New beginnings for Perth Glory as A-Leagues kicks off

The A-Leagues are back!

It’s been a long time in between drinks for Glory fans, who will have to substitute HBF Park for Macedonia Park for 10 of the 13 home games this season, given the situation with the former undergoing delayed renovations ahead of the 2023 Women’s World Cup

But, on a more positive note, there should be optimism from supporters heading into this season and part of that should derive from the club’s impressive response resulting from the 2021/22 season.

Photo by Tom McCarthy

Clearly, the season prior was a disaster on many levels, but the club has taken very swift action to ensure that the likelihood of a similar season is much lower.

Only the Western Sydney Wanderers (15) have made more additions to their squad than Perth Glory, as the newly appointed Head of Recruitment, Andy Keogh and Head Coach Ruben Zadkovich have been extremely busy seeing 14 players come into the team, while 12 departed.

Now while some fans have tried to argue that the recruitment this season has been done with little consideration and the approach has been somewhat all over the place, the reality is that this could not be further from the truth.

There were multiple areas of concern from last season that needed to be addressed, whether it was a lack of quality in one position, a lack of depth or an area that needed different qualities.

An example of where this idea came into play was the signing of 32-year-old centre-back, Mark Beevers.

Photo by Tom McCarthy

Darryl Lachman is a superb defender, there’s no question about it. But what we did lack last season and heading into this season was a commanding centre-back, who could dominate aerial duels.

Lachman mainly excels with ground duels, as he won 71% of them last season. But with aerial duels, he wasn’t winning as many.

Enter Beevers, who in his last full season in League One in the 2020/21 season won 74% of his aerial duels.

He would also complement our team given he’s a left-footed centre-back, which would allow both him and Lachman to operate in areas more comfortable to the players.

On a larger scale, the club has brought in a host of talent that will provide speed and excitement to the squad.

The likes of Ryan Williams, Stefan Colakovski and Matt Hatch will be some of the quickest players in the competition so expect Glory to really hurt teams on the counterattack.

Up front, expect big Ben Azubel, David Williams and Luke Ivanovic to aid fan favourite Bruno Fornaroli this season while also providing some much-needed competition and depth, should an injury occur.

Now, this will be an intriguing period for the now Head Coach Ruben Zadkovich.

There will be times when we will enter uncharted waters, but I think fans should understand that the direction that he and the club are wanting to go in is a very positive one.

Photo by Tom McCarthy

Zadkovich will have a great support network around him, with the likes of Joe Gallen (Assistant Coach), Mich D’Avray (Technical Consultant) and Kenny Lowe (Head of Academy) all being exceptional resources for the 36-year-old to gain further knowledge.

We will be playing a much quicker brand of football, where fans will see the players play with tempo, precision and power, characteristics that are fundamental in creating an exciting attacking team.

This season should be treated as a new dawn by Glory fans, a new chapter. It will most likely resemble a transition year, where we’ll attempt to achieve clear progression from the last few seasons and while finals may not be the paramount objective this season, it won’t be totally impossible this season.

There are plenty of reasons to go down and support the players this season, whether it’s on a tour of duty over east or on a Sunday afternoon at Macedonia Park.

In terms of my prediction for this season, I have the club finishing in 8th position but again, as I alluded to before, there’s every chance we could make the finals and this could make the last three home games of the season at HBF Park extremely important games for the Glory.

All in all, it should be a thrilling season that gets started on Sunday at 12pm against the Wanderers, in what should be a hotly contested fixture.