Sarpreet Singh

Tim Paine as well, we know his story, uh, during the off-season.

Uh, Sarpreet Singh, who only played a couple of games and got injured in his loan spell.

Um, and then Paulo Retre has, has left, gone to South Melbourne.

And Gabriel Sloane Rodriguez has departed as well.

So if it doesn't, so if it goes to you, it means it doesn't go to someone else.

And yes, A, you've got to take that opportunity, but B, also that is, like that's a risk for someone like, I said this at the time the squad was named, like that's a risk for Sarpreet Singh who's out of the squad and not injured because he's trying to embed himself at his, at his new club in Portugal and doing a decent job.

They had a good win on the weekend and he helped set up one of, he helped set up a really nice like free kick routine goal where it's like he, I think he, someone dummied it, then he chipped it far post, someone nodded it back and someone else came through and finished.

So he's playing big minutes there and doing what he's got to do at club level.

And then their contribution is limited.

I think it's Sarpreet Singh for the Phoenix.

He came back.

if we're staying in Wellington, came back to play the back end of last season and lasted one game before he was out.

So he's an anchor in the central midfield there.

He was joined by a complex rotation of several players, further complicated by attacking midfielder Sarpreet Singh, sometimes joining when it was a three-man midfield.

So we won't go into the weeds there, it's just kind of too complicated with various players coming in and out.

March 2026, so a two-man central met field.

Where does that leave us for our predictions at the end of March? It is Marko Staminic as a definite starter, but any number of players beside him and possibly two of them.

So Ryan Thomas, Joseph Bell, Matthew Garbett.

attacking midfielder Sarpreet Singh and Alex Rufer.

We do put those in order of preference, although there's not a lot of difference between them.

You talk about some of the players, you talk about Dane Ingham coming back and you're like, wow, there's a name that you'd sort of forgotten about a little bit.

There's a team with no Crocombe, no Joe Bell, no Ryan Thomas, no Tim Payne, no Michael Boxall, no Sarpreet Singh, no Matt Garbutt, no Chris Wood, no Costa, no Tommy Smith and no Finn Sermon.

I mean, there's about two thirds of a squad there that you would probably expect to be there or thereabouts.

And, I mean, all due respect to those guys, it didn't feel like you missed too many of them in this game.

We knew that there were games during the break in the MLS.

We knew that Garbutt and Sarpreet Singh were injured.

We knew Costa had no club.

But we didn't know why Tommy Smith wasn't included, but now we do because he kind of is.

So what will happen is that Darren Baisley's team, they get to have Eli Justback, who of course in the World Cup was incredible.

Chris Wood there as well, but they won't be with Joe Bell or Sarpreet Singh or social media megastar Tim Payne.

Those are some of the big names missing as well as Ryan Thomas as well.

But there's potential debuts.