Central Coast Mariners

Mariners had third consecutive disastrous year last term with no improvement noticed at all. Continued to be the worst team in the league with most goals conceded and hardly enough scored. Some slight improvement noticed in the last month or so of the camping when Alen Stajcic took charge and this was enough to give him the job permanently. With things obviously not working Stajcic didn’t hesitate to let 7 regulars go in the summer and if nothing else he brought in faces he wants in the squad. Without a doubt the 3 most important new singings are goalkeeper Birighitti, holding midfielder Kim and Serbian playmaker Djuric. Also positive was the return of talented Da Silva from his successful loan spell with Sydney FC and he is seen as the poster-boy for Mariners this season. Still lack quality and experience in defence, plus the depth in the middle of the park and attack is poor. All that said Stajcic’s previous job was head coach of Australia’s U21s and he is probably looking for at least 3-4 promising youngsters to be getting involved at senior level regularly. Some of those should be Nisbet, Shabow and Stensness. Even avoiding the wooden spoon will be improvement for Mariners and for them the only way is up after 2 dreadful campaigns in a row. That said the same was valid last season and no improvement was noticed, so it is far from certain how fast and if at all Stajic will start changing the fortunes of the team.