Football Season Guide

Wanderers’ boss Popovic once again used the summer to reshape his squad and, after two disappointing campaigns in a row, he showed determination and great negotiating skills in the last few months, which has turned Red and Blacks into a team with huge depth and healthy competition for places all over the pitch. To address the issues in attack that plagued Wanderers all of last season the star Spanish forward Oriol Riera was signed and he already impressed in pre-season with 3 goals in 2 games. Not just that the club legend Bridge also re-joined Wanderers and with veteran Santalab also still there the promise for goals can come from anywhere. Alvaro Cejudo also comes from La Liga as one of the biggest A-League signings this summer and the winger will be joined by the other new arrival Bonevacia and the very busy Kusukami as the main trio behind the target man. On all these big names not much attention was paid to the signing of the 18-year-old Mark Tokich, but he comes to the squad after just being voted National Youth League Player of the Year and undoubtedly Popovic will give him a chance to shine off the bench. The Baccus’ brothers, Herd and Melling, are those expected to be given more defensive roles in midfield when trusted to play, while at the back Aspropotamitis and three other very tall and solid centre-backs provide rich options. The signing of the right-back Risdon reunites him with the other full-back Clisby from their Gory days and the two of them are tipped to be very active supporters of the forward actions. The fact that Wanderers have many options for every position on the pitch suggests that Popovic will once again be using regular rotation, he loves changing his line-up for almost every match, which needs to be done smartly as the main challenge for the gaffer is to keep everyone in this big squad happy with the amount of playing time they are getting. Wanderers have changed from a counterattacking team to a side that likes to dominate possession and use methodical forward moves to break defences and this is likely to continue this way. Everything said above was put in doubt exactly a week before the campaign's start when coach Popovic resigned out of the blue to pursue career in Europe. It is yet unclear who will be the new manager and what players and formation he will favour.