Football Season Guide

The big news for Macarthur FC this season is that they've opted to bring in Dwight Yorke as their new manager after Milicic opted to take a break from football. Although no stranger to Sydney itself, Yorke is a curious acquisition as a manager with little to no experience of doing so. However, the early signs are encouraging; he's already steered them to an Australian Cup final win. Yorke's style has been predominantly attacking, favouring both increased possession and speedy transitions in wide areas. They look like they're going to be a lot more mobile, fluid, and exciting in the campaign ahead. Outs - Lewis Miller was the big one. He was initially a fantastic signing, given his campaign at CCM, but was sold before he kicked a ball as a European opportunity came along, and Australian clubs in general cannot reject the money from Europe. Just to confuse matters, they then signed Matthew Millar to replace Lewis Miller. Their defence has had a big revamp; Mariappa and Meredith are both gone, as is Jovanovic. Both of their main strikers - Juric and Giannou - are gone too. Mutch was cut loose due to inconsistency. Oar's retirement was a really big blow; he won numerous games for them last season. Ins - as has become commonplace, they do not struggle to attract good players. Arzani is the headline acquisition. If he can recapture the form he showed prior to leaving Australia, then he'll be a superb match-winner for them - and the early signs have been very encouraging on that front. Baccus is another fine signing, especially for a team that wants to control games better. Aspropotamitis is a good defensive addition. Williams is a real unknown from Barbados; presumably someone Yorke know from his time in the Caribbean. Vujica and Skotadis are good squad player additions. Arabuli and Carter should add a bit more life to their attack. It's difficult to know what to expect from this team because although the potential for a title push is there, as always, they've not been consistent in any of their campaigns to date, and now have a totally unproven manager in charge to boot after a boatload of transfers. They should score a lot more goals this season but their defence looks weak; they should ship more too. Only one ball-winner in their midfield means if they don't have it, they're in trouble. Lots of skilful, fast midfielders and good dribblers. Lacking in a natural poacher still; target man Carter is the closest they've got. LB could be a huge problem as Najjar is a winger by trade, and Vujica is a squad player, not really good enough to be a regular. Likely key players - Davila, Arzani, M'Mombwa.