him for the All Whites campaign, and yes he achieved a lot in the previous years. But if an assitant coach with little experience can make some basic but effective changes and start getting results, including selecting the right players to start, I think if it wasn't obvious before, then it has to be now.
If this has already been mentioned then I aplogise I haven't been on the forums for a while. Just annoyed as I am a passionate Phoenix fan and I can't help thinking of what might have been.
To be honest I thought the repeated use of the phrase "international search" somewhat ruled out local applicants as somewhat a last resort. I'm also not sure that this indicates that there were bucket loads of coaches mid-season eager to join us. This search is taking a while I'm not sure that 6-8 weeks of Greenie as coach and a recruitment drive would have been a good move midseason. Personally I suspect that many of the reasons for our poor performance this season were psychological as much as tactical, still related to Ricki it seems.
Most teams experience a boost after a new coach or old coach leaving. I'm not sure ours would have lasted 6-8 weeks and then carried on when the new coach was finally found.
But then even in spite of all this it could hardly have been much worse. But without the benefit of hindsight how was it to be known the team would continue as poorly as they did?
They were getting worse and worse and showed no signs of improvements, and were never going to improve as Herbert was playing the wrong players and actually wasn't trying to change anything. Thats why I, and a number of others were calling for a change. I'll be honest I never thought they would improve as much as they have, but the reason I wanted change was it would provide the opportunity to improve. How quickly that happened no one could guess.
But obviously it was a lot quicker than most of us expected, and therefore you have to say this year the opportunity of making play offs was wasted.
A lot of teams get a boost when they have a new coach and yes it might not have lasted 6-8 weeks. But we still would have been playing better than what were.
But its in the past now, so I need to move on.
On another note, of the 200 applicants there will no doubt be a lot of garbage (my understanding is they are getting them from the Ukraine etc), but I'm sure there is some quality amongst the 200. Certainly better CV's than what most current A-League coaches have or had before they became an A-League coach.