As I was looking through the news last week I saw one piece of information that intrigued me. It said that Stuart Musialik, former Newcastle and Sydney player, two time A-League champion, was off-contract and struggling to find a club, either in the A-League or overseas (link).
Musialik was not retained by Sydney last year – he, nor the team, didn’t have a great season. At the end of the season, he was offered a contract extension with the club, (link) but it was withdrawn after he demanded more money. He played 22 games last year, and even captained the team on occasions (link). Since being released he has been training alone in Newcastle, hoping to find a contract somewhere.
"A-League clubs are either fully loaded or only have a minimum-wage spot left for an under-20 player," Musialik told the Newcastle Herald yesterday. "I have a couple of people putting feelers out for me overseas, but there is nothing concrete in the pipeline.” Well Stuart, I know one A-League club that hasn’t filled its roster too much – in fact at last count we only had 14! Do you fancy a year or two over here in Wellington?
I can only presume Ricki has looked into this possibility – but for me it’s a no brainer. The guy has played Olympic level footy for Australia, and played (and won) two grand finals. He captained Sydney at times last year. Surely he’s worth bringing over. The only thing I presume holding Ricki back is the fact he’s a central midfielder, possibly the only position on the field where we have a bit of depth (Muscat, Brown, Lia). But if all three are playing week-in week-out, like last year, another central midfielder will need to be signed up.
Ricki has said he wants to sign a goalkeeper, striker, and attacking midfielder, as well as the mandatory three under-23 players (fullback, central defender, and midfielder) to fill out the twenty player squad (link). Ok, so Musialik doesn’t fit into these categories. But last year, when guys like Danny Vukovic and Nick Ward were made available, we snapped them up, even if we had those positions (relatively) covered. Maybe this is one of those instances. In any cases, bringing in another quality and experienced A-League player can hardly hurt.
A decent signing like this would also help bring more stability around the perception of the club. The media seems to have gone a bit quiet on the demise of Terry Serepisos recently, and my personal policy on this is a mixture of positive thinking and no smoke (for a while at least) equals no fire. I honestly don’t know how much impact this uncertainty has had on the club’s recruitment, but with another ten weeks of the preseason remaining, it is my personal view that there is still absolutely no rush to finalise the squad, even if other teams have.
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