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Central Coast coach Lawrie McKinna admits the Mariners squad needs to undergo a major makeover following its Asian Champions League failure.
The Mariners bowed out of their maiden ACL campaign after a 3-2 loss to Pohang Steelers in South Korea on Tuesday.
Long regarded as one of the most consistent sides in four years of the A-League, the Mariners have hit their lowest point having not won a game in any competition in 2009.
The club attracted criticism for not adequately strengthening their squad for the ACL, with Adam Kwasnik, Shane Huke and Nick Rizzo their only major signings to offset the loss of key midfielder Mile Jedinak to Turkey.
But McKinna has vowed to strengthen his squad from back to front in order to remain competitive in the expanded A-League competition beginning in August.
“We enjoyed the (ACL) experience and I think it’s been good for the players but I think it just shows we have to rebuild the squad which we’ll do in the off season,” McKinna said.
“We’ve enjoyed it but we’ve learned that we need to improve and now we’ll be looking for players now that can come in and add to our squad and improve our squad and focus on next season’s A-League.
“We’ll look at the back, we’ll look at the midfield and probably up front as well.”
The Mariners’ last win, an A-League match against Perth Glory in Gosford on New Year’s Eve last year, was also the last game Jedinak featured in before joining Gencerbirligi.
McKinna knows that is no coincidence and acknowledged replacing him would be one of his biggest challenges.
“He has been a big loss,” McKinna said.
“He was such good leader on the field and had that drive when you’re going through a bad patch so he’s definitely been missed.”
Central Coast have one last chance to notch a win in Asia when they host Chinese side Tianjin Teda in a dead rubber at Bluetongue Stadium on May 19.
“We’ll try a few new players that haven’t played, we’ll try to win the game but we’ll freshen things up,” McKinna said.
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