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I like my takes hot, and offered up in digestible numeric groups. Here are some bold predictions for the upcoming A-League season the accuracy of which I will certainly remember to address at the end of the season.
Perth will make the grand final from outside the top four
Last season, the Victory won the championship having finished fourth in the league, the first team in A-League history to triumph in the finals having not been a top-two team.
Theirs was a narrow path to victory dashed down with inches to spare on either side; an extra-time semi-final win over Sydney and a very contentious 1-0 result in the final against Newcastle ground the teeth to dust.
Still, tight though it was, as the general standard of the league – or at least the league’s top end – goes up, so will the likelihood of this happening again.
Indeed, Perth will put themselves in a position to repeat the trick this season. Perth’s off-season has been overshadowed a little by Victory’s and Sydney’s, but the business the two Tony’s are doing over there in the wide world of the West is very handsome indeed.
In Ivan Franjic, Jason Davidson and Matt Spiranovic, Popovic has assembled three-quarters of the backline that began the Socceroos’ 2014 World Cup game against Chile.
He’s also brought old flame Brendon Santalab over from Western Sydney, and most recently secured Chris Oikonomidis, who spent a small portion of last season on loan with the Wanderers. Ex-Mariner and Sky Blue Fabio Ferreira has arrived, as has Juande, a Spanish central midfielder plucked from the Italian second division.
Scott Neville of the Glory (Photo by Stefan Gosatti/Getty Images)
It’s worth remembering that Kenny Lowe’s squad last season already enjoyed a wealth of attacking talent, and has retained the bulk of it. Although Adam Taggart is gone, Diego Castro and Andy Keogh remain.
It’s not a young squad – Jacob Italiano, 17, is the most likely youth prospect to make an impact this season – but the A-League generally rewards age and experience. The stagnant state Lowe led Perth into, unable to escape the defensively reckless football that tended to cancel out all of Perth’s attacking virtues, was not a problem of personnel.
Popovic is an excellent cup manager, which essentially is what the finals series is. His squad is deep, and with the signing of another striker, and perhaps a back-up for Davidson at left-back, it will get deeper. They’re clearly good enough to make the top six this season, and blaze through to the grand final.
Tony Popovic is back, but not where we thought he might be (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Ruon Tongyik will become WSW’s starting centre back, and one of the league’s best
Tongyik played over a 1000 league minutes for Melbourne City in 2016-17. For most of that time he looked an imposing centre back with a keenness to pass out of defence, very strong in the air, who at times, because of poor awareness or a sudden loss of urgency, would get himself into dicey positions – this wholly avoidable sequence where Tongyik was rinsed multiple times by James Troisi comes to mind.
Still, he was a raw talent with immense promise, and so when he literally got zero game time the next season it was a considerable disappointment.
No one was arguing for him to start over Bart Schenkeveld or or Michael Jakobsen, but a few substitute appearances, or starts against lesser opposition would have been welcomed. City and Warren Joyce shipped him out and – along with fellow Australians Bruce Kamau and Nick Fitzgerald – he was snapped up by Western Sydney.
Seeing as Markus Babbel, new German gaffer, has signed Patrick Ziegler, a 28-year-old German centre back, Tongyik will have to replace Brendan Hamill. This will be no easy task; Hamill was very consistent last season, and is just 25 himself.
Still, having wallowed in the tepid waters of inactivity last season, Tongyik will be virtually vibrating with eagerness to make a good first impression at his a new club, under a new manager. Babbel was a centre back, and may fancy taking on the project to mould Tongyik’s obvious potential into a polished final product.
Daniel De Silva will earn another national call-up
Back in 2015, Daniel De Silva sat on the bench watching his Socceroo teammates beat Kyrgyzstan 2-1.
Daniel De Silva during his time with the Mariners. (AAP Image/Daniel Munoz)
When Nathan Burns was substituted by then-manager Ange Postecoglou early in the second half, there must have been a fluttery, fleeting moment when De Silva thought it might be him who would replace him. Tommy Oar ran on instead, and scored what would end up being the clinching goal for his country.
Three years later, De Silva is yet to receive his second senior call-up, and the early fizz of his career has gone flat, largely due to an injury-plagued two-season spell in Holland. He was a busy-if-ineffective trier last season in a terrible Central Coast team, and was made the very first participant in the A-League’s new inter-club loan system this off-season.
The very fact he was able to be loaned from the Mariners – the system is restricted to Australian players who are under 23 – should jolt anyone out of any misapprehensions they have as to where exactly De Silva is in his career; he’s still just 21, less than two years older than Daniel Arzani. An effective, joyful season at Sydney – who will be a title favourite again this year – could revive his national team chances very quickly.
It isn’t be unreasonable to assume that Socceroos manager Graham Arnold will keep in regular contact with Steve Corica, his old number two and now-Sydney gaffer, and so will be closely aware of exactly how De Silva is doing.
He’d likely be keeping an eye out anyhow. His first Roos squad has deliberately experimented with young Euro-based attacking options. If there is an A-League version of this somewhere down the line, De Silva will be in it.
Newcastle will be just as good as last year
With all the activity happening around them, there’s been some worried looks being thrown in the Jets’ direction, who have brought in just two players. Seeing Jack Duncan, Wayne Brown and Riley McGree depart means that three players that made a combined 51 league and finals appearances for them last season are no longer available.
Roy O’Donovan will miss the first ten games of the season due to suspension, and Joey Champness may not be fit the start the campaign, recuperating as he is from a broken foot.
So far the Jets have brought in two players, Brazilian striker Jair, and midfielder Matthew Riddenton from the Phoenix. Nothing to write home about, certainly, and remember they don’t have Andrew Nabbout anymore either.
Roy O’Donovan of the Jets. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
And yet, everyone hand-wringing and dabbing at flop sweat are forgetting that consistency is one of the most sought after virtues season-on-season – keeping together the bulk of a successful side has been, after all, one of the main reasons Sydney have been so successful these last few years.
They’re also forgetting that Ronald Vargas will hopefully not be injured for the vast majority of this season like he was last season; his attacking potency should adequately cover for Nabbout alone, an in-house solution to that problem. Nigel Boogaard and Nikolai Topor-Stanley are still a formidable defensive pairing. Steven Ugarkovic is still one of the league’s most polished, thoughtful central midfielders. Dimi Petratos is still a bustling barrel of direct dribbling and venomous shooting.
Merrick’s tactical approach, the one that absolutely blazed through the first half of the season as his team scored in every game, will still be effective: it wasn’t particularly difficult to work out what Newcastle were doing, with their rapid transitional play, long balls, and lack of sideways and backwards passing, and if it could have been easily thwarted, they probably wouldn’t have finished second and made the grand final.
They proved their quality last season, and proven quality is always better than the hypothetical brand.
Bruno Fornaroli will remind everyone of a few things
Returned to the striker’s role for City, probably a little peeved that everyone forgot about him last season while he recovered from serious injury, Bruno Fornaroli has no competition for his position. His astonishing extra-time winner against Brisbane in the FFA Cup last month, a goal he had absolutely no right to score so early in the pre-season, was the football equivalent of getting up after a heavy night’s drinking and doing a back-flip out of bed.
With Bobo gone, he’s undoubtedly the best finisher in the league, and has never scored fewer than 17 goals if fully fit over the course of a A-League season. He even managed to bang in five goals at the tail-end of last season, in just 10 appearances.
Melbourne City will take on the Newcastle Jets in the FFA Cup. (Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
If City don’t sign another big-name striker this off-season, he will certainly win the Golden Boot next season. He may well win it even if they do sign one.
To finish, Wellington will be markedly better this season than they were last, but will still finish bottom. Usain Bolt won’t play a competitive game for the Mariners. Craig Goodwin will attempt more crosses than any other player in the league.
Any other bold claims? Put them below the line.