Squad Development 2017/18

[Smoggy]

1 hour ago, bunkmoreland said:

McDonald is never a winger. If you get him and play him on the wing you'd be as well just setting fire to your money.

Play him as a second striker in a 442 or as the CAM in a 4231 and he's still got a fair amount to offer. He also did quite well dropping off into the #10 role as part of a 433 in the 2nd half of the 15/16 season for us but that was largely because he was playing alongside 2 strikers who'd run into the channels and do the leg work.

Popa would never play him in a 442.

[Upthehill]

5 hours ago, Erebus said:

Scotty Mac under the cap and you'd get a few years out of him. As an SS or winger. 

Still room to buy a marquee no.9

MacDonald has never played on the wing anywhere. Sotirio would be by far the better option.

 

To be perfectly honest, unless we are going to be playing with 2 strikers this year, he serves no purpose in our squad unless we can't find someone stronger. Santalab is already performing as the experienced striker. If you sign MacDonald then a marquee you'll end up with 6 contracted strikers.

[StringerBellend]

8 minutes ago, Upthehill said:

MacDonald has never played on the wing anywhere. Sotirio would be by far the better option.

 

To be perfectly honest, unless we are going to be playing with 2 strikers this year, he serves no purpose in our squad unless we can't find someone stronger. Santalab is already performing as the experienced striker. If you sign MacDonald then a marquee you'll end up with 6 contracted strikers.

Have you watched Sotirio play? McDonald has a brain

 

 

[JayZko]

McDonald's how many nt goals he ain't that great Scottish league meh, not much better then the aleague at all we need  jermain Defoe or a loic remy or something after watching Liverpool carve up esfc convinced a epl pacey prolific man who's not in favour would kick arse

[Upthehill]

44 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

Have you watched Sotirio play? McDonald has a brain

 

 

Doesn't make after in the slightest. He's never played in the role and he's not physically capable of it any more

[StringerBellend]

3 minutes ago, Upthehill said:

Doesn't make after in the slightest. He's never played in the role and he's not physically capable of it any more

I'm going to have to go right ahead and disagree with you there. 

McDonald is a proper footballer, he actually knows what he's doing. Sotirio runs around like a chicken with its head cut off. 

I kept saying that there is a decent player in there somewhere with Sotirio but to be honest his semi final performance has sealed it for me. He has no football brain at all

[Upthehill]

11 minutes ago, StringerBellend said:

I'm going to have to go right ahead and disagree with you there. 

McDonald is a proper footballer, he actually knows what he's doing. Sotirio runs around like a chicken with its head cut off. 

I kept saying that there is a decent player in there somewhere with Sotirio but to be honest his semi final performance has sealed it for me. He has no football brain at all

Feel free to disagree but I have to assume you're doing that on the basis of not having watched him the last 2 seasons. He's slowed significantly and is no where near as mobile as he once was. He's a stop and prop goal poacher. He lurks down central channels, don't get me wrong he does it bloody well, but that's where he belongs.

Im sorry, but having a football brain doesn't equip you to play all over the park.

Another user said it before, you might as well burn your money for warmth if you are going to use it on Mcdonald out wide

[mack]

We'd play Santalab on the wing rather than McDonald.

[Upthehill]

Apologies, that comment wasn't supposed to come across as snarky as it did, Stringer.

surely the answer here is to find positional specialists rather than square peg+round hole scenarios

[ZachMercer]

Guys I'm curious. What would be comparable leagues and divisions globally that our recruiters would be looking at? There seems to be a lot of conjecture with respect to how the a league overall would stackup competitively. For example if a match was setup between us and lets say Aves from the Portuguese 2nd division, or Dynamo Kyiv in the Ukraine 1st division would we dominate or simply ne competitive. I see comments sometimes like the Scottish 1st divison is shiite but I reckon someone of those teams would tear us a new one. Happy to receive some perspectives.

[StringerBellend]

1 hour ago, Upthehill said:

Apologies, that comment wasn't supposed to come across as snarky as it did, Stringer.

surely the answer here is to find positional specialists rather than square peg+round hole scenarios

All cool

 

i haven't watched him for ages (mc Donald that is) I watched sotirio last year though.

On sotirio, for ages I was saying there is a player in there somewhere.

But he's not that young anymore and should be doing more.

Sure he's fast and can run around a lot but he pretty much always takes the wrong option and his performance in the semi final was beyond stupid.

We have Jumpei to run really fast with little end product.

 

[Smoggy]

25 minutes ago, ZachMercer said:

Guys I'm curious. What would be comparable leagues and divisions globally that our recruiters would be looking at? There seems to be a lot of conjecture with respect to how the a league overall would stackup competitively. For example if a match was setup between us and lets say Aves from the Portuguese 2nd division, or Dynamo Kyiv in the Ukraine 1st division would we dominate or simply ne competitive. I see comments sometimes like the Scottish 1st divison is shiite but I reckon someone of those teams would tear us a new one. Happy to receive some perspectives.

 

HAL is around the English 2nd or lower half 1st division standard..but nothing wrong with that at all.

Edited May 26, 2017 by WSWBoro

[beatsurrender]

I think the top HAL teams would hold their own in the championship. The bottom half would be 3rd tier in the UK. 

Thats based on first team players.  Our issue here is due to the salary cap our squads are so small, so we would struggle over a 46 game season.

Edited May 26, 2017 by beatsurrender

[mack]

28 minutes ago, beatsurrender said:

I think the top HAL teams would hold their own in the championship.

No chance.

[bunkmoreland]

1 hour ago, StringerBellend said:

All cool

i haven't watched him for ages (mc Donald that is) I watched sotirio last year though.

Tbh, if you want the sort of player McDonald is now summed up then this goal (below) from the 15/16 season is a pretty decent representation.

He's someone who'll hold the ball up and play others in. He's at his best now playing off a striker and is much more someone who'll drop into space and link midfield and attack rather than the player who was scoring 30+ for Celtic (though still managed double figures his last 2 seasons).

[mack]

Can we buy the guy who scored 30+ goals?

[DCWSW]

[ZachMercer]

What's not to like about this guy!

20 years old, starting striker that plays for dnipro in the Ukraine which is no easy league, u21 international, contract expiring in June. Did i mention he's 20 meaning he's not looking to retire! Good looking kid that could do with a break from playing in snow.

[Taurus]

He's an ok player, I guess @danielcarr

https://www.transfermarkt.com/jorge-valdivia/leistungsdaten/spieler/20758

[BenchRiotSquad]

Jorge Valdivia - absolutely top quality. Good age to come here  at 33. 

[WanderingToqui]

Valdivia is a true number 10 south American playmaker. Has awesome vision to see a through ball where others don't. Unfortunately, has a history plagued by injury.

 

Played in Brazil for years.

Popa would break him.

Edited May 27, 2017 by WanderingToqui

[btron3000]

12 hours ago, bunkmoreland said:

Tbh, if you want the sort of player McDonald is now summed up then this goal (below) from the 15/16 season is a pretty decent representation.

He's someone who'll hold the ball up and play others in. He's at his best now playing off a striker and is much more someone who'll drop into space and link midfield and attack rather than the player who was scoring 30+ for Celtic (though still managed double figures his last 2 seasons).

Hmm would probably play a Vidosic type role for us then, rather than an out and out striker. Would probably suit us well.

 

Regarding the A-league's level, I think the level of players is different to the level of teams. In other leagues the players are of reasonably similar quality, with a few exceptions. That's because other countries have well established divisions, meaning players find their level.

In the A-league we have players outside the cap who could be very high quality, some pretty decent cap players, some very average squaddies and some horrible fillers. It's part of the the A-league's charm.

So while the whole team would be eaten up by a 46 game Championship, there's some players that are of that level, getting to that level, or even above. But there's also guys that would probably not look out of place in non-league teams!

So I don't think the A-league has a comparable league. For recruitment that means the clubs have to look at what level they are trying to fill and scout appropriately. Most of the visa players would need to be high quality marquees outside the cap, or quality players within the cap. So you're hoping they can pick up players from the second divisions of big leagues, or players who were tipped to be playing higher who for some reason (injury, off-field situation etc) have not got there, decent players with a year or two before their legs go who can handle a 27 game season better (in fact, that should be a major selling point to dudes in that 31-34 age bracket), or top division players in smaller countries.

[mack]

7 hours ago, danielcarr said:

 

[Neverbloom]

3 hours ago, ZachMercer said:

What's not to like about this guy!

20 years old, starting striker that plays for dnipro in the Ukraine which is no easy league, u21 international, contract expiring in June. Did i mention he's 20 meaning he's not looking to retire! Good looking kid that could do with a break from playing in snow.

not from south america so its obvious he is useless

[ZachMercer]

2 hours ago, mack said:

 

Is it just me, or was that like watching Nico distributing to Alexis Sanchez! Isnt this guy like way way way expensive?

[MathyouWSW]

23 hours ago, ZachMercer said:

Is it just me, or was that like watching Nico distributing to Alexis Sanchez! Isnt this guy like way way way expensive?

Correct, Has the club got a spare $6.7 million dollars?

Nope...

 

[mack]

Our owners do.

[DinoPresinger]

The owners need to dip into their own pockets. Doing poorly this year is only going to hurt their long-term investment. It's worth losing $2-3 million to win a championship and set up a team that will go on to dominate. Especially when that loss is spread out amongst 4 very wealthy owners. Won't happen though.

[ZachMercer]

26 minutes ago, DinoPresinger said:

The owners need to dip into their own pockets. Doing poorly this year is only going to hurt their long-term investment. It's worth losing $2-3 million to win a championship and set up a team that will go on to dominate. Especially when that loss is spread out amongst 4 very wealthy owners. Won't happen though.

Scary to think there are some people in this world that would consider $2-3M a weekend shopping spree. Time to start petitioning Gina Reinhardt to buy the club if we want to sign $6M dollar players.

[JayZko]

6 minutes ago, ZachMercer said:

Scary to think there are some people in this world that would consider $2-3M a weekend shopping spree. Time to start petitioning Gina Reinhardt to buy the club if we want to sign $6M dollar players.

Lol 😂 dont ask lederer for a good South American number 10 we'll end up with Carlos Hernandez or Something over 35