Quote Originally Posted by Grimario View Post
Teams have won the league with far worse GK's and defenders than we have. If it is Cowburn as our first choice left back, that'll pretty much be a solid back 4 that we maintain. Of course that doesn't factor in Boogs and Mullen swapping red cards and yellow accumulation so expect Jackson and Kanta to play a bit back there.

The spine of our midfield is pretty good as well... Ugar has half a season of being very promising, Kanta/Poljak are serviceable (but not standouts, obviously), Clut showed a heap of promise 12+ months ago before being shelved and if Miller can get Hoole's confidence up, he could be good for us as well. Who knows how good Brown is... if we see the player on the highlight reel, we're in for a treat. Labi coming back from a year off could go either way.

Out wide and up front is where we have no quality or no depth.

I foresee a season similar to last year. Solid defensively, some good possession but not enough goals.

Unless Lee picks up a genuine Chinese future star, either on the fringe of the NT or a youth international, AND our other import commands a starting spot, I'm with you on the rather depressing sounding reality we have.

Looking forward to 2018!
The chinese player market is grossly inflated so that min wage players are on 500k. Mckinna was talking nonsense in the Herald last week that a loan deal would mean we could secure a better player. That loophole was closed when City tried to sign Lampard so that all the players wages are now included in the cap. So essentially if we go through with this we will sign a bog average Chinese player who will take up the majority of whats left in the cap for a striker.

If you look at the Chinese U20s team, every single player is currently playing either in Europe or for a CSL team. We are not going to attract this type of player. We will sign a player not up to the level of National Youth team, probably from the 1st division (what in 2nd div).

Then you look at the way Perth & Sydney have strengthened. Even the teams that finished below us like Wellington and dare I say the Mariners. I truly fear for the coming season.......which probably means we are nailed on for the title but we will see.