Three Down, Ten To Go

Great to hear last Tuesday that the football department at Victory have moved quickly to re-sign Roddy, Mitch and Evan. With both Gold Coast and North Queensland sniffing around the quicker we can lock up our key players the better.

Mitch especially appears to be an excellent signing as I am sure there would have been significant interest from North Queensland. It would appear that Theo’s impression of Michael Flattery on Petrovski’s foot and subsequent suspension has in fact being rather fortuitous for Victory as I am not confident the result would have been the same if Mitch hadn’t seen game time this season.

So with those three under lock and key what of the remaining nine players coming out of contract at the end of the season? I am going to take a punt and see if I can guess who is staying and who is going.

Staying : Hernandez, Thwaite, Kemp, Celeski, Ryall

Carlos is a must sign but in all honesty it most likely will hinge on his desire to stay in Australia and whether Kevin Muscat retires or not. In fact if Super Kev
does not retire I suspect we will lose both Hernandez and Thwaite as I doubt that Victory could find the space in the cap that would be needed to keep them while still carrying Kev’s salary.

Kemp, Celeski and Ryall have all done enough to warrant re-signing and I suspect that Victory would be able to match the offers from the newcomers for them.

Leaving : Muscat (Retired), Brebner, Ward, Theoklitos, Pantelidis

Victory will soon face the hardest decision of its short history when the future of Kevin Muscat must be decided. There is no doubt that Super Kev is the soul of the club and nobody would want a situation where he and the club are in dispute. However, Kev will turn 36 as the new season kicks off and as the highest earning player within the Salary Cap serious questions of him continuing into next season must be asked. I suspect retirement is on the cards and for him to be named Assistant Manager.

Grant Brebner and Nick Ward’s time at Victory has come to an end I feel, both North Queensland and Gold Coast are sure to be interested in their services and with both players fighting for starting midfield roles with Celeski and Broxham I can see them leaving for first team roles with the new clubs.

Theo has indicated a few times now he wants to explore opportunities overseas next year and the resigning of Mitch would seem to indicate that he already has one foot out of the door. Lets hope he ends up with a starting role somewhere rather than warming the pine in some second rate league.

Ian Ferguson is keen to recruit a squad of “hard workers and not prima donnas” and there is nobody who works harder than Panta. I expect Steve to don the zinc cream and head north.

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