Football Season Guide

Boss Alen Stajcic worked wonders with a limited group last season but was poached by Western Sydney Wanderers pre-season. He was subsequently replaced by David Zdrilic, a former Assistant Manager at Sydney FC, whose task it is to ensure that they don't claim the unwanted 'Wooden Spoon' award that they received last season for finishing at the bottom of the A-League table, conceding an average of over 2 goals per game. Financial uncertainty, the stadium drama, the changing of manager - it's not hard to see why players have either wanted to jump ship pre-season, or have actually done so. Still, out of the players they've lost, not many will be missed. Colli was left out too often, for example, and Zimarino didn't get the game time he needed to develop due to injuries/being out of favour. They will miss Colakovski and Bennie though, who were the lively support acts for star striker Taggart. It was a miracle that they kept hold of the latter actually - that in itself was a big win. They've had to find replacements for them and none of those to join look capable of doing so unless Caicedo turns out to be a masterstroke. Mileusnic is ok on his day, Williams is too old, and Blair is yet to convince so Taggart could be isolated this season, which would make goal-scoring a nightmare. Defending is a bigger problem though. Beevers, Rawlins, Lachman, Susnjar, and Koutroumbis all moving on simultaneously was an absolute catastrophe. They've hardly done anything amazing to replace them either with injury-prone Barr one of their new CBs. Canga should be ok but is unproven at this level. FB Risdon is their only 'safe' defensive signing and with the amount of cards he collects, it's not a surprise that they brought in Lisolajski too. They've bolstered their midfield stocks well though - Gomulka and Pennington are good workhorses, and they really felt the CM 'gap' last season. Again though, not amazing signings so their only really good midfielders are Amini, who is often injured or suspended, and O'Neill. In other words, it's going to be a problem at some point. They may be recovering from a bad situation and thus deserve some patience, but I expect very little from this team this season whilst that recovery continues. Likely key players - Castillo, Taggart, O'Neill, Amini.