Have updated my post again with further info on Og, Salley and Diego from today's Tiser.

At this stage, it looks like we will need to replace 9 of a 23-man squad :shock:

Confirmed
Valkanis
Agostino
Spagnuolo

Probable
Beltrame
Costanzo
Salley
Erdogan
Ognenovski
Diego

Og really, really hurts. Diego is a good player - in our best 11 - but at least we have plenty of depth in central midfield. All the rest have basically been fringe players this season, so we just need to make sure we recruit good quality players who can pressure first team players for positions, rather than real superstars.

Fyfe is coming in, and I would expect Osama Malik at least to be promoted from the youth team. It looks like we're targeting a marquee striker as well, which is good. I'd like to see Cristiano in a front 2...

Edited by a1118868: 5/1/2009 01:39:48 PM

So Valkanis is retiring, as is Agostino and Spags is going to NQF.
Beltrame?
Costanzo? Newcastle, GCU, NQF?
Salley? Newcastle, GCU, NQF?
Erdogan?
The Ox?
Diego? Overseas, Sydney.
Of those who are ossibly leaving, where will they be going in your opinion?

Beltrame will retire/not be offered a new contract. Erdogan won't be offered a new contract. I think Costanzo has been offered a contract but isn't happy with its terms, and the talk seems to have him going to Newcastle. Salley and Diego I don't think are being offered contracts. Salley is apparently headed to either GCU or China, whilst Diego reportedly has Pohang, Sydney and Wellington chasing him. Apparently we are on the verge of agreeing a fee of $350,000 with FC Seoul for Og.

out of that list im only consered with Oga leaving - the rest are replaceable IMHO

I still think Eugeane, Trav and Jammo will be courted and that will worry me but no bruce and burns worried me too :p

Personally I think Malik, Marrone (both were picked in the CWC squad) and Monterosso (third highest scorer in the youth leauge) should be elevated to the senior side

I think Malik is a certainty UnitedGal. I saw him last week and he said that he was basically doing everything (training etc) with the senior squad but just wasn't allowed to play games this season. He said he hasn't been told whether he would get a contract next year and didn't want to get his hopes up, but figured that with a few leaving he might be a chance.

As for Marrone and Monterosso - I quite simply know nothing about them. It would be hard for Marrone to break into the team - I think he's a right back? If so, Mullen looks to have the position nailed to the wall. Monterosso couldn't be worse than Younis. Not that Younis is that bad - but he's just not quite up to the standard. And does anyone know how Matthew Mullen is going? He made a couple of appearances last season - could he be in line for a call up to the senior squad?

I'm back after the Chrissy break (never really spend any time on a computer in the holidays - too much family time!)

With re the 4-5-1 formation, I feel that AUFc playing in a 4-3-3 will only work against teams that will allow the ball to play end to end. Against SFC on Sunday the players were very compact, that is from both teams. There was very little free flowing play and if we had used a 4-3-3 could have found ourselves chasing the ball too much.

Saying that though, and the comments re Younis, the entire way AUFC was playing changed the moment he replaced Cristiano. The whole team lifted a little, and it can only be because of the energy Younis is willing to throw into the role of striker. I feel he would be better served in a front two, and if we played a 4-4-2 then he and Cristiano would be good together as it would allow Cristiano to menace the box (where his strength lies) and Younis could do the running to move the defenders out of position.

Alemao was brilliant again, I rate him highly and want to see more of him - he is definately a midfielder I view in the same light as Timmy.

But the star of the show on Sunday I am still finding a little disturbing, it was Sarkies by a mile. He had more influence on the game than Sasa. He basically shut Gan out of the game for extended periods to help cover for Jamo, and he still managed to be involved in most of our attacking movements. My call to give him a starting berth to get his confidence up was justified, and that goal was exactly what the doctor ordered.

This is going to be a tough couple of weeks though, we can't really afford any losses and only 1 draw if we want the Premiers Plate and entry to the 2010 ACL.

I havent go too much on Marrone only to say that when they do a best on ground perfomance summary/vote thingy hes rarely out of the top 3 - like I said he was selected in the CWC squad so he must be doing somthing right!

I know more about Monterosso - the best thing to me is his one) he knows where the goals are (ive known him to kick 5 or 6 goals in games for either SASI or Metro) and his temperement (works hard but dosent show alot of emotion if things dont go his way - very calm and collected)

On another topic - tribalfootball has a rumor about us talking to Victory's Carlos Hernadez

Thoughts

WOuldn't mind Hernandez, but what would we use him as? Where does he fit in the team seeing AUFC seem to be trying to develope and groom younger players (AUFC have stated they want to be a transfer club, young talented players coming to us to get game time and exposure to move onto bigger things, and enrich the club in the process).

Straight swap for Diago - much better too

AS for Grooming younger players, you cant have the whole 11 with youngersters - need a balance and we have got it right

Edited by UnitedGal: 6/1/2009 01:47:55 PM

Agreed AUFc does have it right, and no I am not for a total youth starting XI - I am just interested in what Aurelio and co have as their development blue print over his tenure as coach.

BTW sorry about always spelling develop incorrectly, if drives me &^$#&(* nuts!

Personally I think Hernadez would be a great addition - we don't really have a creative, classy attacking central midfielder. Diego sits a bit deeper, Barbiero is box to box and Reid is really a holding midfielder - and I don't think Sarkies really has the creative "killer ball" instinct (despite his ball for our second on Saturday - I think he is usually more content to roll a simple sideways ball). Alemao is probably our most natural player in this position, but I find he drifts out of games for long spells and often wants too much time on the ball.

I think Hernandez (or a similar no 10 type), a marquee striker and a replacement for Og should be our priorities this offseason. By the way, it said in the Tiser this morning that a club official (maybe Petrillo?) said United are looking at Hernandez, but haven't spoken to the player. I'll add it to the player movement post on p.1.

Fwiw I agree on Younis - he adds energy and I would love to see him in a front 2 with Cristiano. But Viddie seems determined to stick with the 3 in central midfield, which means we will keep playing 4-5-1/4-3-3 for the foreseeable future, and although he adds spark off the bench I don't think Younis has the class to play by himself up top.

thats ok - im the last person to complain about spelling

I dont know any ins and outs but I know this much - the club wants to be seen as developing players to go onto bigger and better things. I also can see that Viddie is certainly not afraid to play them regardless of the importance of the game and hes cetainly not afraid to tell star players who are getting big for their boots to pull their head in when requred

Another good point on stealing Hernandez is from free kicks he can at least his the bar opposed to Sarkies.

I really don't see why Sarkies should try and be a 'free kick specialist'. He should just tell everyone to forget the beat up and let him get on with trying to improve his game.

I didn't get to see the match last night due to other commitments but see we lost 1-0 and it sounds like we went out in the first half with entirely the wrong mentality. MV are too good an attacking side to try and absorb pressure and hit on the counter, especially when people who have been living in a hole in the ground for the past 10 years know that game plan and how AUFC execute it. This would have been a perfect opportunity to play 4-3-3 and play and end to end game against MV.

Basically I am after a synopsis of the match and how we played.

Hey Ted, I reckon you are never going to see Muscat get red carded, how about aiming your sights a bit lower and have him merely get a warning from the ref (almost as unlikely).

Lol Ashnak. Too late now, I can't remove until he gets the red:P


Edited by Ted Jefferys: 7/1/2009 11:47:57 AM

Game V melbourne was horrible. We could not keep possesion at all and while we defended solidly for the first half the defending on that corner MV scored from.......

Off subject a bit but anyway, VS perth and SFC Sarkies has been a revelation. Everyone thought that Sarkies was crap release him from club but Viddie showed confidence in him and he shone, especially vs perth. Same thing happened with Cornthwaite actually. I disagree with Viddie's choice to use Cristiano as a lone striker though. Cristiano is one of those strikers who finishes off moves in the box not a Viduka who holds up the ball. While he is still OK at this job i feel he is being wasted.

I have worked out why we don't generate enough on this thread, we keep end up talking on the default AUFC threads, you know the MV blogs! :lol:

It was a trick...we were loured by a blog. :lol:


whens the next catch up game again?

Edited by leftrightout: 8/1/2009 06:04:27 PM

Edited by leftrightout: 8/1/2009 06:05:20 PM

Indeed, sucked in by the mighty Pip. Now, all Adelaide fans back to this thread so we can tell ourselves how crap/wonderful we are. Let them visit us.

the problem wasnt so much the defending on the corners.

it was the frequency with which we were too happy to concede corners, often under not that much pressure.

sooner or later they were going to score from one of them.

I was under the impression that Viddie was to use Christiano as an AM from the beginning of the season but because the guy cant run...well his sprint is more like a duck waddle then a sprint it's utter madness the play him without a partner.

When my new blog comes up it'll give us all a chance to talk more about this. The blogs are all out of sequence at the moment after the silly season. Not that I'll care next week when I go on HOLIDAY!!!!!!

the laptop needs to be packed with wireless broadband.

does anyone else's other half complain when your on the 'forums again'... :lol:

I was just thinking the same thing! Currently don't have broadband at home so am never on the internet there, only at work... But am building a new house and thinking about buying a cheap as laptop to just use for the internet via wireless so that I won’t have to fire up the desktop for something as frivolous as this - just for playing computer games :lol:

Queensland, Wednesday 14th January, Hinmarsh Stadium\:d/

Good luck on the new house, I just moved into mine...don't believe anything your builder says though...if he says it's gonna be finished next week expect the week after that :lol:

I had a thought the other day...it's not based on any fact or anything...

But I wouldn't be surprised if AU looks as Pellegrino from Perth as his an Adelaide boy and correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure he signed a 1 year performance based deal with Perth and his preformed pretty well since.

"The global financial crisis has apparently saved United from losing another two key players to Asia after Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma-bound defender Ognenovski signed for the South Korean giant on Saturday.

Dodd and keeper Galekovic were also wanted men in Japan.

But Japan's financial woes have put Dodd's pending move to Kashima Antlers on hold after the club's Brazilian boss Oswaldo Oliveira wanted the speedster for the reigning J-League champion.

Galekovic was on Kyoto Sanga and Sanfrecce Hiroshima's wishlist.

Kazuyuki Kakiuchi, from Japan's Sponichi Annex one of the nation's leading sports websites, confirmed the Japanese interest in the Reds pair.

"The J-League clubs are now waiting to see if they have enough finances to continue with the player transactions during the FIFA transfer window this month," Kakiuchi said."

From Adelaide Now


Looks good that we may still be able to keep both Dodd and Eugene. But OG was always going to be moving