at least he's not marquee. Would have been an absolute waste. 

Yeah I can't remember too many overly 'ambitious' signings. Unless you're (agga) saying the likes of Archie, Muscy, Bes, Troisi, MDP would be considered ambitious? We have always played it safe as jlm has said, apart from Kewell, which didn't work out and I guess our attempted signings of Diamanti and Fabrizio Miccoli.

Barbarouses was signed to replace Rojas

No good ever came from looking backwards,
We now have two foreign right wingers (there's a German/Maxi Besiter joke in there somewhere) and severe lack in squad depth. 

They're our only visa players. Bes will not be counted as a Visa player from next season.

Still got 3 to sign, one of them will be a marquee.

spot on. Kosta is a decent ALeague player and will probably play out the rest of his career with us now (needs citizenship though, but unsure if he can count the 3 years he already spent here). we seem to get a lot of complaints from people who have unrealistic expectation in regards to new signings. by my count we have a squad of 14 and at least 2 more visa players to go (3 if Berisha's citizenship is worked out). I reckon we need an AM, a box to box midfielder, a LB and another CB. Maybe a backup striker as well (although Austin might be capable of doing this).

Kosta is a good a-league player. He was amazing in our treble winning team. We had a korean LB on trial but nothing came of it. Would love another CB so we can play Rhys as a cdm next to valeri. I think austin can back up as our striker but im sure we would sign an injury replacement for bes if he gets injured. AM is a must need since troisi is most likely on the way out and how him and his agent act is not something i want at this club. Would Endo be an option for us i know he is an aging player be he destroyed the WSW in the ACL. 

Very big off season very worried about our lack of transfer movement thus far. Hopefully musky has some things in the works

Ambition doesn't mean signing Kewell, it is getting a former captain of Stuguart, a €5 mil euro player from France, the top scorer in the A league or Australia's best talent on loan from Celtic. 

Going back to players who performed 2-3 years ago and not backing yourself to pick talent from Europe and beyond ,  is safe and not going to win you anything. 
If you look at 3 of the last few signings Troisi, Rojas and now Kosta, we didn't win anything and didn't look like winning anything,  the one player we got through scouting, Baro was a top signing and was imo our best CB we have had bar MDP.

Our recruitment has not finished, so I will wait to the squad is finalized before I judge the new team fully, but it hasn't started well imo.

Next to Kosta's missus the happiest person will be Geria.

Excellent comment.
We won nothing last year after bringing the boys back together. To move foward as a club we have to be bold and back our scouts and recruitment.
Going after 'safe' recruits may get you top 6 but it will not win you trophies.

?

We lost the gf on a penalty shootout and any other season our points hall would've been up there with challenging for the plate.

Give Musky some credit, I trust his recruitment.

I agree.
A lot of things went right for Sydney (some controllable and some by luck).
I lot of things went wrong for MV (some controllable and some by bad luck).
At the end of the year there was only a inch or 2 in the GF.
Musky deserves more credit than he gets.

We were lucky Melb city were so poorly coached last season, the squad they assembled was vastly superior to ours & the gap was clear in the first derby.
We definitely got on a decent run from late Nov to Jan and that set us up for 2nd place, but we were never really in contention last season. 
We had a good final and just fell short, but the reality was we had the 3rd best squad and got a bit of luck with city being so poorly coached.

This. Came 2nd and runners up, could argue the thing that really separated us from Sydney was a Ninkovic-esque midfielder (and probably a little bit better defense haha).

-PB

Essien? :)

Do you have some sort of point?

Or a handball and a lick of paint.

It was a poor culture that was City's undoing.

I've gotta agree with Paladiscious - City'sculture sucked last season. Plus I think their squad was over-rated, there were a few players in there that were rated better than they actually were just because CFG signed them. As a Roar fan if I looked at City/Victorys squad and was given free pick of as many players as I liked I'd be picking way more from Victiry than City. City's best players (Zullo, Wilkinson, Mooy) had already left and that first derby victory was just a freak not-to-be-repeated performance, and the FFA cup semi they just got a bit lucky.

Membership renewal pack came in the mail today, its got some champions league info in there also.
So pumped now, only 19 months until the new ALeague season 

Getting the band back together.

With Troisi on his way out (don't let the door hit you), Milligan would take up the marquee spot.

Would mean we'd still have 3 visa signings to come within the cap.

One would have to be an attacking mid to replace Troisi. The other two I'm thinking a left back and a striker. Left back would have to be a top priority seeing as we don't have one. Hoping one is an Asian player, club would be crazy not to with the ACL coming up.

Potential lineup:

Thomas
Geria - Williams - Donachie - LB
Valeri - Milligan
Rojas - CAM - Barbarouses
Berisha

Two good players to fill those two spots and we're looking strong once again.

I think I've posted it in this thread, but I think it's far easier to get quality foreigners under the cap than it is to get Australians of similar quality (Look at Bozanic ffs). 

Milligan would be amazing and would settle our defensive core, and provide enough experience that we could blood someone like Deng or Nigro in defence and not look shakey. 

Not excited about Milligan as marquee, but more excited about more Milligan than less Milligan. Milligan.

Yeah got our info. 
The membership team really stuffed us around the last 12 months. 
Last year we had auto 12  family membership, but our seats somehow moved from premium b to dry section in the corner, they then rectified it by placing us in premium c and charging us premium b. 6 months of trying to get them to cash the difference back to no avail. 
Get our info yesterday, my seat is in premium b, wife premium c and my two nephews in general admission... how does that even happen!

Hey Victory supporters, is there any chance that some youth players will be seeing gametime in the A-League next season?
Given how there's only 14-15 players currently in the squad (depending on the status of Troisi and whether Milligan comes back) there would seem to be room for a few younger players to come through to the senior team. Are there any names that could be breakout players for next season? Given how well-publicized the lack of opportunities for young players has been, it would be nice if one of the Sydney/Melbourne clubs really committed to giving 4-5 young players some good gametime next season. Seeing how Victory currently have the smallest squad of the four Sydney/Melbourne teams, there would appear to be room for it. Anyone got any info on the chances of that? Any names they'd like to see?

Deng and Nigro are the only real possibilities at this stage. I expect Deng to get a lot of game time, especially if Williams misses games. 

Nigro clearly has the talent, but is being kept out of the team by Geria and Valeri. I wonder how he would go at LB. 

If Austin leaves (unlikely imo), Theohauraus (?) could also get some game time when our 3 Kiwi wingers head off for Intl duty. 

For Vuck's sake suggesting we've signed Stefan Mauk. Has been a bit of a rumour since he tweeted about loving Melbourne when he was back here a few days ago.

Was just about to come in and post this.

Interesting signing if true (the FVS boys have good form tbh) - Mauk is very much an attacking midfielder, is he not?