You’ve sent us hundreds of questions about the men’s first team squad and the club’s plans for the 2025-26 Isuzu UTE A-League. We sat down with director of football Shaun Gill to answer as many as possible.
You can view the full interview here or read the transcript below.
Have we got 11 to play Wrexham in two weeks’ time?
Yes, we have 18. Currently the A-League men’s squad is sitting at 18. The plan of attack, which we have done the last few seasons, is we combine the reserve team and the first team over those first few weeks of pre-season, which is a good opportunity for the first team staff to have a look at those players that in the reserves team, that are actually doing exceptionally well this season. A number of those boys are potentially in-line for U-20 World Cup as well. That’ll be good for both the reserve team players to be able to come into the first team environment and for the coaching staff to be able to assess the players too. The Wrexham format allows for 25 players for the bench, with 11 to obviously to start the game and 14 subs available in six windows. Given where we’re at in the pre-season you’re probably looking at first team players probably a maximum of 45 minutes and then the next tier will come in and the reserve team boys and potentially also a couple of trialists.
Why haven’t we signed anyone?
As I said, we’re sitting here with 18 players at the moment. We’ve had a few conversations with some players through the off-season in terms of those coming back and everyone’s come back so we’re excited and looking forward to working with them. We’re just taking our time to make sure we get the right players to fill the spots. At the moment the key focus for us is a centre back, a 10 and a striker and we only have two visa players available. We’re trying to find the balance of what makes sense for the squad and what the best options are for the squad within that, what are the best local options that we can look at to fill one of those spots to then have the other two spots filled by visas. We are in discussions with a couple of players and quite advanced in conversations with a potential visa striker.
Lots of clubs are preparing/making signings before the season ends, why don’t we?
I think we’ve actually been in a reasonably healthy position the last few seasons where we’ve left a season with a number of players under contract. Also, it all depends on what you’re looking for at any one time so in terms of just jumping on the off contract market in Australia that hasn’t been a priority for us. As I said, this particular season we have three main positions that we want to fill. That’s not coming from that off-contract list or players that are moving around the A-League. We’re focussed on bringing in a good quality striker, a good quality 10 and a good quality centre back, and we’ll take our time to do that and make sure we get the right players.
Have we got any signings coming before the Wrexham game?
We could have a couple done. Visa players will obviously bring a different issue in terms of visas and getting them into the country, so I don’t expect to have visa players here prior to the Wrexham. In terms of any local signings we’ll probably bring a couple of trialists in, particularly around the left back spot to replace Sutts. If things were to work out and potentially we could have a local player signed prior, whether they’re able to participate against Wrexham is another question.
How is recruitment going? Will we focus on youth or sign players who are older?
The focus is definitely not on youth. We signed a significant amount of scholarship players last year so largely we have those scholarship players in place for this season. We did some pretty thorough reviews off the back of the last A-League men’s season and one of the identifiers for us are young and old, and we sort of lost that middle ground a little bit. So, a key focus of the recruitment of those three key positions that we spoke about will be around trying to get players in that middle age bracket, sort of 25, 26 plus and not trying to go too deep into the 30s. The balance of the squad is quite critical for us and getting players in that mid to late 20s age bracket is really critical.
What positions are we focusing on strengthening in the upcoming months and how much influence does Chiefy have on deciding the additions we make?
The key focus is on a centre back, a 10 and a striker, and obviously we have to replace Sutts and bring in a left back in there. We also have to keep half an eye on the OFC Pro League that’s potentially coming up and whether we get into that or not. If we do that then we need to look at the restrictions and what the regulations will be on us. We anticipate there will be an age restriction on that. I spoke to the reserve team boys yesterday and gave them a bit of an outline with what’s coming up; Wrexham, the Perth trip away for the Cup and the potential of the OFC Pro League and with that we could have a few more scholarship contracts we offer in that space. In terms of Chiefy’s involvement, the head coaches are always heavily involved in the recruitment of players. We operate a system where the coaching staff and myself have contacts, we get sent a lot of players, I think we’ve got about 460 on the list at the moment looking at those visa positions, and then it’s largely left up to the coaches and analysts to work through that list of players, come up a little bit of a shortlist of whom we’re interested in and then at that point I’ll start to get involved at little bit with how does it fit with what we’re looking to do in terms of playing strategy, what we’re looking at as far as profile of positions etc, etc. When we narrow it down to who we really want to go after that’s when it gets turned over to me and I start the negotiations and discussions about trying to bring them to the club.
The women’s signings look very impressive. Can we expect a similar calibre for the men’s?
Yea, definitely. With the women’s team we had a lot of players off contract, so we’ve signed a lot of players and still have some announcements to make. So, in terms of the quality that you see in the A-League women’s space at the moment we had a lot to do, whereas in the men’s space we don’t have as much to do having 18 players under contract. But coming back to it, of the three to five positions that we do want to recruit for the A-League men’s space three of those will be true high-calibre players.
Who do we plan on replacing Kosta with? I had hoped there was a chance with Ben Waine…
We keep in touch with Ben every year either directly with him or through his agent. I was actually at the driving range at Hutt Park beside his mum and his sister the other day talking about what Waineo is doing. We had a conversation with Waineo and with his agent. We knew where they sat. They wanted to be in Europe, which all of these young guys that get over there do want to do so Kosta’s replacement is likely going to be a visa player, and as I said we’re in advanced discussions with a particular player.
How’s Alby?
Alby says he’s doing okay. He says he’s on track and the medical team think he’s on track as well. It’s obviously a big surgery he’s had in terms of that shoulder. Timeframes he definitely should be fit and ready for the start of the A-League season. The big goal for him is can he get back in time for the FIFA U-20 World Cup, which is obviously a big goal of his. At the moment he’s potentially on track for it.
What’s the status with assistant coaches for the men’s team?
Chief’s talked to a number of coaches. Again, this is another one at the football club where the assistant coach, goalkeeper coach and that second assistant/analyst role are largely coach driven because you want the coach to have the people that he trusts, respects and can get the best out of around him. We’ve put a couple of offers out. We’re looking at a couple of Australians that are in different parts of the world, but they’re also involved in different competitions with clubs currently. The negotiations have probably gone on a little bit longer than we would have liked. We would have liked to have somebody in by now, but also we don’t want to rush that. We want to make sure we have got the right people in and that we have the right balance within the football department. We expect that hopefully very soon we’re able to make announcements.
What’s the plan for this season? Are we keeping the same pass back playstyle or changing it?
Going back to the point I made earlier, there was a lot of review of the season, review of how we operated from a football perspective, from a leadership perspective…a whole raft of areas we had a look at. Obviously playing style was one. I don’t think there was anybody associated with the club that was happy with the way we played last year, including Chief, the board as well and obviously the fans. It’s not something that the fans want to see. We’ve actually spent a bit of time looking at some culture and values stuff that the club has been working on over a period of time that we’re now at the point where we have a good set of values that we want to abide by as a football club. We’ve taken those values and also looked at what we want to do as a club in terms of who we are and how we want to play. We’ve definitely identified that we want to be more on the front foot. We want to be an attacking team, we want to be aggressive and we want to be getting after teams. And we want to be good out of possession and good in possession, we want to score more goals and we want to concede less goals. We will see a different approach to how we do play the game this year and that’s back to the recruitment side of things. We want to make sure we get the right players to bring into the club that can help us drive, not new way of playing but, a more front foot mentality that the club wants to see, that Chiefy wants to see and the fans want to see.
What’s the ambition for the year ahead and what are the consequences of not achieving it?
The ambition going into any season is to try and win a title, whatever competition you’re playing. The ambition is to try and win an A-League title, but there are also 12 other clubs in the men’s competition that want to do the same thing. In terms of consequences I can’t sit here today and say if we don’t win an A-League title that everybody in the club is going to be cut and all of the players are going to be cut, because that’s just not the reality of the situation. You have to get through a season and evaluate how it has gone. What was it like compared to the previous seasons, injury markers, all of the type of stuff will go into why you may or may not win a title. I don’t want to talk about consequences for not winning, but the ambition is definitely there to go and win a title. We can safely say that top six has to be a priority for both teams at the club this year.
How can you reassure the fans that the men’s team aren’t going to be as terrible as last season?
All I can say is none of us at the football club were happy with the season that we had last year. There’s been a lot of soul searching from Chiefy all the way through to the club, myself, even the players. There has been some good chats between Chief and the players as they’ve come back in this week around how were going to do things going forward. We’re looking at some different leadership structures, different way of team cohesion [and] obviously we want to employ a different way of playing and bringing in some new players to help that. All our planning and all of the work that we’ve done in the off-season has been about making sure that it’s a better season than what we had last year.
Will we have more pre-season games in New Zealand?
We play a number of pre-season games in New Zealand as far as the Central League opposition. Now that Auckland’s had their season in the league and we’ve already played them three times we do want to have a couple of games with them in pre-season. I need to set up a call with Terry [McFlynn] (Auckland FC director of football) to have a chat with him about that and what that might look like based on their schedule and our schedule. As always these things are difficult to plan out. We do have the Australia Cup which you have one game guaranteed, then what does it look like and there are various dates that the games might be played on. That has to be factored into it and then a big one for us will be from I think it’s the 17th of September we will lose the under-20 boys to the world cup and then, depending how far they progress, literally they’ll come back and then we lose boys again to the All Whites. So there’ll be a month where we’ll be restricted in terms of the squad and who’s here. But we want to do a couple of ins and outs to Australia, hopefully a deep run in the Cup, getting a couple of games against Auckland hopefully, one here and maybe one in Auckland, and fit the local Central League/National League teams in and around that.
When are the fixtures due out?
There was something come out from APL last week or the week before saying that they were hoping to have a draft of the A-League men’s draw around about now. As yet we still haven’t seen it and then I think they were looking at the A-League women’s one a couple of weeks beyond that.
APL have signalled there will be changes to the salary cap in the coming years. How has the club prepared for the changes and do you welcome them?
We welcome the changes. Based on the numbers and the talk around where the cap is going to go to, it’s where we’ve been operating for the last three to four years post-Covid particularly. We actually feel like we’re in a good spot and we’re ready for what’s coming. Obviously the owners have put a lot of investment into the academy and last season we saw the fruits of that with three players having exceptional seasons, Ben Old, Finn Surman and Alex Paulsen, and then getting their moves abroad. We do feel like we’re set, ready for what’s coming and believe it will probably even the playing field a lot. Then it becomes about getting your recruitment right in terms of the top end, but also having the best crop of young players you possibly can coming through and pushing for first team positions and once they’ve secured those pushing for moves overseas. If we can replicate what we did the season before lost when we finished second year on year and operate within the salary cap that’s coming, which we were doing in that season, then we feel like we’ll be fine.
Other clubs, notably Auckland FC, are going away from the academy model and are instead partnering with junior clubs. Why is the academy a key part of the club’s professional pathway?
The academy for us is really critical to be able to bring kids in, and particularly from an early phase it’s largely Wellington based kids. We do get some kids that move from other parts of the country, particularly from the South Island and more rural areas. As they go through that academy programme that balance probably becomes a bit more 60-40, 50-50 with the Wellington kids and the kids coming from outside the region. We feel like it’s a good opportunity to be able to bring the kids in, put them in a very, very good environment supported with all of the high performance stuff that we do, the coaching that we do and to be able to develop them in the way that we feel is necessary based on the way that the club wants to play on a curriculum underneath that that prepares them for first team football. The evolution over the last 12 years that they’ve been doing it we’re now starting to see particularly with the likes of Ben Old, Alex Paulsen, Finn Surman, Ben Waine, Liberato Cacace and Sarpreet Singh is that the model works and the model is right for us as a football club. We’re very fortunate that the owners are prepared to invest in that and the investment in the A-League women’s programme is strong as well. What we’re seeing now is an A-League football club that is not just about one men’s team. It’s about an A-League men’s team, it’s about an A-League women’s team and it’s about eight teams at the academy and trying to create success across that whole group of teams, not just one team. If we can be successful in the A-League women’s then we take that as a success. If we can be successful in the A-League men’s and the A-League women’s that’s even better. If we can win the National League that’s great and if we can get to the OFC Pro League, win that and get to a Club World Cup then that’s gold for us. But results on the pitch are not just the only key measure of success. Being able to put these young men and young women into overseas environments is also critical.
