Roar star Thomas Kristensen extends his stay in Brisbane

Fadida - Careful my friend. I do not In any way disagree with your analysis of Sydney or Victory, in fact I agree with most of your observations but don't you realise in doing such an analysis you are in fact agreeing with our past national manager ,Verbeek, who "laid it on the line", and was soundly criticised ,when he voiced the opinion that the HAL was not of a high enough standard to produce Socceroo players. Was he right or wrong. Think about it. Cheers jb.

Apply the same thing to all clubs JB. Using Sydney as an example. Vukovic. Very good A-league keeper but can he step up? Uncapped Grant. Raw, potential, improving, but not yet NT quality. uncapped Zullo. Not good enough. Trialled and discarded Wilkinson. Former NT player. Top A-league player Ryall. Not even close O'neill. Potential but not good enough yet Ninkovic. Ex international for a middling European country Dimitrejvic (?sp). No Brillante. Good A-league player, only a fringe NT player at best. Brosque. Former international, arguably worth a recall Bobo. Under age international only. Would he play for us (if eligible)? No Holosko. Fringe international with middling European team Simon? :) Ibini. Capped but way off the quality at this stage Using your same criteria JB, it can be argued that Sydney are in a similar position. The differ eve is they lead the league, but I'd argue there's little difference in "national" readiness, but they are the big boy, let alone "mixing it with the big boys" I imagine I'd get a similar outcome with Victory Thomas. No Geria. Capped but not good enough. Yet Baro. No Donachie. No Broxham. No Valeri. Ex international Bozanic. Ex international Troisi. Yes Khalfallah. Ex international for a country at our level only Rojas, current Kiwi Berisha. Ex International for a weak side As you see by the same criteria Victory are behind Roar!

Waz I think there is a necessity for a big clean out in the Winter. I am still amazed however by the lack of youth coming through or given a chance. I remember Craig Moore and John Aloisi showing the door to a lot of youngsters and coming out with the statement that only a certain type of player will be good enough for Brisbane Roar. Well where are they CM and JA? None of these lads have been given a fair go in the first team to date and I am sure just for the energy and enthusiasm they could add a lot to this jaded team. When you look at other clubs they have no hesitation in playing their youth players whereas Brisbane Roar will not even put them on the bench. On your list I think Caletti has another year on his contract, Theo needs to leave as his salary is too high, North should retire with grace, Pepper will sign as a squad player, Arana has not shown enough (and we have paid him to get fit), Konstandopoulis is worth hanging on to, Broich should sign a rolling contract, rumour is that Petratos is Newcastle bound with his brother, Maclaren will leave go overseas and fail, Katebian is worth another year as he hasn't seen much first team action. Then there are a few youth players that should be shown the door?

Aaron - You take this thought out to the N -degree when you assume that all of the present Socceroo team can somehow be lured back to Australia by means of money or some other nefarious measures. That was never foreseen. That to me is tatamount to saying that when AP picks his present run-on teams for an important game he is in fact saying the players playing in ,or for that matter the overall standard,of, the HAL, is not good enough for his run - on team.s That was never the message intended. We have a situation in Australia where we lose a lot of talent into the maw of big time overseas football. Many more of them fail to make the standard than the few who do, and they are gradually drifting back towards their homeland provided they can hone in on marquee wages.This is already apparently happening and perhaps if we could see the 'juggling of figures" that goes on in these situations we may well get better understanding of how ,and why, it is happening. Having said that I think you have gone too far. We were discussing the present Roar team and the quality of player contained therein and in our opinion what standard of player was required to maintain the high standard required if success is to be gained and maintained in Asia as well as the HAL. According to the analysis we did on the Roar team v Victory,there are at least 6 players who,for various reasons, could all be replaced tomorrow,not necessarily by current run-on Socceroos but by players of that standard and they may have to originate overseas or be some of the many returning from there. To us, that is the message coming across from the top teams in the HAL at present. Cheers jb

To ask for a team with national team potential or national team experience is not unreasonable but to have a team full of players that will play for the Socceroos in say the next 6 or even 12 months would require abolishing the salary cap. Just to start with the goal keeper would require ryan, langerak, galekovic or an import for example. At the other end of the field beyond tim cahill as a striker pickings would be very slim also. If McKay doesn't get a recall and broich never played for Germany(in senior competition) and holmans probably no more likely to get a phonecall from ange than tommy oar is not only can we not reach this standard with the entire squad but we cant reach it with two consecutive generations of marquee players. A bridge too far indeed but so it would seem for any a league club.

Waz - Your idea is not new but is nevertheless a good one. Many many years ago I sold a player to the top team in Australia and in the negotiation, after I had established the player was going to do quite well out of the move, I set a reasonable "transfer figure" garnished with some clauses,those being if and when he played a certain number of games in their first team, my club would get another payment,and, if he played with the Socceroos within 2 years ,there was another payment due. This was quite acceptable to all concerned and caused no problems. That same idea could work between HAL teams without massive transfer fee being involved thus shutting out the potential of the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor. Cheers jb.

Waz -This is a rather interesting piece which mirrors a discussion I had with another " football man " just yesterday. We started our discussion by trying to set a standard of player we would like to see playing for Roar. This we regarded as very important for we both agreed that as one of the foundation clubs,and one of the best supported clubs, in the comp., it was important the they should match their football standard with any other team they may meet ,either here, or in Asia.,while in doing so,at the same time, please, and,perhaps grow, their loyal fan base So how does one go about "setting" this standard ?, After much discussion we agreed that a player should be more than capable of playing in the national team. Is this a reasonable standard, or a step too far?? Remember we are talking about the top football competition in our country. We looked at the team that lost to Victory Theo - Now a veteran and very unlikely to again be a Socceroo. Hingert - An enthusiastic tradesman who does not appear to be in the national "radar". De Vere - Been there done that with the Socceroos and could yet feature in AP's plans for the future. Brown - Another enthusiastic "tradesman" still lacking in the skills that make an international player. North - Another veteran Socceroo who is simply playing out his career at Roar with no chance of national re-call. Kristensen - An international standard player in his native country. Petratos - A local lad who has never achieved his obvious potential neither at Sydney or Roar. Mackay - An ex- Socceroo now in the veteran stage of his career and unlikely to get a "recall" in his present position. Borello- Another enthusiastic local who ,after 3 seasons of playing first team football ,has not really improved all that much. Arana = An import with history but not yet seen enough to warrant comment. Oar - Another been there done that Socceroo who at the moment is unlikely to get a re-call from AP. As you can see the standard we had set proved to be a bridge too far for this present Roar team and leaves open to debate ,does the management of the club really want to mix it with the "big boys" in Australia ,or more importantly ,in Asia ?????? Will leave it at that for you to ponder. Cheers jb.

I don't have the answer for you there jb but it's a very valid point; part of the answer is expansion to say 16 teams which will create more opportunity but at best it will delay the inevitable move to the big 4 and at worst make no difference. I've held the belief for a while that Hal clubs should be allowed to pay their own developed youth players a retention payment that is excluded from the salary cap allowance in an attempt to promote youth development and retain it within the club that nurtured them. Personally there's little reward in developing kids if the big 4 swoop in and take them off your hands foc - the move doesn't always pay off for the kids either who often struggle in a new regime - so why not sign regurgitated former Socceroos instead

The time is fast approaching in the HAL when those side who wish to get into ,and stay in, the top four are going to have to change their thinking when it comes to player procurement. Recently we have seen movement towards signing Australian born players who have moved overseas,found the going not what they expected, and are now back in the fold. What has caused this move away from the normal "youth promotion" within the club which no doubt the FFA would love to see be retained due to the aims of their vaunted curriculum but I' m afraid there is indisputable evidence that most of the clubs in the HAL don't think that way anymore. Let's look at recent "moves" at Sydney City, the undisputed pace setters, and we find Ibini.and Zullo as 'returns" while Brosque, Vukovic and Carney have all been around the traps locally in recent seasons. and O Neill was procured from the HAL We move to Victory and find the same situation with Donnachie,Berisha and Geria all procured from Brisbane Roar,Thomas and Austiin from Hal sources, and of course Bosanic,Troisi and Valeri all in the "return from overseas " bracket.That's 8 out of 11. I could go on but this practice is becoming more common in the HAL and means the "cream" of local talent is finding it's way to the top clubs.. Where does that leave the much trumpeted "passage for youth" idea that was to be promoted? Interesting days. Cheers jb.

I really rate Jamie Young lol. Didn't used to mind you ?

Agree with Theo as long as we can secure a decent replacement. Would prefer not to have to rely on Jamie Young, though he did improve towards the end of last season. I'd resign Broich but only under the salary cap; no marquee status. I'd like to see him on a rolling one year contract on what Man Utd did with Ryan Giggs (and few others). He still has something to offer and I hear that there are offers for Oar, so he may end up leaving. Also, I think he'd make an excellent academy coach for kids in their early to mid teens (he seems to have strong opinions on playing a certain way and that seems to be aligned to what the youth team is doing). The rolling contract could help transition him into youth development for the club.

Along with DeVere this is one of our most important signings. Out of the remaining players to sign: Michael Theo - probably no DeVere - maybe but Asia is calling JadeNorth - no Jacob Pepper - probably Manuel Arana (V) - not sure Nathan Konstandopoulos - not sure Joe Calletti - yes ThomasBroich (V) - no Dimitri Petratos - overseas must likely Jamie Maclaren - highly unlikely Joe Katebian - yes Which leaves 5/6 new players in the winter. For Roar that's a lot of turnover.