New Zealand Knights season 2006-07

The New Zealand Knights are currently participating in the 2006-07 A-League competition, hoping to improve on their last-placed finish in the previous season.

2006 off-season

On February 8 2006, New Zealand Knights announced the signature of Fulham reserve-team coach Paul Nevin. Paul was due to take up the role as assistant manager as Tommy Mason's contract wasn't renewed after the Knights' shocker last season.

On March 7 2006, New Zealand Knights announced their first new signing for the 2006/07 A-League season - Michael Turnbull, a former Australian Under-20 and Under-23 international. Michael had been playing for Belgian club Standard Liège. Michael had to return to Australasia due to work permit issues. He has experience at the top of domestic Australian soccer, having played for Marconi Stallions between 1999 and 2000. He was selected for the 2004 Under-23's Australian team which played at the Athens Olympics.

On March 18 2006, the New Zealand Knights announced that Jeremy Brockie had decided to leave the club and join Sydney FC. Jeremy Brockie had been one of the few standouts for the Knights in their first season of the Hyundai A-League, scoring 4 goals to end up being tied top goalscorer for the club with Simon Yeo. Jeremy Brockie had been the fan favourite at the Knights, known for his dreadlocks and scoring late goals in matches. He had scored 2 late goals off the bench in a match against the Newcastle Jets to make the final score 4-2 to the Jets. He had also scored a very late goal against Sydney FC to make the final score 2-2, which was a brilliant result for the New Zealand Knights seeing as Sydney had just come off a strong result at the World Club Championship in Japan.

Over the last few months the Knights have announced the signings of four new players:
* Che Bunce has plenty of experience and has played for the All Whites before. Significantly, he is a New Zealander and is only the second New Zealander to have signed on for the 2006-07 season. Che has been playing for NZFC club Waikato FC, and previously played for the Kingz.
* Richard Johnson is a midfielder, a position the Knights have suffered in. He played for A-League side Newcastle Jets last year and was a key contributor to the club's 4th place finish last season. Richard started the majority of games last year for Newcastle.
* Scot Gemmill comes from English League Two side Oxford United. The 35-year-old has played more than 100 games in the English Premier League and has over 20 caps for Scotland. He brings plenty of experience and will bring depth to the midfield which was regarded as not up to scratch last season.
* Jonathan Richter previously played for the Queensland Roar, and was used effectively off the bench. He will assist with what was a very poor Knights midfield.

On April 10 New Zealand Knights manager John Adshead retired due to personal reasons. The club announced shortly afterwards that Paul Nevin was going to step up to the manager position.

The New Zealand Knights reportedly offered current English Premier league player Stan Lazaridis a whopping $350,000 per year. Stan has previously played for Birmingham City and West Ham United in England. Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne are also rumoured to have offered contracts to Lazaridis. The offer represents 20% of the Knights A-League salary cap which is at $1.6 million for 06-07; however, the offer would have been under the 'marquee player' salary cap exemption - the same exemption that allowed Sydney FC to sign Dwight Yorke. However, on July 6 2006 Stan Lazaridis signed a two year contract with the Perth Glory.

Since April 10 2006 the New Zealand Knights have signed five new players:
*Sime Kovacevic, an 18 year old Australian defender,
*Jonas Salley, a 24 year old Ivory Coast defender from South Melbourne FC,
*Malik Buari, a 22 Ghanaian midfielder who has previously played for Fulham FC in the English Premier League,
*Gregory Duruz, a 29 year old left sided defender from FC Thun in Switzerland,with plenty of experience in the UEFA Champions League playing against teams like Manchester United and Arsenal FC, and
*Adam Casey, a 20 year old Australian striker signed from the Wollongong Wolves.

Fans have had mixed emotions about these signings. Some fans have complained about the lack of New Zealand players in the team. Also, the New Zealand Knights announced that they would be increasing ticket prices by $5 for the 06/07 season, which caused a major uproar amongst the team's most loyal supporters. This ticket price increase came as a surprise, as the Knights had the lowest average crowds in the A-League and never got more than 10,000 to a game, which is what the league is aiming to have for every game.

The Knights have two spaces left in their current roster which are likely going to be two strikers.

06/07 Season

The Knights started their second season strongly picking up a draw against the Newcastle Jets and then a week later beating Adelaide United 1-0 courtesy of Malik Buari's fantastic long range shot, to pick up there first ever home win. But injuries to key players such as Jonas Salley, Matt Carbon, Dani Rodrigues, Richard Johnston, Mark Paston has led to run of bad form seeing them sit bottom of the table. But just when 05/06 was going to repeat all over again, the knights picked up a victory over the Queensland Roar, the win puts the knights 4 points off 7th place, some people have even predicted that the Knights could make the plafoffs putting the bad run of form down to the injuries, this prediction ended up to be wrong as the knights continued to lose including a 4-0 loss to Sydney FC and a 4-1 thrashing by Perth Glory, crowds continued to decrease, Paul Nevin was eventually sacked and replaced by Barry Simmonds a coach far more experienced than Paul. The Knights received the news that they will be around in 07/08 in mid November 06 despite many Aussie fans wanting the team relocated to Townsville or Wollongong. Despite being bottom of the table for two seasons the team continues to sign foreigners, this season only four New Zealanders were named, despite their being a number of kiwis playing there trade for other A-League teams.

On 14 December, the FFA announced that it had revoked the competition licence held by the Knights' owners. An arrangement with NZ Soccer will see the national body step in to manage the club for the remaining five weeks of the regular season, with former All Whites player Ricki Herbert to fill the role of Head Coach. This came as a surprise to many followers of the club as recent performances had improved under Barry Simmonds with notable results against Newcastle and Adelaide showing team morale had improved greatly.cite web|url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/4/story.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10415468|publisher=NZ Herald|title=Knights have licence revoked by soccer body|date=December 14, 2006] . It is unclear at present whether NZS will seek to bid for the licence which now becomes available for the 2007/08 season (ibid).

ummary

Table

ee also

References