We are also stacked for players who can bring something very similar to Sotirio who are younger and need minutes to develop into starters (or exports)
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My bad, sorry for some reason I thought we were referencing Poppa rather than Sortirio. I will say that even Arnold had his fair share of bad signings:
- Smeltz
- Faty
- Hoole
- Oldfield
- Ferreira
And there’s a whole load of other he brought in that literally saw minutes of game time, a big chunk in the 20+ age bracket.
I’ll give credit to Ufuk in recruitment, in that he’s brought in Klimala who’s been decent, even with bad support. Oahim who’s a good signing, Sena who’s had moments of brilliance, although admittedly regressed. He’s also managed to bring King back to his previous high levels before he left us. Yes there’s issues with the sum, but he’s not been an absolutely complete disaster as some are making out. In fact of the 9 players that he’s signed, i’d say Sortirio is the only really poor one. Couple that with the fact that the Costa signing 100% would have changed his entire gameplan based on the lack of a CB signing.
… for 4 months. We’re already 15% of the way through the contract.
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He scored that late winner in the derby and so goes down as a great signing.
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Hoole was hardly a bad signing initially
He had a crazy season before joining us from Newcastle - Arnie couldn’t predict he would regress
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Could have been just as much as Arnold not being able to get the most out of Hoole?
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Andrew “Danny” Hoole, iirc he got done for having a Tinder profile behind his missus’ back. He also had an agent who somehow had a pipeline to the media and got nonsense stories printed about European interest… despite him not having a passport or any way of getting a work permit in the destinations mooted.
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I’m a foole for Hoole.
From memory, he went back to newcastle the after leaving sydney and had a great season
Apparently…
"Ufuk Talay among highest paid managers of A-League with a contract worth more than $700K.
He will earn extra $400K if Sydney FC win the league or Australia cup title or qualified for the Asian Champions League."
Hoole was garbage even at the Jets. He’s only 31 and last known destination was Northern NSW NPL a number of years ago, which is probably equivalent to NSW League 1, maybe even L2.
Add him into the same group as Kristian Sarkies, Kaz Patafta, Zadkid, Adam Sarota et. al.
Hoole had a few off field issues according to the father of his gf (I used to work with him) that he was playing up on. I was told this prior to the Tinder incident.
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Smeltz - Signed to be the back up for Janko. 8 goals and 2 assists in the first season from 19 games.
Not his fault that Janko wasn’t replaced and he was thrown into the starting line up in the second year. -
Faty - Came on the back of us signing his cousin Tavares. Both looked to be good signings both on paper and on the pitch for the first 6 months.
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Hoole - Signed on the back of 2 good seasons at Newcastle and as one of Australia’s more promising up an coming players. Off field issues plagued him but he kicked on after he left us, scoring 13 goals and assisting 9 in 72 games. 2 drink driving offences are a good indicator as to why he he didn’t have a long career.
Again though, hardly a bad signing on paper at the time. -
Oldfield - No idea who you’re talking about?
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Ferreira - Signed on a short term deal as injury cover for Trent Buhagiar who had done his ACL. Funds we’re extremely tight (this was the season we signed Adrian and we all know what happened there).
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Iirc Arnie intended for Brosque to play #9 after Janko left, but then he was injured which is what left Smeltz having to play far more than intended.
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He was signed as injury replacement for Vedran while he was on “personal leave” before going to WSW. Thomas Manos filled the bench for a couple of weeks between Vedran leaving and Redders arriving.
Preeeeetty harsh to call that a “bad signing” on Arnold’s head 
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I should’ve checked your site first!
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I don’t know if we ever had a conversation about Arnold’s culpability in Vedran leaving.
By all reports he was great at fostering a team culture and there’s no doubt that having Vuka as first choice was the right call, but Vedran obviously didn’t buy in and didn’t want to wait until the spot opened up. It obviously worked out pretty well with Redmayne, but I wonder how different our (& Peru’s) history would’ve been had Vedran stayed…
Time for the full backing announcement.
I think he was also under the mature age rookie cap exception so didn’t cost any cap space, or am i confusing him with that mullen fellow
Being in 3rd on the ladder usually doesn’t put a manager under pressure.
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