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Mariners Squad - HAL 14 - 2018- 2019 - The challenge for Mike Mulvey is over

Capt. Awesome

Well-Known Member
Mikes quotes were interesting. Put an emphasis on his work ethic and teachability. Subtle. But more good signs re the culture and Mike as a coach.

Also keks comments of him being firm but fair. An it’s inportant to have that in charge. Possible dog at Okon? Possibly...

Yes having watched the NPL2 from behind the coaches area a couple of times you hear a lot of ‘get back a defend Pete’ from Ken (coach). Hopefully he can add a bit more motor to his game.
 

Josho Howe

Well-Known Member
That's the challenge for all of these young players coming up to A-League level. The pace and speed of it. While us fans who watch European leagues know how much faster those leagues are, NPL to A-League is such a massive step up that it takes a while to get used to. Trent and Wales are the prime examples of this.
 
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Rowdy

Well-Known Member
PK........Ima gonna call him Nelson.

It's always exciting when we bring a new youth in. All the best Nelson!

Nahhh.It's Football NOT Formula 1

- an Aussie kid with initials of P.K easily becomes monikered with that quintessential Aussie term for gum ....
pk chewy.jpg

.......... 'Chewy' !!!

With his feet & pace, hopefully he'll 'chew' a few blokes up in 1v1's this coming season. Good signing/promotion of CCM Youth system.
 

VicMariner

Well-Known Member
Nahhh.It's Football NOT Formula 1

- an Aussie kid with initials of P.K easily becomes monikered with that quintessential Aussie term for gum ....
View attachment 1117

.......... 'Chewy' !!!

With his feet & pace, hopefully he'll 'chew' a few blokes up in 1v1's this coming season. Good signing/promotion of CCM Youth system.

Top Kek-eris.
 

scottmac

Suspended
So we are getting close to the minimum squad numbers with no real big money earners other than Tom. I can see this going one of 2 ways. 3 quality imports and a promising feeling moving into the new season. 1 or 2 under whelming signings and another of our worst ever years.

Then again it may be pay overs for one import who won't make a huge difference and another shit kicker
 

midfielder

Well-Known Member
Two or three quality signing will make the difference between the spoon and a top six finish. Let's all hope we get the quality signings.
 

JoyfulPenguin

Well-Known Member
Although I am optimistic for a good season I am struggling to see that our squad is substantially, if at all, better than last year so far.

I believe that Kennedy is a capable keeper but he needs to be challenged by a number 2, will either Pearce or Gauci be able to provide that challenge? On what I have heard from watchers of our NPL side Pearce is still a long way off being A-League ready. Will he improve once he ages out of the NPL? We cannot afford to have a developing keeper, a la 15/16 Izzo, in our side. Gauci looks promising considering he played top level NPL SA at 16 but is he ready to of challenge Kennedy to start?

A lot is riding on Cisse in our defensive line Mulvey has clearly had experience with him before so I hope he proves to be a good signing, if Jonathan Aspropotamitis does not return to the level he was at the Wanderers or if Golec struggles after missing a pre-season through injury, I fear we will struggle. Rowles has potential but it is not clear whether he will fulfill that, I have never been impressed by Clisby especially considering he is not a natural left full back but a converted centre half, he was torn apart by Blacktown when the Wanderers almost went down in the FFA Cup last season and routinely gives up the ball. I am fearful that McGing will regress and we will be left without a workable right back option, who is our youth right back and are they capable of stepping up if McGing was injured or out of form? I personally wouldn't mind Shelford Dais or Jeremy Walker as an inexpensive back up. Our backline is wafer thin if we get injuries or players do not perform to the required or expected level. I would advocate strongly for a visa left or right back, the talent pool here for fullbacks is very shallow, and Raul Llorente last season for the Wanderers showed what a foreign full back can do even when hamstrung by background machinations.

Assuming De Silva is gone or on the naughty boys list, McGlinchey and Shabow will be our creative midfield options. I doubt either is an improvement on De Silva even with his problems. While McGlinchey chances were limited by insane game plans and infighting at the Wellington Phoenix he did show glimpses of his quality when given an opportunity. He is still a reasonable quality A-League player but, in my humble opinion, not at the level of De Silva when De Silva is at his best. I am mildly concerned at using a visa spot on him, I hope he was cheap. Shabow has played a total of 115 minutes in the A-League, I have not seen enough of him to make a comment, but he does have a good record with the Young Socceroos. I hope that we did not sign him out of desperation and that record alone. Hiareij, Melling and Berry are our three defensive midfield options. With Hiariej already the clear lock in starter, I hope both Berry and Melling are pushing to acquire a starting position. Melling was tenacious if often aimless player last season, I hope with better coaching from Mike Mulvey he can return to the terrific energy and form he once had for Melbourne City. I do not know what to make of Berry, I haven't seen enough of him to make a fair comment but numerous contributors on here obviously rate him very highly. In the short cameos I have seen he has seemed to lack the defensive grit and strength required of his position even when coming on as a substitute. He played a total of 12 minutes last season and the one thing that our national curriculum seems good at is churning out very good defensive midfielders. With seeing the performance of Kearyn Baccus and other defensive midfield players developed in the NPL system and various A-League academies I do wonder if we would be better off with a top level NPL player. I don't think investing a visa spot is necessary for this position as there are numerous quality Australian free agents to chase in this position.

Unless both Andrew Hoole and Connor Pain improve substantially under Mike Mulvey's stewardship I don't believe that we will make the top six with them as our starting wingers. Hoole is frustrating beyond compare, he has the talent and aptitude to succeed at this level and probably beyond but cannot seem to ever consistently impact a match, worst still the gulf between his best and worst is a gaping chasm and he can often bring down the whole team if he has an off night. In his time with us I think Pain has substantially improved, his efforts to track back and provide cover for Josh Rose was terrific and his work effort was top notch last season. But he too often does not see the objective as scoring a goal. Too often he settles for a simple trick or intercepted cross to win a corner when he was often isolated with the opposition right full back. If he is not capable of winning 1v1s against A-League level full backs, probably the weakest position overall in our national league, then there are many better options at NPL level. I am excited to see what Kekeris can offer, but have only seen his six minute cameo in the A-League, he did not look out of place however. Two quality visa wingers, in the mold of Sergio Cirio, Eric Bautheac or Fahid Ben Khallfallah's stint with Victory, would strengthen our squad significantly. With rather limited crossing ability from both McGing and Clisby we will rely heavily this year on the crossing of our wingers.

Gamerio and Simon are tremendous improvements already on our strike force of last season. I'll admit that I have always been a fan of Gamerio and thought he would be our next Socceroos leading man, I hope that his injuries have not wrought to much damage to his goal scoring instincts. If he can return to anywhere near his form at Sydney before his injuries we will have made an astute signing, if not I doubt he is more expensive than Powell. Simon struck a rich vein of form near the end of the season for Sydney, he was given starting duties in the A-League during Sydney's ACL campaign and flourished. With good service I think he will be a dangerous striker. I personally would not opt for a visa signing here, recruiting one of Deni Juric, Scott McDonald or David Williams would, in my humble opinion, serve our striking needs.

Mike Mulvey, Ray Junna and Nick Montgomery all have a tremendous task ahead of them if we want to be in the top six let alone challenging for silverware. It is crucial for the club's future, and position ahead of likely implementation of promotion and relegation, that we build a solid foundation this season. Another year of dismal results and further disengagement from less rusted on fans will not help us survive when expansion teams come in. We need to show that we are turning a corner, the future is bright, or it probably won't be.
 

FFC Mariner

Well-Known Member
You completely lost me at "Kennedy is a capable keeper"
Not only is he a very poor state league keeper, we had to see him laughing his head off immediately after the game where he let in 8 goals to his favourite club (self confessed)
Certain players who also found it funny were let go and rightly so.
 

JoyfulPenguin

Well-Known Member
You completely lost me at "Kennedy is a capable keeper"
Not only is he a very poor state league keeper, we had to see him laughing his head off immediately after the game where he let in 8 goals to his favourite club (self confessed)
Certain players who also found it funny were let go and rightly so.
I agree that his performance was atrocious that night. But he had also injured his hand during that game and everyone, not just him played horrendously. If what you say is true about him laughing his head off after the game then that is disappointing and reprehensible, but at the end of the day he is probably still friends with many of his former Jets team mates and did not mean much by it. But he should definitely know better than to react like that after an embarrassing loss to our fiercest rival. Earlier in the season he performed very admirably and kept us in quite a few games, he is at least a competent A-League level keeper. Having watched a lot of state league football recently he is better than all the keepers in the NPL Tasmania, NPL Queensland and NPL Northern New South Wales with a couple exceptions in the NPL Victoria and NPL New South Wales. There simply aren't many available high quality Australian keepers at the moment, the last four or five generations of Joeys, Young Socceroos and Olyroos have seemingly failed to maintain the previously high standard of our keepers. With little game time for young keepers in the A-League another substantial problem. Who were the last young keepers given an extended run in the A-League? John Hall, Daniel Margush, Keegan Smith, Tom Glover then who? Probably us and Izzo, Heward-Belle and Pearce. Apart from maybe Izzo and Ryan our system has not developed keepers to the level we have previously expected. Pearce and many other A-League second keepers are an example of this. Oldfield, Vekic and Bray are examples of NPL keepers that could progress to this level if given a proper chance. Or you can bring Aussies home from overseas such as Aaron Lennox who has been playing in the Scottish second tier or Danijel Nizic who just signed for the Wanderers. But that hasn't been successful, Alex Cisak hasn't played a game for Sydney FC and he played at a higher level than both Nizic and Lennox. Tom Glover wasn't ready for A-League level football here and he was the Olyroos' starting keeper before he came. If we had better options I would advocate for them but we simply don't, unless we heavily invest in one player's development most likely to the detriment of our team or opt for an NPL player like Oldfield.
 

Forum Phoenix

Well-Known Member
Great posts JP. Though I don’t share quite the same pessimism about our backline though.

In Cisse Aspropotamitis and Golec we have three good CB options, wiith Rowles a promising 4th, though I hope he’s competing with Clisby at LB because I was a fan of his efforts last year. Okon ball also put a huge amount of pressure on our backs imo. Clisby is not the slickest, but he has grit and is a good step up from Roux at LB defensively.

Mcgiing also can do a job at CB. So it’s RB for me I’m most concerned by, though I have seen zero of Millar. And also it depends how we play. McGing when focusing on defence was a decent or better RB for a good portion of the season. But I don’t think he has what it takes to play as a modern wingback.
 
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BrisRecky

I'm an idiot savant without the pesky savant bit
Got busy with a couple of iPad apps
adwFLg.jpg
 

midfielder

Well-Known Member
Squad & Coaches to date 20 players .... 9 coaching staff...
3 Keepers, ......... Kennedy, Pearce, Gauci
6 Backs ....... Golec, McGing... Clisby ... Rowles ... Aspropotamitis---Cisse
8 Mids .......... Berry, Melling, Hiariej... Pain... Mario Shabow ... McGlinchey... Matthew Millar...Kekeris
3 Forwards..... Hoole, .... Gamerio .....Matty S

Rumours
English OR Dutch forward --- Darren Bent ----- Adam Le Fondre ?? ---- Ruud Boymans
English Defender -name unkown
Youth side possible upgrades
Nisbet

Coaching Staff
Head Coach:... Mike Mulvey
Assistant Coach: Nick Montgomery
Assistant Coach: Ray Junna
Goalkeeping Coach: Matt Nash
Head of Performance: Andrew Young
Physiotherapist: David McGinness
Central Coast Mariners Academy Director: Ken Schembri
Team Manager: Jesse Canning
Kit Manager: Melissa Woods
 

Michael

Well-Known Member
Let’s hope this is the week the “big” signings are announced... starting to get abit antsy now

Still buzzing Kekeris got promoted. Surely a certain starter in a couple weeks for the FFA Cup.
 

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