It’s encouraging to see they’ve actually gone out to find players from overseas in the current climate. How they’ll get them over here will most likely be a different matter…
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If they’ve got a decent marquee ten up their sleeve then that’s a competitive squad…
If they have been able to sign some OS players I’m still hoping we might be able to get a decent ALF replacement. Our current squad reminds me a bit of Arnolds 2nd season where we went into it without a top striker and it cost us.
I’m actually hoping we don’t sign anyone. Will make for a dull preseason but the extra responsibility might be good for Barbarouses and I’d love to see one of our few really talented young forwards take the opportunity
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Exactly the same. A top top striker makes the difference. Our overall squad strength will decline as Wilko, Ninko and Zullo esp all get a year older. A mid level striker (below Alfie) plus kids is workable.
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I think the idea that the extra playing time for our young players will translate to them developing is a bit of a fallacy. The reality is that most young players aren’t up to the standard. I certainly hope Trent goes on and becomes a great HAL player but theres absolutely no guarantee. And if you look at the precedent in the league, the teams that do well almost always have a top striker. If we go into the season with Trent and Kosta, we will be 1 dimensional to say the least. And we will have to deal with the problem that we’ve had going forward for most of Coricas tenure, namely that you can easily neutralise our fast attacks by sitting deep and playing a low block. And when teams like CCM do that, we really really struggle to break them down.
I think the coming season will be one where we see a record number of under-20 players play in the A-League. With the exodus to India, and surely far less ability to recruit foreigners than previously, there will have to be reliance on the best players coming through. For us, someone like Jordi Swibel has a real chance to cement a first-team spot if he can impress. He seems to have more to his game than Buhagiar does, but Buhagiar is obviously very quick with some decent finishing to go with it.
Aspro continues in his quest to play for all a league clubs by signing for Perth, whilst Nick Sullivan also joins them.
Another signing from MacArthur
Ollie bozanic has rejoined ccm
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Bozanic should be a really good signing for CCM. You’d think alongside Stensness, that’s a pretty solid CM pairing, with some youngster filling into another CM/DM spot. Maybe Nisbet? Or if they plan to play Da Silva at #10, he can just play that role instead. Either way, its an important area they don’t look terrible in on paper. Unfortunately, any other recruiting made will probably be undone if they decide to persist with Simon up front. I know he bleeds for their jersey but they need someone who can do more than throw his elbows around and abuse referees every game.
Overseas striker signing I am hearing. Simon (lower wage), McGlinchey, Kim, Oar and now Murray has freed up shit loads of cash.
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Nick Fitzgerald becomes the latest player from the league to move to India, signing for Jamshedpur FC.
Full list of former A-League players in the league include (in total 13 players have moved there this window, with 17 overall):
ATK: Brad Inman, Roy Krishna, David Williams
Bengaluru: Kristian Opseth, Dimas Delgado, Erik Paartalu
East Bengal: Scott Neville, Matti Steinmann, Aaron Amadi-Holloway
Goa: James Donachie
Hyderabad: Joel Chianese
Jamshedpur: Nick Fitzgerald
Kerala: Gary Hooper
Mumbai: ALF
NorthEast: Dylan Fox
Odisha: Steve Taylor, Jacob Tratt
Chennaiyin are the only side not to have a former A-League player in their side. Couple teams still have visa spots. Most notably Kerala (who have been linked to Jordan Murray and Jordan Elsey) and Mumbai still have AFC spots so the departures may still not be done.
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For a lot of those players this would always be pretty much as good an overseas opportunity as they’ll ever get, and having the chance to experience India for a few months while being paid would be pretty cool - particularly since the security blanket back home has been eaten by moths, shat on, infested by fleas and burned.
Either way, it’s still a ridiculously bad look for the A-league when you have a host of players that are moving to India. Some of these guys aren’t that old. There’s no real young talent there, but there’s 4 or so that are under 30?
Is it really bad? Players get an opportunity to move abroad and test themselves in a new environment and for many on the list they might go from squaddies to first teams and get a pay boost. For the league its cleared out a lot of players and has created almost a player roster worth of new spots in the league that may go to youth players. If theyd sign Diamanti, Ninkovic, Maclaren, Davilla etc then itll be worrying if the league was losing all its best players but I really see this as a good opportunity for both the players and the clubs.
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Only one was smart enough to go to Goa.
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I have no problem with these players going. As RedKat has said, my thoughts exactly.
Errm, I read the entire season is being played in a hub over three venues… all in Goa. 
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Hilly is a frothing at the mouth fanatical FC Goa fan. It’s the Gaurs or nothing for him.
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