Football Season Guide

Thoroughly embarrassed themselves last season with utterly soulless displays despite having a plethora of talented players on their books. Instead of pushing for silverware, they were largely resigned to trying to fight their way out of the dreaded "Wooden Spoon" battle, which they ultimately lost, finishing bottom. Changes were needed, and in came talented tactician Talay to replace interim boss van Egmond. Talay is brilliant at his job, and he knows Sydney well. However, he struggled at their bitter rivals, Sydney FC, and if he does the same here then he's unlikely to be given time because of his period at their rivals. It's going to be incredibly hard to motivated this group, which is likely to still be demoralised from last season. There's a malaise hanging over Western Sydney Wanderers that has been there for a few years now, and they're showing no signs of shaking it off. Mentally, they're a very weak team. To be fair to them though, they've largely prioritised signing very headstrong players pre-season. It's hard to say that many of them are good enough individually to turn them into the trophy-hunting team they want to be, but the likes of Madanha, Gillion, and Di Pizio are always on the go. The latter has a lot of talent too. They also needed some more backbone, hence feisty CB Ferreyra joining. With Milovanovic joining to be their new (and already proven) match-winner, they shouldn't really struggle in attack. They've certainly upgraded on Barbarouses and Kuol, who have moved on, and arguably even Kraev, who struggled for form last season. Defence is their biggest concern though, even with Ferreyra arriving to replace Čančar. They lost Farrell too, so are very short of CBs unless some of their academy products step up to be counted. They're also without a recognisable right-back following the sale of Simmons. Carluccio can play there, as can new recruit Madanha, but neither give the impression that they're ready to be regular starters. Hard to believe they're in this position, given the availability of their former RB, Tate Russell. Former winger Madanha is winning the battle for now though. Depth is also a point of concern - they simply don't have enough of it. Therefore, any absentees are likely to be noteworthy ones unless their academy lads are ready to contribute more, but even Jai Rose - arguably their most talented - doesn't quite seem ready yet. It's really difficult to know which way to lean with these guys. On one hand, they're more capable than most, particularly in attack, but history is against them as they continually fail due to managerial changes and mental weakness. The latter is marginally more likely.