Matador Isaias Sanchez returns to the A-League bullfight

ask and you shall receive, by the way the average is just over 25 (a smidge younger than brisbane) :)

ansell, tratt and blackwood have come for a pittance, its borderline a league bear minimum salary for these seasoned players. As for the OAP striker, again they'd be playing on a small weekly wage (which counts berisha out by my estimate, o'donovan is the likelier of the 2 to arrive) Thats not me confirming his arrival, so dont misquote me lol perkins was a bit out of our hands, the club was 90% confident it was a done deal, but his agent had other ideas. Bad move for a player who i rate as the best CB in his age group in the country elsey was unfortunate, but the club i believe felt he was bluffing. That newcastle contract is a mooted $50k-$100K more than our offer - this one hurt because we lose our salary cap exemption being a home-grown long service player and cuts into our shoestring budget even more koutrombis was a pipedream, we were never going to give him the $325k+ his agent was chasing. noah smith the club were unhappy with defensively, if you look at the majority of goals we conceded when playing they were always coming from his side of the pitch. Unfortunately, he got that injury and never had another look in at left back i need to be careful what i say about the new director of football, let’s hope it’s just first season teething issues. there is still the likelihood of another change of 2 in the backroom/administration side of things as well before season commences

again, this is something you need to accept as an adelaide fan - financially we can’t compete with 80% of teams in the league, we are a selling club and have no option to play younger players this is the lowest our budget has been for several years, i dont want to keep talking about a lack of finances lol ok let’s talk strikers If that polish club had upped their offer by another 300-400K yengi would've been out the door; yengi never pushed for that move, veart has given him assurances he will be the starting striker this season. - he’s gone at season end regardless big season for al and mo, both will want good seasons to push through moves to europe - they'll also join yengi in leaving the club at seasons end. I think an OAP striker besides giving advice to the younger ones is a failsafe when the main strikers go down. Al and yengi are very injury prone, mo also collected the first major injury of his career last season and you saw how long that took him to recover from. You need to remember goodwins also come off a serious surgery, hes only done some very minor ball work at training so i cant really comment too much else on that dont forget the new director of football is not experienced in terms of the negotiations side of football player contracts - there are some teething issues that will take time to get used to attack and midfield look really strong, but defense will be an issues again this season

i think any a league club would welcome back a club legend, if they have the opportunity to improve a team (which this player does) Isaias is in the equation when you are talking about best central midfielders ever in the a league. youth policy is still there, average age is hovering around 25 year of age at the moment - only 2 teams have a lower average age then adelaide currently (newcastle and melbourne city) although if this OAP striker is recruited - the mariners, brisbane, wellington, victory and possibly wanderers will jump us in average age

one of the weakest areas in the team was midfield last season, that dramatically improved when Juande came in mid season - now you add in Isiais and midfield looks absurdly strong. the issue with that is; the club has young players ready to play in midfield, in defense they dont - Defence should've been the priority this off season

the youth policy is still there. we had the youngest average age (23) in the league last season (until city started to put in 17 year olds in thier final few weeks). Our age average will jump up to around 26/27 now. As much as i rave on about yull, alagich, bernado and the other members of the adelaide youth team. They are a team that is regularily bullied in the NPL every weekend by players double there age and with more muscle. theres not much football on at the moment but if you're got an hour or so free saturday afternoons you can stream the youth team in the SA NPL and you'll see moments of absolute skill and then you'll see moments of a kid retreating back into thier shell when they get tackled or losing a 50/50 duel. lets use johnny yull as an example. He held the record for youngest ever debut at 15 years old (until city put thier own kid in) last season. Fast forward 3/4 of a season and hes a year older, taller, bit more weight on him and is scoring in the NPL - but who's spot does a 16 year old take? Mauk? Isiais? Juande? D'Arrigo? D'Arrigo is 19 years old and is the player with the most pressure on him to keep his spot. Alagich and Bernado fall in the same boat, Bernado is 17 and an attacking mid (which the club have none of) but he has consistency issues all these kids have been taking part in pre season training

my views on OAP's are well known, that is far too much experience in a team for my personal liking. But again im not a coach and there are circumstances that need to be accounted for, especially with budget that a lot of people aren’t aware of. Jakobsen had been in discussions with Newcastle, Adelaide was incredibly unhappy that he lost his license for speeding as were the clubs road safety sponsors - he had one foot out the door due to this indiscretion. the club fully expected to sign courtney-perkins as his replacement with the guarantee of first team starts and the protective environment of Adelaide with young players - however his agent made a last minute u turn and the player was off to poland. So straight off the bat the clubs transfer plans were in disarray, especially when elsey tested the water and got a larger wage offer from newcastle that the club weren’t willing to match. in terms of lopez im unsure if the club would've resigned him for a further year if the sale of strain for a near 7 figure fees would've been vetoed by the club. As there are no up and coming fullbacks ready for the a league, add to that marrone being released and you can see lopez was kept around for another year as a stop gap. Juandes case is even more intriguing great a league player, but was injury prone like most of the squad last season. He is playing in the same position as isaias and every fan/rival knows who they would have start in that position. however, i've seen Juande used as a centeback on a couple of occasions in preseason training so far (more than likely because our 2 centreback signings are stuck interstate) and hes played there in his younger days. Also, dont forget Isiais used to regularly drop back into a centreback position with the club previously. there are a lot of options now with midfield and i can see us changing from our usual 4-3-3 formation to a wingback formation for offence (lopez and cavallo push forward, isiais/juande drop back for 3 in defence - that gives you 4 in midfield to outnumber the opposition plus the 3 up top) Veart has been trying a lot of different things in training, so this will be the season to judge how good a coach he is – the fan base are very split on him Juande and lopez were the 2 lowest paid visa players in the comp last season, it looks likely they'll have that honour again this season. Its a concern when the team that finished bottom last season and was propped up financially by half the league last season has spent more money than adelaide this off season. We've got one spot left to fill and that will go to an experienced striker if theyre willing to accept a small wage. i'd mentioned here earlier this season that berisha had been discussed and he is still being discussed (board is split on a rival coming to the club) Melbourne victory had offered him a contract but it was turned down, financially his camp has dropped their price. roy o donovan is another one that has been discussed at boardroom level recently. the teams will be very functional, but not spectacular. I dont expected a top 4 finish this season, but this squad has the capability to make position 5 or 6 if things go well with form and injuries