A week and a bit since Nathan Tinkler announced that he was returning the Newcastle Jets A-League license and taking his ball home, there’s still no indication from anywhere as to whether the Jets will be a part of the 2012-13 A-League season.
Whilst Jets supporters are arranging rallies to beg/demand that the FFA stands behind the club, the players and coaching staff are actively seeking opportunities elsewhere. The FFA are dead silent on the matter, concentrating on selling the Western Sydney dream.
There is the hope that the FFA are deliberately playing it cool; talking calmly to Tinkler and his Hunter Sports Group, trying to bring them back to the party without recourse to legal action. It’s essential that the Jets are still here next year. Essential to the tv deal, essential to the structure of the league, and most importantly essential to the supporters. Not just the Newcastle supporters, but also the supporters of other clubs who have seen Fury and Gold Coast cut adrift and will not want to see such a well supported club abandoned.
If we let the Jets go, we may as well pack up and go home.
Meanwhile, with two coaching vacancies in Sydney, and another two in Melbourne, Jets head coach Gary van Egmond will no doubt be in demand. Even if, as expected, Ange Postecoglou takes the Victory job, another job opportunity opens up in Brisbane. Whilst the players at the Roar have indicated that current assistant manager Rado Vidosic would be their choice as head coach, it’s hard to think of a better successor to Ange in terms of experience and style.
All of which brings us to the ongoing saga of Ange Postecoglou and Melbourne Victory. We all know he’s coming.
The only real question is when. Best guess is beyond the grand final and the final two ACL matches, sometime in the middle of May, although we can expect an announcement before then. I for one can not wait. To have Ange back in his home town, the best coach in the league and the biggest club in the competition. Priceless.
Meanwhile, Heart are still looking for a coach to replace John van’t Schip.
There’s been a lot of talk about promoting from within being the club’s preferred model, in which case it seems peculiar that several months after the former coach resigned, the club still hasn’t made an announcement regarding either Ante Milicic or John Aloisi and the job. Which leads me to assume that they are still looking beyond the club for the next coach.
