kangaspurs
Cancelled
- Jul 14, 2014
- 9,722
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- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
- Other Teams
- Tottenham, Melbourne City FC
To be fair, Germano actually looked quite decent when he came off the bench against the Mariners and could do a job there, although Hoffman wasn't exactly great earlier in the season. I never want to see a Kisnorbo/Wielart pairing in the centre of defence this season, together they're just far too slow and I just think Wielart's past it. Don't really like Wielart at RB either as he's slow and doesn't get up the pitch to provide overlap for Duff when he needs it. It's definitely Chapman's spot to lose in the second half of the season.As far as I'm concerned, he's no world beater, but Hoffman is adequate at right back and Germano is another option there. Chapman has looked very good as a central defender and one of Kisnorbo/Wielaert alongside him looks more than decent in those positions. Even Wielaert/Kisnorbo is a reasonable (albeit slow) pairing still. Garuccio is ok on the left, but it's clearly not his natural position and I 100% think that's what should be targeted this month. Even if we don't get a left back, when healthy we'd be looking at this as a lineup, which I don't think is hopeless at all:
Velaphi
Hoffman/Germano, Chapman, Kisnorbo, Garuccio
(Archibald, Wielaert, Ramsay)
Now, the cracks are appearing when more than one of our nominal starters is unavailable, as we saw against the Mariners. But if we got a quality LB as well? Then you're looking at Hoffman or Germano as the depth at right back, Wielaert as our backup for the central defenders, Garuccio on the left and Redmayne as the goalkeeper. I still don't think we've seen enough one way or the other to determine exactly how good Tando is as a GK, but as far as I'm concerned, bringing Hoffman, Chapman and a left back to be named in to the current squad immediately turns our defence from a complete fiasco to quite decent.
My understanding is that we're very close to the limit in terms of the salary cap as it is, so we're restricted in what we can offer any new recruits, international or local. Getting rid of Kalmar helps, but I'm not sure that the apparent departure of Miller has freed up any cash (as I believe he was only contracted through the end of 2014 anyway) and I'm not sure who else we can really afford to lose (people might point to Wielaert, but that would mean Archibald is literally our only option as a central defender if either of Chapman or Kisnorbo is unavailable the rest of the way. I say we need to keep him. It would be pretty harsh to chop Germano too, when he's just started back in the senior team).
So the Kalmar money on its own is hardly going to create a war chest for us and we would appear to be limited to pushing for an Australian that is desperate for a short-term move to get game time (as kangaspurs has noted, Davidson fits the bill here and would be an absolute dream signing - he'd possibly be the best left back in the league from day one), or perhaps a Manchester City player in the reserves squad that they believe needs some senior exposure, for whatever reason.
I just read something earlier that will make a Davidson, or a loan for anyone, incredibly difficult. It was an article about Frank Lampard and how apparently he was very keen to come to Melbourne City on loan before his MLS stint started. However, the FFA had just changed a rule that meant the wages of any player that is loaned falls within the salary cap. It was effectively a rule change to stop us getting both Villa and Lampard in the same team. This rule would make it very difficult to loan Davidson or anyone really. The only question I have over it is that if the parent club pays 100% of the players wages whilst he's on loan surely that would mean nothing would be added to the salary cap, or is that ignored and whatever the wage of the player is is added to the salary cap anyway. I don't really understand how that works.