Squad Development 2021

[mintoff]

9 hours ago, wendybr said:

To me, the likely explanation is that the players finally found some C.O.N.F.I.D.E.N.C.E after grinding out the derby win.

From the time the whistle blew to start the game, they played with an intensity and what looked like genuine confidence, which, of course, increased with every goal.

If it's something else, I'd like to know what that would be.

 

Players that were selected to play they played in their rightful position, and that was the answer. SCORE 5 nil .

 

[JustWandering]

Aquilina or Wilmering for left back?

Different skill sets, both have a bright future. I think Aquilina suits our style of play more. He bursts forward without hesitation and beats his man with speed and physicality. He has developed a nice combination with Kamau, getting the ball to him early when the opposition is on the back foot. I don't think we get this from Wilmering, who is more hesitant and tends to look for the back pass rather than taking his man on.

Both players need game time for their development. When both are fully fit and available for selection, I'd be playing Aquilina for the first 60 minutes and bringing on Wilmering for the last 30.

[Davo]

31 minutes ago, JustWandering said:

Aquilina or Wilmering for left back?

Different skill sets, both have a bright future. I think Aquilina suits our style of play more. He bursts forward without hesitation and beats his man with speed and physicality. He has developed a nice combination with Kamau, getting the ball to him early when the opposition is on the back foot. I don't think we get this from Wilmering, who is more hesitant and tends to look for the back pass rather than taking his man on.

Both players need game time for their development. When both are fully fit and available for selection, I'd be playing Aquilina for the first 60 minutes and bringing on Wilmering for the last 30.

Aquilina has been awesome the last few weeks. The only thing Wilmering has over him at the moment is crossing but otherwise Aquilina is as good defensively and much better going forward.

[Sithslayer1991]

I think its tough one between the 2. But personally would have Aquilina based on his engine, driving runs and recovery when he gets beaten. I think he may be quicker than Wilmering, probably better defensively and has superior stamina.

Wilmering has passing and crossing over Aquilina.

[mack]

10 hours ago, JustWandering said:

Aquilina or Wilmering for left back?

It's an interesting question. Looking at the stats for Aquilina, Wilmering and Russell you can pick out certain information about how they've played. The minutes played is relatively similar although Wilmering is about 4 games shy of the other two in that. Another piece of information that isn't a stat is that Aquilina is a right-footer despite playing at left back in our current setup, his role is a lot like when Georgievski was playing at left fullback, cutting inside onto his right foot in an already congested penalty area.

• Wilmering & Russell are more attacking. They have a lot more key passes, and crossing attempts compared to Aquilina. Russell shoots much more than both of the other two combined.
• Wilmering attempts more crosses than Aquilina or Russell while only being slightly less effective at crossing than Aquilina. Accuracy rates: Aquilina 28%, Wilmering 26% and Tate 20%. Russell needs to improve his crossing.
• Aquilina has nearly double the tackles won than Wilmering & Russell combined and does it at a much better success rate than Russell and Wilmering in particular, as well as making more interceptions.
• Their passing accuracy is very similar at ~75% total and 63% own half.
• Wilmering doesn't dribble well. He only has four successful dribbles this season vs 16 & 19 for Aquilina & Tate.
• Aquilina has an extremely good ratio of fouls won to fouls conceded. He's won 15 and conceded 8. Wilmering is pretty much 50/50 with a few of each, while Russell is at the other end compared to Aquilina, winning only 7 fouls while giving away 16. This may not necessarily be a good thing, as it could indicate Aquilina isn't as forceful with his defense as he could be, particularly higher up the park where fouls are less likely to draw yellow cards when they are a press rather than a tactical foul to stop a breakaway.
• Wilmering has a substandard tackle success rate and doesn't make too many of them either, with his low fouls won/conceded count he doesn't impact the game much.

Summed up, Aquilina is a defensive beast who needs to get into better positions to make more key passes and more accurate shots, although these stays may be skewed due to the way a right footer is going to get the ball while at left fullback. Russell needs to work on his crossing and passing accuracy in the opponents half. Wilmering participates well in attacks and is solid in defence when he can stand up opponents but his tackling is substandard when he is forced into close contact.

To answer the question, I'd keep Aquilina there because of his defensive ability in a defensive position. We need as solid a defence as we can right now more than we need Wilmering's better attacking qualities in a team which is the 2nd best attack in the league.

To answer a completely different question, I'd keep Aquilina & Russell as the fullbacks for now, but I would target finding a good left fullback, perhaps even a foreign player and pushing Aquilina as the starting right fullback. Wilmering needs to improve his defensive work, his attacking ability is not good enough to make up for being such a poor tackler. I think he's lucky that he's got another two years on his contract after this season.

If Aquilina can readjust to moving back to right fullback if that happens (or become more two footed), and continues to improve on both sides of the ball, he could develop into an extremely good A-League player.

[MathyouWSW]

With Georgievski gone, does the club needs to sign another fullback? If so, who do you go for?

One thing is certain, they'll need to sign another attacking midfielder as an alternative for Troisi (even though his performance lately has been superb)

Edited May 10, 2021 by MathyouWSW

[mintoff]

11 hours ago, JustWandering said:

Aquilina or Wilmering for left back?

Different skill sets, both have a bright future. I think Aquilina suits our style of play more. He bursts forward without hesitation and beats his man with speed and physicality. He has developed a nice combination with Kamau, getting the ball to him early when the opposition is on the back foot. I don't think we get this from Wilmering, who is more hesitant and tends to look for the back pass rather than taking his man on.

Both players need game time for their development. When both are fully fit and available for selection, I'd be playing Aquilina for the first 60 minutes and bringing on Wilmering for the last 30.

Wilmering is too slow getting back defending

[mack]

24 minutes ago, MathyouWSW said:

With Georgievski gone, does the club needs to sign another fullback? If so, who do you go for?

One thing is certain, they'll need to sign another attacking midfielder as an alternative for Troisi (even though his performance lately has been superb)

If we do it'd be a left fullback since Tate & Aquilina have RB covered. Jason Davidson's contract might be expiring and he's signed on to our managers favourite agency. Dylan Murnane is playing in Finland, he wasn't a particularly brilliant player from what I remember. There's a couple of Scottish leftbacks, Lee Wallace and Jack McMillan with Avid.

[Hughesy]

I’d rather just stick with Wilmering. He and Russell seem to be some of the only fullbacks in the competition that can regularly place a proper cross into the box. That can’t be underestimated particularly if we persist with a wing back based formation 

[MathyouWSW]

16 hours ago, mack said:

If we do it'd be a left fullback since Tate & Aquilina have RB covered. Jason Davidson's contract might be expiring and he's signed on to our managers favourite agency. Dylan Murnane is playing in Finland, he wasn't a particularly brilliant player from what I remember. There's a couple of Scottish leftbacks, Lee Wallace and Jack McMillan with Avid.

Yeah, Murnane's contract ends with Helsinki soon. Could be an OK backup player for left back.

Pretty sure Vujica's contract ends with Western United at the end of the season too. I used to think he was a good player but after WU's performance against the Wanderers, I'm having second thoughts.

[mack]

Vujica's played just 5 games worth of minutes this season and the only stat that is impressive is his passing accuracy is very good especially in the opposition half. But everything else is just negligible or bad, he hasn't even made a single accurate cross, only 1 key pass, his defensive stats are worse than Wilmering who is the least effective of the 3 young fullbacks we have now. If we had no left backs for next season I'd bring him back home (he's from Wetherill Park) to challenge whoever we signed as first choice LB, but with Wilmering and Aquilina I think we'd just be wasting a squad spot.

[GD07]

20 hours ago, mack said:

There's a couple of Scottish leftbacks, Lee Wallace and Jack McMillan with Avid.

Yeah, **** that.

[MathyouWSW]

After your comment, Mack. I decided to see who's off contact from every A-league club. I did get an article from Bossi which was posted in March. But, I've done a few changes to make it (sort of) up to date, I do apologise if some of it is incorrect. The likes of Georgievski, O'Doherty, MacDonald are signed for the remainder of the season. But, they'll probably be offered an extension to next season to their respective club.

Adelaide United:
Jordan Elsey, Joe Gauci, Tomi Juric, Nathan Konstandopoulos, Javi Lopez, Michael Marrone, Dakota Ochsenham, Noah Smith.

Brisbane Roar: 
Joshua Brindell-South, Jordan Courtney-Perkins, Jesse Daley, Riku Danzaki, Macklin Freke, Macaulay Gillesphey, Jai Ingham, Danny Kim, Masato Kudo, Izaack Powell, Dylan Wenzel-Halls, Antonee Burke-Gilroy.

Central Coast Mariners:
Mark Birighitti, Daniel Bouman, Jaden Casella, Jack Clisby, Danny De Silva, Daniel Hall, Matthew Hatch, Stefan Jankovic, Michal Janota, Stefan Nigro, Adam Pearce, Kye Rowles, Matt Simon, Ruon Tongyik, Marco Urena.

Macarthur FC:
Benat Etxebarria, Ivan Franjic, Antony Golec, Charles M’Mombwa, Antonis Martis, Jake McGing, James Meredith, Yianni Nicolaou, Milislav Popovic, Loic Puyo, Liam Rose, Michael Ruhs, Walter Scott, Nick Suman, Markel Susaeta, Aleks Susnjar.

Melbourne City:
Florin Berenguer, Raphael Borges Rodrigues, Stefan Colakovski, Scott Jamieson, Andrew Nabbout, Craig Noone, Bernardo Oliveira, Adrian Luna, Kerrin Stokes, Naoki Tsubaki, Daniel Georgievski, Anthony Lesiotis.

Melbourne Victory:
Aaron Anderson, Nick Ansell, Jake Brimmer, Leigh Broxham, Jacob Butterfield, Max Crocombe, Ben Folami, Rudy Gestede, Elvis Kamsoba, Birkan Kirdar, Robbie Kruse, Brandon Lauton, So Nishikawa, Storm Roux, Dylan Ryan, Adama Traore.

Newcastle Jets:
Ali Abbas, Jack Armson, Nigel Boogard, Lachlan Jackson, Roy O’Donovan, Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, Jack Simmons, Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Jordan O'Doherty.

Perth Glory:
Carlo Armiento, Jonathan Aspropotamitis, Bryce Bafford, Luke Bodnar, Diego Castro, Giordano Colli, Cameron Cook, Nick D’Agostino, Bruno Fornaroli, Jason Geria, Declan Hughes, Chris Ikonomidis, Dane Ingham, Andy Keogh, Neil Kilkenny, Trent Ostler, Kosuke Ota, Liam Reddy, Daniel Stynes, Nick Sullivan, Mason Tatafu, Callum Timmins, Tando Velaphi, Brandon Wilson.

Sydney FC:
Alex Baumjohann, Bobo, Anthony Caceres, Patrick Flottmann, Tom Heward-Belle, Ryan McGowan, Adam Pavlesic, Jordi Swibel, Callum Talbot, Ben Warland, Alex Wilkinson, Chris Zuvela.

Wellington Phoenix:
Ulises Davila, Luke DeVere, Cameron Devlin, Louis Fenton, Tomer Hemed, Josh Laws, Clayton Lewis, Stefan Marinovic, James McGarry, Liam McGing, Mirza Muratovic, Matthew Ridenton, Oliver Sail, Ben Waine, Charles Lokolingoy, Steven Taylor.

Western Sydney Wanderers:
Phillip Cancar, Jarrod Carluccio, Simon Cox, Ziggy Gordon, Kosta Grozos, Bruce Kamau, Alessandro Lopane, Nicolai Muller, Kwame Yeboah, Scott McDonald, Patrick Ziegler, Mitch Duke.

Western United:
Besart Berisha, Max Burgess, Aaron Calver, Andrew Durante, Luke Duzel, Brendan Hamill, Filip Kurto, Steven Lustica, Nicolas Milanovic, Connor Pain, Sebastian Pasquali, Dylan Pierias, Josh Risdon, Jerry Skotadis, Tomislav Uskok, Ivan Vujica, Brad Inman, Kaine Sheppard.

Robinson should offer extensions to Gordon, Kamau and McDonald ASAP. He should see if he can extend Duke's loan as well. 

There's a few players from other clubs Robinson should look at to fill in the gaps such as the an additional wing back, a centre back, and also an attacking midfielder.

[mack]

Adelaide United:
Jordan Elsey

Brisbane Roar: 
Dylan Wenzel-Halls

Central Coast Mariners:
Mark Birighitti

Macarthur FC, Melbourne Victory, Newcastle
None of their players.

Melbourne City:
Craig Noone, Adrian Luna

Perth Glory:
Chris Ikonomidis

Sydney FC:
Anthony Caceres

Wellington Phoenix:
Ulises Davila, Cameron Devlin

Western Sydney Wanderers:
Ziggy Gordon, Bruce Kamau, Mitch Duke

Western United:
Max Burgess

Those are the players I'd look at.

Scott McDonald is a maybe, we don't know how much he'd cost for a full season or if his body can handle a season if we went back to a full summer schedule. We've got Ibini for next year already so Yeboah is excess to requirements. The young players like Cancar, Carluccio we don't know enough about. Grozos is done, he's had enough chances, time to move on. Ziegler is prone to injury and giving away dumb pens. Muller not enough impact, we've wasted the twilight of his career pretending he's a midfielder.

From the list above, my first target would be Wenzel-Halls, as a replacement for Yeboah, McDonald and Duke if he doesn't return, preferably playing alongside a foreign marquee striker. Ikonomidis is a great player if he can stay healthy but if we stay in this formation he might not fit. Davila, Caceres or Devlin are attacking midfielders, a role we're sorely lacking in.

If we could get rid of McGowan and Ziegler then Elsey would be an upgrade and have Natta/Elsey/Gordon as our three main central defenders.

Noone is imo the 2nd best player this season behind Maclaren, I doubt City will let him leave though. He might also not quite fit into the formation if we persist with it.

[Paul01]

I found an interview with Carl Robinson by Simon Hill from his show The Global Game from just before the Sydney Derby which has an impact on squad development. Lederer made it clear to Robinson that he had to look at young players from the Academy because of the millions spent on said Academy.

[papersun]

6 hours ago, mack said:

Adelaide United:
Jordan Elsey

Brisbane Roar: 
Dylan Wenzel-Halls

Central Coast Mariners:
Mark Birighitti

Macarthur FC, Melbourne Victory, Newcastle
None of their players.

Melbourne City:
Craig Noone, Adrian Luna

Perth Glory:
Chris Ikonomidis

Sydney FC:
Anthony Caceres

Wellington Phoenix:
Ulises Davila, Cameron Devlin

Western Sydney Wanderers:
Ziggy Gordon, Bruce Kamau, Mitch Duke

Western United:
Max Burgess

Those are the players I'd look at.

Scott McDonald is a maybe, we don't know how much he'd cost for a full season or if his body can handle a season if we went back to a full summer schedule. We've got Ibini for next year already so Yeboah is excess to requirements. The young players like Cancar, Carluccio we don't know enough about. Grozos is done, he's had enough chances, time to move on. Ziegler is prone to injury and giving away dumb pens. Muller not enough impact, we've wasted the twilight of his career pretending he's a midfielder.

From the list above, my first target would be Wenzel-Halls, as a replacement for Yeboah, McDonald and Duke if he doesn't return, preferably playing alongside a foreign marquee striker. Ikonomidis is a great player if he can stay healthy but if we stay in this formation he might not fit. Davila, Caceres or Devlin are attacking midfielders, a role we're sorely lacking in.

If we could get rid of McGowan and Ziegler then Elsey would be an upgrade and have Natta/Elsey/Gordon as our three main central defenders.

Noone is imo the 2nd best player this season behind Maclaren, I doubt City will let him leave though. He might also not quite fit into the formation if we persist with it.

 

 

I like Wenzel Halls, he has something about him,  it  looks like a few guys at that end of the park won't be here next season.

Elsey is capable of a brainfart or two at times , not sure if he's any better than Zeigler to be honest, think we should try for someone better, hard as it may be to find what we're after.

Susnjar from Macarthur may be a possibility, though to be honest  I've haven't taken that much notice of him but he has played in most of their matches this season.

[JustWandering]

2 hours ago, papersun said:

 

I like Wenzel Halls, he has something about him,  it  looks like a few guys at that end of the park won't be here next season.

In the post match press conference CR praised the academy players in the first team, and mentioned that a few more will be introduced to the first team shortly. I expect that Ali Auglah will be one the academy players promoted to the first team, as CR has mentioned his name a lot in previous interviews.

[Paul01]

2 hours ago, papersun said:

Susnjar from Macarthur may be a possibility

Definitely not 

Slower than McGowan but much taller than most players.

[MathyouWSW]

Another name I missed from Brisbane Roar is Jamie Young. He is expected to leave the club at the end of the season.

[Taurus]

33 minutes ago, MathyouWSW said:

Another name I missed from Brisbane Roar is Jamie Young. He is expected to leave the club at the end of the season.

He was linked with us during the January window. 

We signed a youth GK from the Jets, when the deal didn't proceed. 

[LetsPele]

12 hours ago, mack said:

Adelaide United:
Jordan Elsey

Brisbane Roar: 
Dylan Wenzel-Halls

Central Coast Mariners:
Mark Birighitti

Macarthur FC, Melbourne Victory, Newcastle
None of their players.

Melbourne City:
Craig Noone, Adrian Luna

Perth Glory:
Chris Ikonomidis

Sydney FC:
Anthony Caceres

Wellington Phoenix:
Ulises Davila, Cameron Devlin

Western Sydney Wanderers:
Ziggy Gordon, Bruce Kamau, Mitch Duke

Western United:
Max Burgess

Those are the players I'd look at.

Scott McDonald is a maybe, we don't know how much he'd cost for a full season or if his body can handle a season if we went back to a full summer schedule. We've got Ibini for next year already so Yeboah is excess to requirements. The young players like Cancar, Carluccio we don't know enough about. Grozos is done, he's had enough chances, time to move on. Ziegler is prone to injury and giving away dumb pens. Muller not enough impact, we've wasted the twilight of his career pretending he's a midfielder.

From the list above, my first target would be Wenzel-Halls, as a replacement for Yeboah, McDonald and Duke if he doesn't return, preferably playing alongside a foreign marquee striker. Ikonomidis is a great player if he can stay healthy but if we stay in this formation he might not fit. Davila, Caceres or Devlin are attacking midfielders, a role we're sorely lacking in.

If we could get rid of McGowan and Ziegler then Elsey would be an upgrade and have Natta/Elsey/Gordon as our three main central defenders.

Noone is imo the 2nd best player this season behind Maclaren, I doubt City will let him leave though. He might also not quite fit into the formation if we persist with it.

I'd prefer Nabbout. Can play striker or on the wing. Strong, fast, direct, can score goals and is a significant threat moving fwd. He's also an Aussie, so doesn't take up a foreign spot. That makes him a better buy than Noone. He's a class above Denzel Halls as well.

[sonar]

17 minutes ago, LetsPele said:

I'd prefer Nabbout. Can play striker or on the wing. Strong, fast, direct, can score goals and is a significant threat moving fwd. He's also an Aussie, so doesn't take up a foreign spot. That makes him a better buy than Noone. He's a class above Denzel Halls as well.

Can be injury prone a little bit.

[mack]

3 minutes ago, sonar said:

Can be injury prone a little bit.

Also been a bit of a flop this year, in an extremely good team.

[theguyyouwishyouwere]

Just now, mack said:

Also been a bit of a flop this year, in an extremely good team.

and a massive ****wit.

[VedranRozic]

Cox going home 

[MathyouWSW]

The club have announced the departure of Simon Cox:

Time to start posting some youtube videos on some South American strikers here.

[VedranRozic]

Didn’t score the goals we all hoped he would, but a class player and a class character. 

[Davo]

You never want to lose your Cox but I can understand why he's made the decision. Could have just up and left suddenly but hung around until we brought in a new striker.

[TwoLeftFoots]

The guy is all class imo.

I love the Cox. Shane he couldn't score more to have a longer Thank you highlights package

[MathyouWSW]

You've got to give him all the respect as he decided to put the club first instead of dropping everything and deciding to spend some time with his family and his new born daughter. Especially the fact that it's his first born child

I'm curious to see where he goes from here. I could see him probably playing in some for some English National League club (please Notts County, sign him!) or maybe for some Irish first tier club. Who knows. But...I wished him all the best on twitter and instagram and He liked it. What a top bloke 

Edited May 12, 2021 by MathyouWSW