A list of possible marquee players.

So if Melbourne Heart was to hunt down a marquee player, who should we look for? Shinji Ono had a fantastic year, and by some coincidence the man who he formed a wicked attacking combination with, Shunsuke Nakamura comes off contract at the end of the year, he spawned a Celtic club in Japan which to this day, I kid you not, is the second most supported team in Japan outside of Manchester United. The reasons for acquiring Nakamura are obvious, his presence and name from an off field perspective, but his dead ball skills are unsurpassed throughout Asia, given the lack of a pure attacking midfielder in the Melbourne Heart squad fills Aloisi’s want for a player that fills the role of a player required on the park, in addition to off it.

My ideal man, however impossible, is Thomas Hitzlsperger the German midfielder is currently enjoying a substitute role with Everton and has a contract until June, but has not played more then a dozen league games for a club since 2008/2009 season, a defensive midfielder with a big engine who can cover a lot of ground and has a superb passing range, in addition to which he’s one seriously intelligent footballer around and could be used very well as a face of the club, Der Hammer was a fan favorite at Aston Villa due to his passion, his odd Brumie-German accent aside, his English is fine and he’s retired from international football, a good player to chase.

Georgios Karagounis has been a really useful part of Fulhams midfield this year, was rumored to be retiring at the end of last season, but played on at a high level successfully this year, a serious competitor and another man who loves a well set up dead ball situation, he’s on the more unlikely scale, but as was pointed out recently, returning to Greece isn’t as an enticing prospect as it once was.

At 31 Andrey Arsharvin seems far too young to come to Australia and play football, it was only 2008 that most of us were being exposed to his brilliance at the European Championship. However he’s recently come out and said he’s become so disillusioned with Football that he’s considering walking away from the game entirely, a trip across the world to a place where football is treated in a far less serious manner could see the sometimes erratic and firey Russian find a wonderful niche here in Australia.

The other one I like is Sotirios Kyrgiakos, the tall central defender is a danger from set pieces, as he exhibited at his time at Liverpool, even when they were going through a particularly poor spell in the last decade he was a fairly solid fixture, even though he did sometimes earn the ire of the fans for his rather straight forward, robust playing style, something which would be appreciated here in Australia, another fine option that would free up Patrick Gerhardt to go play in the midfield.