Weekly Wrap (14/4)

Well first of all Happy Easter everyone! I hope the Easter bunny was nice and brought you plenty of chocolate. This week had it all really, a good draw for Newcastle and then a massive 5-0 loss for the Mariners. Then there were rumours that A League clubs are interested in disgraced Scottish international Barry Ferguson, and even that our new glamour club, Gold Coast, is interested in signing Mark Viduka.

But really the main news for the last week has to be the two ACL games, a massive loss for Central Coast, and a good draw for Newcastle.

Newcastle Jets 1-1 Nagoya Grampus

Newcastle deservedly drew against Japanese Club Nagoya Grampus after Tarek Elrich 9th minute strike was cancelled out by Nagoya striker Keiji Tamada. Although Newcastle had the run of the ball in the first half, they had their backs to the wall in the second half, with Nagoya controlling the game. Nevertheless, some quality defending from Ljubo Milicevic (surprisingly, after the happenings in the last two weeks), and youngster Ben Kantarovski saw the Jets hang on to a draw. The point moves them closer to qualifying for the next round and they will be hoping for a stronger result on the return leg to edge them into the next round.

Central Coast Mariners 0-5 Kawasaki Frontale

The Central Coast Mariners were absolutely destroyed by Kawasaki Frontale 5-0. The Mariners started badly conceded a goal in the 8th minute to Tae-Se Jong, but from then on things went from bad to worse, conceding in the 22nd, an own goal in the 37th, a 49th minute strike and finally a goal in the 70th minute. The result was in the wake of Kawasaki coach Takashi Sekizuka being accused of spying on the Mariners training session. Well obviously whatever he learnt paid off. Mariners Coach Lawrie McKinna was not going to defend his players though, saying “I hope the players are embarrassed, I am embarrassed.” Mariners skipper Alex Wilkinson followed this up by saying, “It was one of the toughest nights of my career. They played pretty well but we were pretty ordinary,” well no offence mate, but you must of played worse than pretty ordinary to lose 5-0.

Transfer rumours:

Recently there have been rumours circulating that Gold Coast United are interested in Socceroo Mark Viduka, but Gold Coast United owner Clive Palmer says claims that they are considering a bid are “made up.” However, he did say the club were interested in several “high profile” players for a guest stint at the club. Any guest player would be exempt from the A-League salary cap, since they would only be ‘guest player’, so keep you eyes peeled for some high profile guest players at GCU.

It is also being reported that the Queensland Roar and the North Queensland Fury are interested in disgraced former Scotland captain Barry Ferguson. Ferguson was recently stripped of his Scottish captaincy after his drinking and V-sign antics. Roar players Craig Moore and Charlie Miller, who are both former team mates of Ferguson, are apparently trying to tempt him to Australia. North Queensland Fury manager Ian Ferguson, another former team mate of Ferguson, is also interested in signing him. And almost as if he just wants to be with the ‘in’ group, Perth Glory manager David Mitchell is apparently interested in signing Ferguson as his “marquee summer signing.” But former Roar signing Simon Lynch thinks Ferguson is still to good to play in the A League:

“However, I cannot imagine Barry Ferguson going to Australia at this stage of his career. He still has a lot to offer at the top level if he left Rangers.”

Well, screw him, come to Australia Barry, and you can get drunk without getting in trouble.

Other news:

The Queensland (Brisbane) Roar have negotiated a new stadium deal with Suncorp Stadium, and in doing so have hopefully secured their long term future. The new deal will apparently save the roar $500,000 a year. Roar chief Lawrence Oudendyk said:

“We estimate we will be saving about $500,000 a year with the new deal … it’s a hell of a lot of money…We stabbed in the dark when we signed our original deal. Now we understand our market a lot better after four years”

Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley also has came out and said, “The future of Roar is not in doubt.” So thats nice.

News in short:

Sydney FC have completed their signing of defender Sebastian Ryall

Queensland Roar are in for some draining physical pre season training

Gold Coast United keeper thinks club owners are setting their sights to high

Tahj Minniecon thinks he’s lucky to be leaving battling club Queensland Roar for cashed-up rivals Gold Coast United.

And finally Robbie Kruse is reforming his bad boy attitude

And lastly, I’d just like to talk about my crazy up and down week. So firstly, last Monday I woke up to find both Manchester United and Valencia had won. Then on Tuesday I got home from school to find ACT Brumbies player Shawn McKay had died in hospital over in South Africa, which is very sad. Then on Thursday its holiday time, and then finally over the weekend, Federico Macheda did it again for Man Utd and Juan Manuel Mata scored a late winner for Valencia. So my week has been all over the chart.

Also watch out for a few articles coming out this week, A League season review part 2 (finally), my A League team of the season, and article on the potential expansion teams for the A League (Go Canberra!!!), and finally Pat from the Aussie World Cup blog has given me permission to write an article on keeper Dean Bouzanis, so watch out for that!

Category: A-League News

Tags: A-League News

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