The Age is reporting that the Victory are pursuing one José Luis López, a Costa Rican defensive midfielder currently playing for Deportivo Saprissa. But Gary Cole and Ernie Merrick won’t reveal any details:
“We are looking to get the best combination possible of a striker and midfielder for Melbourne Victory next season … We need a holding midfielder.”
This Spanish site had the news, but the item appears to have been removed (anyone that can find it, post the link in the comments). According to that, “Pupy” López is expected to move to Melbourne in June on a one-year lone, with the possibility of turning into a longer contract.
Check out his profile on Wikipedia.
13 comments ↓
I’m not sure if we need another defensive midfielder but if he is better than Broxham or Panta then it would be worth it.
I am not sure why we have Panta. He works hard and all credit to him for that. But whenever he wins the ball he has no idea what to do with it and its usually a big boot up the field.
We could definately do with a holding midfielder and someone who can provide classy cutting balls into the forward line. Hernandez was getting there. Nick Ward hasnt filled the breach as far as I am concerned and Kaz doesnt get a chance to play any role so we dont know if he could do it or not. I’d like to see Kaz and Hernandez in midfield together.
Celeski or Pondeljak might be ok players but they are A-league V1,2 or 3 quality. We should be looking for A-league V5 and 6 players and lifting the standard. I dont know if Lopez is that player but if we get him I hope for the club he is the right one.
What bothers me about MVFC is that the club are never clear with the supporters exactly what it is they believe they are missing or what type of player they need to move forward. Last year we got Leandro and the story was we needed a quality back up striker for Danny and Archie. Leandro hasnt been in the least successful in that role so my question is “do we still need a quality back up striker?” and if so why dont we have one? Elasi isnt the answer, he is just learning the business.
Was Windell Gabrial supposed to be the forward we needed? If so why wasnt he trialling months ago … like mid last season … when it was clear Leandro wasnt up to the task. Why wait so long and then blame visa delays.
It seems that sometimes we recruit people and then decide we need them for a role (Lujbo, Love) instead of deciding what roles we need and then going and finding the right player. Or we recruit in a crises – Vasilevski and Pace (good guys but not match winners) brought in when we had a crises of defensive players early/mid last season. As a result the team now looks like a patchwork quilt of players rather than a cohesive squad built to a plan and who work together.
The club is neither adventurous enough with selection and changes on match day, nor urgent enough off the field in their activities to build a squad that can dominate this league.
I am a passionate Victory supporter and I know the players give there all but we need better from the management of the club to drive the club forward.
Hey Philip, you have captured the points very well. As you mentioned our recruitment does resemble a patchwork, in fact one of rushed and knee jerk decisions to various situations. The problem here is that MVFC coaching staff haven’t really had a plan since v1 as the reality is Ernie has no real experience in the arena of first division football. I do not include VPL as first division nor do I include his spell as head coach for Sunshine in NSL in the early 90s for one season where he failed dismally and I believe was shown the door. So what is actually happening is a lot of guess work and ‘hope for the best’ type of stuff. Apart from v2, and more importantly the fluke discovery of Fred, ernie and his coaching staff have never had a blueprint or strategy for what they need for a squad and so our recruitment resembles our game plan, that is a novice attempt at structure/formation but with no real direction.
I am not sure if another defensive midfielder is what we need because even if they are great at holding up the ball and making decisive passes the point is without any wingers they will have to just go through or over the middle, which seems to be our only game plan. So I question how effective such a recruitment would be. The real issue is we need a game plan and a formation that ‘adapts’ to the game situation then have a recruitment strategy with this criteria in mind. We are becoming so predictable that every team now knows what we will do/play. In reality, against Adelaide recently we didn’t even create any scoring chances so I am not sure what another defensive midfielder will do for us? Is it recruitment or formation or game plan or all of the above that is making MVFC become very pedistrian and a 2nd tier team in the a-league?
Panta was probably our most consistent performer in version 1 but the standard has risen so much since then that I think the team has outgrown him. I think the standard from all teams keeps getting better and I honestly believe if we kept the exact same championship team in version 3 then we still would have struggled, even with Fred in the team. We need constant improvement, that means recruiting better than what we have, not the same or ‘back up’ players.
brebner on the way out to make way for this dude?
I dont have to much else to add, you guys summed it up nicely, all credit to melbournes recent achievments go to the coaching staff and managment of the club, i do however belive we have the quality of players to perform well and win whatever is thrown at them however i feel they(and us) are constantly let down by the people in charge, all i have to add is Kevin Muscat for coach:)
Hi everyone, I am Costarican and glad to hear good comments about Hernandez, I have not doubts about Carlos skills, however, on regards, to Lopez, this guy pretended by your team, I’d be so glad that he joinyours or any other team as long as we don’t have him playing for Saprissa anymore, this player is really good recovering balls in midfield, however he is not good making passes or creating, in fact, what dissapoint me the most about this guy is the way he kicks the ball, he tried many times kicking from long distances however his accuracy is really bad, and despite of his role as defender, he has a lot of opportunities to shot from far but 99% away from goalkeeper…so if your team wants to hire him…go on..and teach him how to kick well and straight for our Costarican wellbeing football.
Really excellant points about the structure of the team. Merrick seems hell bent of sourcing another midfielder and forward and yet has not addressed the issue of replacing Leijer and Storey. These two guys performed consistantly in the championship year and combined with Pior, Panta and Roddy we were rock solid in defence. Our formation has obviously changed this year with us opting for wing backs, but quite frankly Keenan is not up to the task on the left, Kemp works hard but turns it over with poor passes too many times, Panto works well in a right side defensive role but lacks the creativity and the run and gives us nothing down the right side and finally Vas is a right sided midfielder and lacks the defensive skills required to be solid in right sided defence. Whilst Pacey was good value for us at times during the last A League season he is not of the same quality of Leijer and Storey and Sab Ryall is promising but is still learning the game. Muscat in recent games in the ACL looked a good yard short of the pace required to keep up and I believe will struggle with the likes of Djite, Burns, Zullo, Kruse etc. if he remains our first choice in defense this year. I believe that Merrick and his crew have had there opportunity and it is now time to rebuild the squad and move in a different direction. Merrick can still insist that the squad is better on paper than the squad that won the title, however this current crop is far from demonstrating to this card carrying member that they are.
Merrick can say whatever he wants about the squad on paper but the thing is he will and should be judged on is on-field match day preformance only, which over 3 a-league seasons and one ACL comp (4 of 6 games) he has only won 50% of total competition points… that’s telling us more than whatever Merrick can put a spin on!
Thanks for the useful information Julio. We definitley don’t need another midfielder with inaccurate long passes, we have a hat full already! Carlos is returning for our next match in Korea so I am looking forward to see if he can resume his excellent form.
I’m with you astri – no need for another long ball specialist especially one that has the reputation of them not being inaccurate. That’s all we need!
Some REAL wingers please… come on ernie its not rocket science!!!
I’m with you astri – no need for another long ball specialist especially one that has the reputation of them not being inaccurate. That’s all we need!
Some REAL wingers please… come on ernie its not rocket science!!
…and please not muscat for coach because we will playing long balls until the cows come home!!!
hey …. I am costarican as well and can tell you that Lopez is a great player in despite of what “Julio” is saying he is a great defensive midfielder … he is not like beckham shooting …however here in Costa Rica not even the strikers are that good shooters, in fact the striker Gabriels your team wanted is awful uhgggg…. he even failed to play in the 2nd team here in costa rica (Liga) or in the national team and was returned a small club…… Lopez was named the MVP for the this last final in which his team won the 4th championship in a row…. you can see a goal he made in a costarican derby … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6mjs6gtaAY …. go ahead and see it ….i think sometimes he can shoots
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