#WellyNix – Just Sitting Back Waitin’ For The Phoenix To Do Something…
Hopefully you took the hints from the last few games of the season and said farewell to Welly Nix keeper Glen Moss while you had the chance because he’s just signed a contract with the Newcastle Jets. Speaking of the Jets, guess who their new manager is gonna be?
Ernie! Glad to see the old boy’s still got the fire within but… this doesn’t reflect all that well on the Phoenix at the moment. Merrick’s departure was his own choice after a few streaky years that never quite lived up to expectations, despite plenty of encouraging signs. The board actually had to talk him out of resigning a couple weeks earlier than he did.
Moss’ departure, on the other hand, was a little more mutual. His contract was up and his agent was fielding offers from South Africa, according to reports. After the Nix were eliminated from playoff contention Moss pretty much sat the rest of the season allowing Lewis Italiano to guard between the sticks for the last few games, an open audition with Moss almost certain to be leaving.
Yeah except that Italiano is also off-contract and that audition might have turned out to be for some other team entirely. Still worth giving a lad a run to prove himself, he played well in those games and has been a faithful squad member for a few years, but… damn. Then Merrick and Moss hooked up with Newcastle and the Nix are in danger of being left behind.
At the start of April we published this thingamajig about the Phoenix’s last ditch sprint for the playoffs (spoiler alert: they didn’t make it) and how the focus there was clouding the uncertainty the team was facing the moment the season ended, whether with a playoff run or not. Des Buckingham and Chris Greenacre said their marker in the sand was making the knockout stuff and they didn’t do that, hence why they haven’t been given the full time gig. If they were gonna keep managing this team then they’d have already signed the contracts. The club is looking elsewhere for a boss and it seems to be taking a bloody long time.
There’s not much they can do until they get a manager locked in. Whoever that new gaffer will be, they’ll wanna have a say about player recruitment and all that. Who they sign, who they re-sign, who they let walk. It makes sense to hold off on making a lot of those decisions until they can make them with a clear focus. It sounds like Stuart Pearce was never a realistic candidate so the search moves on. While they’re doing that, they risk letting every other A-League club get three steps ahead of them in sorting out their squads for the 2017-18 season and the patience that we, as Nix fans, have been showing the last few weeks here is starting to evaporate as our own players are now getting amongst it elsewhere.
That article from six weeks back took a look at the off-contract situations. Ten players with the option of leaving: Glen Moss, Lewis Italiano, Jacob Tratt, Louis Fenton, Ryan Lowry, Vince Lia, Alex Rodriguez, Roly Bonevacia, Shane Smeltz and Hamish Watson. All of them playing significant time this last season but all with reasons to leave just as they have reasons to stay. That list shrunk by a couple before the season was even over as Jacob Tratt returned to Sydney for family reasons and Shane Smeltz changed his mind about next season and went off to Malaysia with immediate effect. It’s not impossible that Smeltz returns after banking a few more cheques but the words we’re hearing don’t make that sound too likely. At a guess they weren’t gonna pay his as much as he could get overseas and, at this stage of his career, Smeltzy is entitled to bank whatever he can.
Bonevacia was already being chatted up by other clubs, specifically Western Sydney, and now Glen Moss has gone. Lewis Italiano will probably have other options to consider. Seems like Vince Lia might fancy following Ernie and Glen to Newcastle (just a theory at this point) and there’s a decision to be made on Alex Rodriguez’s future that the club might not get to make themselves if they wait much longer.
An Instagram post by Ryan Lowry at least confirms that he’s signed on for another two years but he’s only a backup defender and it looks like there are several starting XI holes that also need filling. A-League free agency ain’t the simplest thing to keep tabs on but right now those WeeNix lads that are heading off to the FIFA Under 20 World Cup with New Zealand might have a significant role to play next season, at least until something changes. Again though, we’re two steps away from any of that happening.
Phoenix GM David Dome to Newshub: “All of those [off-contract] players are contracted until 30 May, at that stage we'll hopefully have a coach in place who will be able to make those decisions, whether they re-sign the existing players or look to sign new players.”
Not if Auld Ernie gets at them first – although the Jets have been busy for a while now in the transfers, already inking in Daniel Georgievski, Roy O’Donovan and Mario Shabow with Fahid Ben Khalfallah rumoured to be next. Imagine being so aggressive with you recruitment. Imagine already having a manager agreed to terms. Ernie left the Nix in early December and Greenie & Buck were never booked for longer than this one season. They’ve had months to sort this out and, hey, perhaps they’re only hours away from a conclusion behind closed doors. But we don’t know that, do we?
At least they aren’t alone (yet). The Nix may not be ahead of schedule but there are others in the same boat. Ernie only signed with the Jets last week. Meanwhile Guillermo Amor, around the same, time went and left Adelaide United after three years there (initially as technical director, then as manager). ADL reckon they can have a new name on the office door by mid-June… a mere month away! Melbourne City also said laters bro to a caretaker in Michael Valkanis (following John van’t Schip’s resignation). While we’re on that idea: don’t discount Des Buckingham being back in charge in a month’s time after they fail to find anyone else wanting to come to New Zealand (and God forbid they promote a local coach into the role!).
Adelaide is making it very clear they’re after Argentinian legend Gabriel Batistuta while Merrick won out from a Newcastle shortlist that included the likes of Robbie Fowler and Harry Kewell. As for the Nix, they shot down rumours of Stuart Pearce within hours, a bloke with much more managerial experience than Batistuta or Kewell or Fowler. That doesn’t make him the right choice but it’s scary how little we’re hearing about this situation. They said then that they’d have something by the end of May and that they’d received dozens of CVs. Two more weeks to go there, folks.
As for the no transfers thing, most of the teams who made the playoffs have been too busy (and have less need) to go crazy there so the Nix aren’t flying that flag on their lonesome either – even if they have way more need for fresh blood, even before they lost their starting keeper with potentially their best midfield trio to follow.
Ah well, we just gotta wait and see. The club is losing several players who’ve been important for them for a number of seasons and whoever the new manager will be, they’re inheriting a squad in transition. The sooner we get one resolution, the sooner we’ll get a whole lot more but the longer they wait the harder it’ll be to get this team back at the level they want to be at. There might be a couple international roster spots open. There are always plenty of talented Aussie fellas coming out of contract around the league too. Could even get dibs on an All White or two – as implausible as it is, there will still be a few people calling for Bill Tuiloma or Stefan Marinovic and the likes.
Right now though… we wait. And we chew our nails as we frantically refresh our news feeds. And we look through the living room window from the outside and wonder as other clubs do proactive things to be ready for next season. Eventually we’ll come out of this stasis with a better idea of where this club is heading. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
If you’re a professional football manager looking for a job, give the Wellington Phoenix a call. If you’re just a regular footy fan then maybe slap an ad as a sign of solidarity.