I feel that this is a really weird season coming in terms of planning squad composition. Realistically there will be so many key signings we’d be taking a punt on to be top performers right off the bat or for existing squad players to have breakout seasons (eg. Hollman, Kamijo, De Jesus). Even riskier is praying that JR Mac, Quintal, Lacey or France to explode like Sega did last year.
If it were up to me, I’d be looking at a league leading visa striker and defender + a domestic midfielder and attacker. Hard to see what makes a league leading any of these players right now though given that everyone else will feel the pinch of the cap and IMO there’s a bit of a dearth in quality across the A-League player pool at the moment.
You’re complaining that the youth team is mediocre and not fit to play in the 1st team, despite not knowing how many will actually make the 1st team
You’re saying we should have average/above average players in every role, ignoring the realities of the salary cap and player pool (corrected this to be more accurate)
You’re suggesting that there are no quality or performance criteria for youth players to be in the 1st team, only academy tenure
You claim it’s a long season, it’s not, its one of the shortest professional league seasons in the world, we have a couple of early cup ties nothing like a full load till late September
You’re implying it’s not possible to sign the quality of players we need, without any knowledge of what players may or may not wish to leave their current club.
You’re implying that retaining Caceras despite the price and the contract duration required, would be better than 3-4 Aus Professional signings whose quality you have assumed to be no better than academy kids (who we’ve already established you don’t think are up to it) You’re literally assuming any aussie we sign will not be good enough for the A-league, again with zero insight on who those players might be.
As far as I can tell you wanted to retain all of the players we let go, get rid of most of the players we currently have, not use academy players and somehow magically recruit the rest of the team from a pool of players you think are not good enough., while staying under the salary cap and preparing for next year’s new rules.
“We are still looking at signing at least four local players” - Talay
"In talks with overseas-based Aussies”. - Talay
“Aim is to finalise at least three or four more signings ahead of our Australia Cup Round of 32 clash against Western United” - Baumjohann
“two available foreign player spots, which we intend to fill with an attacker (winger/10) and a defender (CB)” - Baumjohann
In terms of speculating on the “four local players”, my updated shortlist is as follows considering the Calver, Luongo, Vidmar, WUFC developments in the last 3 days.
Samuel Silvera (Winger)
Paul Okon-Engstler (Centre Mid)
Cam Peupion (Winger)
Jake Hollman (Attacking Mid)
Ajdin Hrustic (Attacking Mid)
Jay-Rich Baghuelou (CB) - Free Agent, Huge unit, from Sydney, has played Olyroos with King, JCP, Wood. Seemingly didn’t play last season for Acrington Stanley, but had a borderline cult hero feel when he played for the Olyroos.
Chris Donnell (Centre Mid) - Free Agent, Decent last season captaining Fulham U21’s, currently in Perth according to Instagram story, possibly eyeing a return to Glory or visiting family, but maybe we might be interested?
There seems to be such slim pickings of the free agents or reasonable loan targets that we would do well to secure 4 of these 7 players, including a few in the next week or so. Plus the 2 foreign players…
firstly he is responding to the other guys statement that we should fill the remaining positions with the kids. He was merely making a statement that it might not be the best decision considering the team hasn’t been performing that well
expectations of having at least average players and some above average isn’t unreasonable even in a salary cap league. We are still here to win it.
he didn’t suggest your third point… Not sure where you read that
-long season statement was a figure of speech implying there is time to integrate the young kids and that we shouldn’t be relying on them to fill starting positions immediately
-I think his Caceres comment is more just worry that we let another good player leave and it may be very difficult to replace. Even if we save money by letting him go we may end up spending more on multiple other players not at his level.
-and again he isn’t saying he wanted to keep all the players that have left. What you probably are seeing as hyperbole is just his worry that the pool of Australians that are available looks small and looks like quite a few people on this forum also feel that way. Obviously everyone is speculating and have probably missed lots of good players that are available but I guess it is just a forum.
The OP talked about signing youth not filling the 1st team with them (IMO)
No club gets a squad that doesn’t have some sub-average players filling positions, not with the reduced cap.
Right here, pretty clear
If so it’s a poor choice, because the truth is the opposite, It’s a short season, if anything it’s hard to integrate kids and build their capabilities because every match matters.
The reality of the cap is that there are always opportunity costs, we also don’t know what Caceres wanted and if it was even remotely viable. Risk of injury and loss of form grow exponentially if you gamble on expensive individuals, especially in a club with as many needs as ours.
It’s really hard to see what he wants, youth are not good enough, aus players are not good enough, so who is? The only logical answer is the players we let go.
Nothing you commented on explained what was hyperbolic about my response.
No. I said that our youth team as a whole is a bottom half NPL side.
That’s just setting a baseline for suggestions of ‘youth team with a sprinkling of senior players’ as an approach to an ALM season.
No. I said that we should aim for, not have, and average-or-better, not above average.
It is a north star. Signings don’t work out, injuries happen etc.
But it is a reality we’ve achieved in many successful seasons.
In a league where:
we’ve consistently been among the biggest spenders
it always has and always will necessarily have some cap flexibility (floor, marquees, youth allowances and scholarships)
at least a third of clubs are currently in pretty dire financial circumstances.
Perfectly realistic expectation.
Its also been the case that failing to follow this approach and going into seasons with glaring positional weaknesses, like the post-McGowan or post-Colosimo CB situations, or when Grant/Jurman were our starting LBs, or when we waited a quarter-season for Cazarine to be ready… the results have ranged from mediocre to disastrous.
No.
Note that I was responding to a post suggesting “6-8 experienced players” surrounded by youth which, shockingly, leaves 3-5 starting positions for youth players. Another similar post earlier was suggesting a dearth of new signings and leaning on youth.
Now, having just finished saying both that I don’t think that any of our current batch has as yet proven themselves a starter, and that I thought youth minutes should be earned, I presumed my thoughts on planning for 3-5 youth starters that logically follow.
The fact is, given academies run with relatively limited budget and certainly limited paid scholarship positions, it is very difficult to have multiple senior-ready players competing for the same position. The next-best LB, the next-best RW, is often a few years younger and a few years rawer, meaning that more often than not there’s exactly-one academy candidate for a given position.
Perhaps I was being overly terse here in the interest of limiting an already-too-long post.
By tenure I, obviously to me but perhaps not to you, mean that if we limit squad-building to 6-8 starting seniors, the remaining 3-5 positions are necessarily filled by the 3-5 who happen to be the prevailing “senior” academy player in the ‘vacant’ position.
I don’t think that would be a great idea for the competitiveness, nor for the development of a player who (prematurely?) progresses too ‘easily’.
Sure, and in those possibly-5 senior competitive fixtures (plus all the senior warm ups) between now and Round 1 we have a starting CB with a calf injury, two foreigners still on the beach in Rio, and 5-6 signings who might or might not be ready in time for some or all of them.
Which gives the kids opportunities to demonstrate their value to the senior team and stake claims for game time. Which was the whole point in context.
It’s really weird that you repeatedly fixate on this nitpick of a throwaway line, with no recognition of the context?
I, as I mentioned the other day, am concerned that if the few available Aussies abroad in positions we need aren’t signing with us, our recruitment might be in trouble.
Perhaps there are other foreign-based Aussies who are currently contracted but willing to break their contract to join us. Hopefully there are, but there’s only so many viable candidates in positions we need and not many jump out as being at a career stage where an A-League return is likely.
Note also that I never even said this wouldn’t happen. But I do consider it unlikely.
First of all, the Macarthur announcement which talks about signing him for “an exciting 2025/26 campaign” and him “play[ing] a central role… for a busy season”, constantly highlighting a single season and failing to mention a longer contract, sure sounds like you were flat out wrong about the “contract duration” factor. Or that whoever sold it to you massively overstated it. Because appears that the contract he did end up signing is expiring in one year.
Secondly, as above, there is some idea of who available signings might be. And that list, moreso than in seasons past, very quickly drops down to standards lower than players we’ve released (e.g. Burgess, Kucharski) or our academy kids. Particularly in the positions we need.
When we’re outbid on Cáceres, I’d assumed it was because we were pretty advanced with other options. And while unfortunate, that’d be fine.
The obvious alternative now seems to not be coming here, but hopefully this is still the case.
However, we spent last off-season similarly hoping for the club to conjure up a domestic CB unicorn and, well… Popović. Struggled in every appearance, had famously chronic and hard-to-treat injury, loan ended, was inexplicably signed on a long extension (with a fee?), missed a bunch of games to (known?) injury, continued to struggle in every appearance.
So I’m not brimming with faith.
If there were multiple good Aussies available in positions, and maybe a few more whose time abroad is going a bit sideways and seemed ready to force a move home, it would be a different story.
But I just don’t see it? Do you? In the spirit of squad speculation, some thoughts would be great. Much better than this oddly hostile nonsense.
And yeah, quite simply, if we’ve budgeted for 3-4 domestic players who turn out not to exist, I absolutely think it would’ve been a better option to extend a bit further and ensure at least one additional proven domestic first XI player.
Bird in the hand etc. etc.
I want us to let go of players when we know we can do as well or better, from the academy or elsewhere.
I want us to aim to fill the XI with players who we can reasonably expect to be up to ALM standard.
I don’t want us to go into seasons praying for somebody to step up in this or that position.
I’d rather we sign fewer players to fill the gaps well and count on the kids for depth, than waste cap on mid sqiaddies who block youth minutes without raising the standard.
In concrete terms, we have presumably settled 7 positions - GK (unfortunately), 3 of 4 at the back, Sena, Costa, Lolley.
That leaves 4 - striker, defender, another attacking player (depending on system), central/defensive mid.
I don’t know what the “5 or 6” signings are for? Quantity over quantity seems be preferable.
Obviously 2 foreigners, 2 domestic.
Talbot(Rhyno to CB/DM)/Calver in one and Cáceres/Luongo the other would’ve been great. None happened, and the list of options is shrinking.
If the above isn’t feasible because austerity ALM cap, was it really wise to let Max/JK walk? Is better domestic bang-for-buck really out there? I’m not sure.
Ah the off-season. I always look forward to the hysteria from both sides every year. This is Sydney FC, the odds greatly favor we will sort it out before the start of the season. We will have a squad that is capable of top 4 as usual
Our kids (who are often from the 18s or even lower) playing the adult first teams of everyone else in NPL do pretty well all things considered.
The aim has always been to expose the young players to competition and get them experience in game time and situations rather than go out to win things at NPL level.
And all you bastards were against Talay. Think about the pure lack of goo if we’d already locked in a team with early signings. Will somebody think of the goo!!!
I don’t think there’s any problem with the kids to be honest. Most on here have been critical of a lack of minutes for the likes Sega & Kucharski. The current issue is the quality of the long term contracted senior players - particularly the step down in quality we’ve seen at the back. The attempts to fill the hole Wilko left have failed so far (I’m not overly optimistic about the level Popovic can attain) & Grant has been on a decline while we’ve let two youngsters get away from us who’ve developed into solid A-League fullbacks (or better) in Talbot & Adamson.
I think youth going away and making it in other teams, is definitely the benefit of hindsight. We cherry pick the ones that have gone away and made it, but for ever Talbot or Adamson, there’s probably 10-20 players that we’ve let go and have done nothing. I mean there’s players that have gone straight to Europe because the A-League as a whole failed to identify them as proper talent. You can’t win all of them. Yes we lost Talbot and Adamson, but we also sold a whole bunch of youth players overseas and made a tonne of money.
I can’t really fault the way the club has run the academy based on the success we’ve already had in sales and the fact that we have a large proportion of our senior team made up of players that started in our academy.
Are they going to get it 100%? No, but complaining about who we let go and ignoring who we’ve kept or sold, is like basing our review on recruitment on the fact that we signed players like Kruno, Powell and Reid
There’s so so so many factors that would affect it. I mean travel might be impacting the negatively, a youth coach may be more suited and train in a specific style that could resonate with a player better, there may be bust-ups with players in training, I mean there’s a million reasons why a player may not work out well for a team, but work out better in other teams.
Think about even the number of senior players that smash it at a club, then get signed somewhere else, only to completely flop. Torres, smashed it at Liverpool and then pretty much did nothing at Chelsea for instance.