Mariners Squad - 2019-2020

[marinermick]

Victory has announced Gallifuoco

 

[Insertnamehere]

Yep. We need to find a key, expensive striker and/or playmaker. MC needs to spend. There's no way around it.
We need an expensive player in their prime. Can't keep trying to find the gold - we've shown, consistently for the last 5 years, that we're actually pretty crap at it.
Also, we have to compete against every other club in the world trying to do the same thing.
Our name is mud. It surely is.
So that means we NEED to have the sort of player where others say 'man, I want to play alongside him. Imagine what I could learn just by training alongside that guy, let alone playing with him'. The sort of player who becomes an advertising point for the club - and the sort that every other team needs to spend a bit of time discussing how they're going to deal with him.
Without that player, we're not going to get past Year 1 of the rebuild phase.
Staj needs to have an amazing plan for next season recruitment-wise.

I watch a lot of US sport and I'll put it like this.
To rebuild you want young guys in the system coming through to your weak positions and have older guys to support that. Sell, rinse and repeat. The good teams sell at the point of convenience or return.

We haven't signed the right prospects for the positions we have established players in with a view to the future. We don't value the quality ones in the system to find a spot for them. We let them go without them having had a chance despite availability is the spots. Or we offer them BS scholarship deals or yearly slap in the face deals.

And we sign the wrong free agents. Guys who have never been performers, they've been through 3,4,5,6 clubs with no improvement. Yet we think that'll change for us. Sure sign someone off the back of a shit year but with a decent record.

As for the foreign players signed, that is always a gamble without a strong scouting network. I don't know if we've ever leveraged the foreign guys we have to bring in people they know of and respect.

Spend your big money on the first XI, have a few squaddies and have spots for youth guys and young guys who are looking for first team football.

 

[Ads]

Sorry to cut your post down to the one line. But attracting Aussie players should not be the focus. Staj has bought 4 visa players. 3 have been relatively successful. Jair less so but probably cheap. None are signed for next year.

The focus needs to be getting the the Aussie players we want to keep re-signed and getting the visa players right - probably 6 next year. If we assume (no guarantee) that we can keep Birraz then he and the 6 visa players make up 7 of the first XI.

I think the visa players need to be LB, CB, DM, AM, CM, CF. I believe all the visa players are up for renewal (Ziggy may be a 1 + 1)

So the first team squad would look like

-------------------Birraz--------------------
Oz RB---Visa CB----Oz CB--Visa LB
-----------------Visa DM-------------------
Oz RM--------Visa CM---------Oz LM
----------------Visa AM------------------
-----------------Visa Striker----------

With the right visa players attracting decent Aussie players should not be a problem.

We have 9 players for next season - Clisby, De Silva, Murray, Pearce, Rowles,Tongyik, Miller, Silvera, Stensness
Add 6 visa players and you get to 15 players. So we have to attract 8 Aussie players.


Fox, Melling, Shabow, Majok, Harold, Simon, Roberts, Birraz and Nisbet contracts are all up I think.Oar is leaving. At the moment the only ones that we probably all agree on renewing are Birraz and Nisbet - so those two plus 6 others.

I thought only 5 foreign/visa?
All rely’s on if we can get any decent Visas and the new connections from trades, trials, Anton relationships.
We were lucky to get Kim only based on drink driving.

Might only end up with 3/4 average visa’s, worse than this year

 

[pjennings]

I thought only 5 foreign/visa?
All rely’s on if we can get any decent Visas and the new connections from trades, trials, Anton relationships.
We were lucky to get Kim only based on drink driving.

Might only end up with 3/4 average visa’s, worse than this year

We may - but by and large it is the quality of visa players that seem to be a measure of how you will go these days.

 

[Fadetoblack944]

I thought only 5 foreign/visa?
All rely’s on if we can get any decent Visas and the new connections from trades, trials, Anton relationships.
We were lucky to get Kim only based on drink driving.

Might only end up with 3/4 average visa’s, worse than this year

Before the start of this season there were talks of increasing the visa slots to 6 so I would assume it will happen next season

 

[Melange]

I wonder if anyone has asked Behich if he's sick of warming the bench in Turkey. Could be another Zullo like signing - someone at the stage of their career who just wants to play

 

[jacobsfl]

GG definitely to Victory

What sort of human being would flip off a club that handed him a lifeline 6 months ago that's in complete turmoil and needs guidance, just to play in the AFC Cup?

Proper toolbag.

 

[jacobsfl]

f**king McCormack. He really hurt us as a club. We finally lash out on a pedigree visa striker, and we get the worst possible outcome from it.

We haven't had a good striker since McBreen.

 

[FFC Mariner]

What sort of human being would flip off a club that handed him a lifeline 6 months ago that's in complete turmoil and needs guidance, just to play in the AFC Cup?

Proper toolbag.

A footballer.

 

[finally retired]

We haven't had a good striker since McBreen.

Bring him back I say

 

[Pirate Pete]

I thought only 5 foreign/visa?
All rely’s on if we can get any decent Visas and the new connections from trades, trials, Anton relationships.
We were lucky to get Kim only based on drink driving.

Might only end up with 3/4 average visa’s, worse than this year

There will probably be six visa players next season. Shaun has said a couple of times that the club are working on that assumption.

 

[Ads]

There will probably be six visa players next season. Shaun has said a couple of times that the club are working on that assumption.

That’s right. I remember now.
What if we only manage to fill 4 visas.
Or even worse 6 sub par visas that half end up on the bench.
Then the gap widens. Seems familiar.

 

[Tim]

I have grown to love football in recent years (primarily due to two young football fanatics as sons) and offer my thoughts without any real appreciation for the technicalities of the game (and no history whatsoever of playing it).

Okon - signed some good players (Baro, Brama and Hiariej) but was let down by a poor decision to let O'Donovan go (perhaps more in hindsight) and signing Asdrubal. A decent striker that season and we would have performed far better in my view. In the final few weeks of the season, Okon throwing in the towel literally destroyed the changeroom and, ultimately, resulted in our horrific 8-2 loss to the Jets (starring O'Donovan if my memory serves me correctly). I simply cannot forgive a coach who dumps his team mid-season, no matter how difficult the backroom politics might be. As for CCM, you can hardly blame the club for reigning in the coach on signings after he signs a dud (Meir/Babbel is a clear recent example).

Mulvey - I really don't think he had any idea of what he was getting himself into - possibly figured he had coached a winning A-League team (that from some reports coached itself) and that might be sufficient for CCM. His signings of Simon and McGlinchey were well-intentioned to bring back the 'CCM spirit". The issue for both of these players' is that their highlight reels at CCM were made to look better than they perhaps might have been due to the talent that surrounded them in the club's heyday. True talent stands tall in adversity and both players limitations have been exposed in the past two years (notwithstanding Simon's admirable love for the club, great work ethic and fighting spirit). Mulvey also managed to get Hiariaj (our true talent in last year's team) offside as I am confident that Jem was meant to be his replacement from the start of the season and Tom decided to stay as he had a valid contract etc. Mulvey also had a longstanding relationship with Cisse who was, sadly, well past his best upon arrival at the club. The other thing that stands out to me is Mulvey seemed to think aggression won football games (his consistent selection of Melling and public ostracising of "Hirage" due to "defensive issues" are clear examples of this). He also appeared to lack a bit in respect of player management skills (at least from an outsider's perspective). As an uneducated observer, in my view, aggression will only get you so far in football in the absence of the requisite skill and strategy to play the game and plot victories against various oppositions. Mulvey talked a good game and, in his defence, he was hamstrung from the beginning by the Bolt circus. That said, the imports he brought to the club were clearly under par and that coupled with an apparent lack of defensive strategy left us horribly exposed and fans suffering an awful season. He was also sold a lemon with a number of our signings (remembering that there also has to be a "willing buyer" for the lemon to sell) and I don't think anyone at the club can be blamed for R McCormack's very poor performances (after such a positive impact at City the previous season). To his credit, he unearthed Nesbit and at least tried to assert his authority over a playing group that clearly had started to rebel at the later stages of the season...

Staj - he has started ok - remember that much of the current squad are not of his making (he did re-sign Murray and Clisby but both are reasonable squaddies, notwithstanding Clisby's defensive issues in a clearly very difficult position and Sunday night's "Golec moment" (think CCM v MV and one K Honda round 4 last season). Ziggy has been terrific for us most of the season (bar one or two moments). If you don't agree, ask yourself how would we be travelling absent Ziggy, Rowles and Birra at the back?. Multiple times Ziggy has been the only defender anywhere near the ball in defence and calls of him being "out of position" when he's trying to mark two advancing attackers seems mis-placed... Duric has had great moments but may be struggling with the heat/smoke etc. The jury is still out for me re Jair (we cannot forget that he had no pre-season and would still be familiarising himself with the team and structures etc). Kim has been immense at times but often appears to be a frustrated footballer (he is probably used to being surrounded by far better talent than we possess at the moment). Staj is clearly a better man manager than the above (or most other A-League coaches), no public whinging about refs or criticism of players (Fox, Clisby et al). He would have short and medium term plans and for talk of us sacking him is beyond non-sensical. We should guarantee his the 3 years deal he has signed and be eternally grateful we got the chance to sign a coach of his calibre at a time when he might have thought his career was over (and are probably paying him far less than he might otherwise be worth if the Matildas fiasco had not occurred).

Apologies for the length of the above but I think its useful to consider our recent past and see where we are in what I am hoping is a turning point in the long road back for our once great little club that could...

Would love to hear others thoughts, particularly, those with far greater football nous than me...

 

[turbo]

Mulvey talked a good game and, in his defence, he was hamstrung from the beginning by the Bolt circus. That said, the imports he brought to the club were clearly under par and that coupled with an apparent lack of defensive strategy left us horribly exposed and fans suffering an awful season.

I agree with a lot of what you said. Especially that with a half decent striker Okon's season would have been the start of a turn around for us. Unfortunately we had Asdrubal and Powell.

One big thing you missed was fitness and training standards under MM both of which were rumoured to be very poor. Bolt doesn't excuse that at all. We didnt get to a point MM had one less useful sub or he was shoehorned in to the team. We got to a point where we had a feel good exhibition game and let him go. MM was all talk and got by on his achievement in Brisbane, where he was sacked the next season. Recruitment was horrendous, if we didnt land Oar or McCormack there would have been zero hope before we kicked a ball, the team was so far behind the standard needed. When he was crap the rest of the squad was exposed.

 

[Tim]

Very good point re fitness. That was obvious from approx 60th min in most games last season: From what I’ve heard, the Bolt experiment didn’t help...

 

[midfielder]

To me Okon started well ... but when things got tough he was found wanting and maybe did not get the support he believed he should have received from MC... but he seemed to drop the ball early on and our fitness levels and many other things fell apart.

For me it goes back to Moss he made some terrible recruitment decisions and we have never really recovered from these.

IMO we need to give AS time to rebuild ...

Today Hyundai is rumoured to be pulling the pin on their 6 million sponsorship, ALDI is not renewing and Caltex have said they will not renew.

With Fox looking to get out as well....

To me this means given his track record I can't see MC putting a lot of money behind us and we can expect more low budgets...

I think the league maybe at a tipping point and MC may roe the day he is reported to have turned down an offer for the club said to be in the millions last year..

 

[jacobsfl]

Can't say I'm surprised.

 

[FFC Mariner]

Someone needs to share this with Okon - he can post some revisionist history tweets and texts about how good he really was but we couldnt see it.
To be fair, the club paying to keep Roy, not signing Ass dribble and everything would be different

A plan B might have helped too

 

[onto it]

I thought only 5 foreign/visa?
All rely’s on if we can get any decent Visas and the new connections from trades, trials, Anton relationships.
We were lucky to get Kim only based on drink driving.

Might only end up with 3/4 average visa’s, worse than this year

Thank the Lord for Drink Driving ya reckon?

 

[onto it]

To me Okon started well ... but when things got tough he was found wanting and maybe did not get the support he believed he should have received from MC... but he seemed to drop the ball early on and our fitness levels and many other things fell apart.

For me it goes back to Moss he made some terrible recruitment decisions and we have never really recovered from these.

IMO we need to give AS time to rebuild ...

Today Hyundai is rumoured to be pulling the pin on their 6 million sponsorship, ALDI is not renewing and Caltex have said they will not renew.

With Fox looking to get out as well....

To me this means given his track record I can't see MC putting a lot of money behind us and we can expect more low budgets...

I think the league maybe at a tipping point and MC may roe the day he is reported to have turned down an offer for the club said to be in the millions last year..

Lose a couple of matches and the world is coming to an end... No wonder the players hang their heads after the first goal down.

There is heaps to be positive about!
We are a full place above the scum and in a better position now than the end of last year. We have half decent manager who is making progress. Lots of young guns coming through. Most of the deadwood is rotting away.
Shite, the sun is literally rising over the coast!