Football Season Guide

Suffered the indignity of finishing 10th last season - the second-lowest goal-scorers in the division, and yet they still saw fit to let promising striker Goodwin leave because they didn't play him enough. Some things the Jets are not at fault for, but this is not one of them! The big news at this club was that after years of waiting, the club has finally been bought by Maverick Sports Partners. They should finally be able to compete with the other A-League teams financially as a result of this. No signs of that in the transfer market yet though, with the bulk of their signings being freebies from Australian clubs, most of which weren't good enough at better clubs. Still, they've done what they could to try and improve a limited squad. Boss Stanton did really well with the younger players last season so it's logical to expect the likes of Fryer and Adams to hit the ground running, and Scarcella will most likely become an important player in due course (before returning to Sydney FC, naturally!). Veteran defender Šušnjar is a good addition to their defence too. Goal-scoring is going to remain a huge problem for them though in the sense that they don't have a striker after selling Stamatelopoulos. They want Oliveira to be the solution but it's unlikely he will be. Lachlan Rose is full of running but is by no means a natural finisher. They are also going to find it harder to carve out opportunities with Piscopo and Buhagiar having moved on - and even FB Mauragis deserves a mention there. There shouldn't be any major changes at the club though. They've lost some big names on paper but the likes of Jenkinson and O'Neill were not relied upon by Stanton for the latter half of last season. Dowse has not featured since joining due to a bad injury that has now forced him to retire but he will still be missed because of his crossing ability. In general this team is still going to struggle to win games because they don't score enough goals. They'll likely impress, especially in the early rounds, but struggle as the season unwinds. Likely key players - Oliveira, Scarcella, Šušnjar.