Wheeling and Dealing at the Welly Nix (Plus The Prodigal Python!)
She’s all happening at Phoenix headquarters. The ol’ mid-season player shakeup. We were warned a while back that two or three fringe players were soon for the cutting room floor and, true to expectations, Hamish Watson was one of them. He signed where most kiwi Phoenix exes go… Team Wellington. Scored for the reserves and was out the door soon after.
Ali Abbas also played for the reserves this week. Filled in off the bench after the WeeNix had allowed Liam Wood and Luke Tongue to leave for Team Welly and Canterbury Utd respectively and, just like Watto, it was his last game in black and yellow. He was getting his fond farewells within days.
Then there was the game on the weekend (AS COVERED EXCELLENTLY HERE!) where the Nix stumbled and spluttered to a 1-0 defeat at home as they were drowned by their own lack of depth. Didn’t have a decent winger to replace Roy Krishna, didn’t have a striker on the bench to allow an injured Andrija Kaludjerovic to be subbed when he should have and a goalie who was benched for an 18-year old debutant to start the season was nutmegged for the only goal.
Two first team players out the door, not enough depth… easy solution. Two players came in as the transfer deadline passed. One was All Whites winger Monty Patterson and the other former Perth keeper Tando Velaphi. Also known as Monty Python Patterson and Flappy Hands Velaphi.
The latter is a solid A-League keeper who is coming off a spell in in Japan. He’s played more than a hundred games in the A-League and brings experience to a set of keepers that otherwise has none. A couple youth teamers competing for first team places and Lewis Italiano, who’s 27 but has never been a regular starter before this season. Velaphi probably won’t walk into the starting role but he’ll bring good competition and competition breeds accountability. Can’t get away with conceding silly goals anymore. Makes sense and he’s about as good/safe as a signing as they could’ve found at short notice. He’s a short-termer and will likely go elsewhere at the end of the season. All goods, he’s what we need for now.
Hey and how about The Python!? Comes in on an ‘initial loan’ (more on that later) and should be very close to starting immediately if injuries are lingering with other chaps, at the very least he’ll be a better bench option than anyone else they have. Fast and skilful, creative and attacking. Fair play to Adam Parkhouse trying to do what he can in tough circumstances but Patterson’s the market correction to Parky. This is what people wanna see, right? The Wellington Phoenix actively looking to sign kiwi players?
It’s a more complicated area than seems to be acknowledged in standard pub chatter though, a world in which Chris Wood and Winston Reid might consider the Phoenix is a world in which neither would be playing in the Premier League. On a more realistic level, there’s the Bill Tuiloma situation.
Billy T re-signed with the Portland Timbers the other day. He’d had the option on his initial deal declined a few months back but there never seemed to be any doubt that he’d return there for 2018. Yet there was about a three month deal when he was sort of available, which makes him a curious test case.
What’s if the Nix had snuck a word in there? What’s if they didn’t? We’ve seen this dude play for New Zealand so we know the level that he’s at and he’d obviously contribute something valuable in the A-League, without being too good to even consider it. Except that while he isn’t too good for the A-League right now, he’s still a bloke that’s come from Olympique de Marseille to an MLS club who were keen to bring him back, plus he’s still only 22 so he’s far from ready to give up the dream of playing highly overseas.
So why would he want to return to the Phoenix? The Phoenix (probably) aren’t going anywhere. Give it a few years in America and see what happens first, sounds like a plan. Meanwhile the Nix’s prerogative should be to get the best players possible for the best results possible and there ought to be a focus on New Zealand players too, being the only pro club in the country and all. So if they’d tapped Bill on the shoulder and asked: ‘hey, what do ya reckon?’ then they’d be well within those parameters. But only for themselves, not for football in New Zealand.
It ain’t easy to get a run overseas and Bill Tuiloma could tell you that himself. Several seasons with Marseille brought him two short substitute appearances and a whole bunch of games with the reserves, plus an unhappy loan. Yet he still played Ligue 1 football. Now he’s on the fringes of Major League Soccer. The Phoenix signing him would also mean taking a bloke out of the Flying Kiwis ranks. If he’s gonna help them win games then that’s okay… but the preference should be for the Welly Nix to be a pathway upwards rather than a safe haven to return to. Be the club that gave players like Marco Rojas and Tyler Boyd the legs-up that have helped get them to top division clubs in Holland and Portugal.
The likes of Bill Tuiloma, Jake Gleeson… pretty much anyone who falls out of favour at a foreign club… sure they’d make handy additions. However the bigger question is why Clayton Lewis is sitting on the bench for Scunthorpe these days after a couple years of international appearances and national league dominance. Where were the Nix for him, is it just a matter of Clayton preferring a different pathway or did they not think he was a valid option? Damn, he was the perfect option! Young and local and already skilled enough to play at that level.
There are at least a dozen players in the Premiership that can make that jump up. Roy Krishna did it and how he’s one of the Nix’s very best players. Scott Basalaj can’t be far off Lewis Italiano’s abilities. Instead of Ryan Lowry, there could be Scott Hilliar, Harry Edge or Liam Wood – who just left the WeeNix for Team Wellington. Cam Howieson, James Pendrigh, Moses Dyer, Alex Palezevic, Birhanu Taye or Cam Lindsay in the midfield. Callum McCowatt, Andre de Jong, Joel Stevens… not to mention those ex-reserves who’ve left to chase first team footy elsewhere such as Wood, Jack-Henry Sinclair, Max Mata and company. Or if you want someone of Tuiloma’s current standard then there’s Francis de Vries who was captaining a team in the same USL conference as Tuiloma was playing last season with the Portland seconds.
Monty Patterson falls somewhere in between those two sides of this sliding scale. He’s spent a few years in the Ipswich Town academy, rising to where he’s been playing fairly regularly for the U23s but he’s only had one cup appearance for the first team (he almost scored a last second equaliser) and his contract runs down at the end of the season. He was at a point where, having not yet established himself, he needed to make a decision about where his career was going. Stay in England but probably have to drop a division or two (or more) to find first team football or pursue options elsewhere.
Well, as a 21 year old player, he could spend two of three years with the Phoenix, light it up, then look to move back to Europe in his mid-20s as Rojas has done. Make the move as an established talent rather than an up-and-comer. His deal is an initial loan but the impression is that Ipswich aren’t interested in offering him anything new so he’s effectively playing to earn an A-League contract for next season. Hungry and with something to prove… sounds much better than grabbing a seemingly better player who’d treat this as a fall-back option. Sweet as, all in for The Python!
Also, Ipswich can bugger right off. Dumping their two New Zealand internationals in the space of a few weeks? That’s borderline racist, to be honest.
Friend, can you spare a click? Jam one of those flashy product placement banner thingies and help The Niche Cache keep on serving up the goodness. Come on you Nix.