| Team | M | W | D | L | + | – | = | P | Last 6 | |
| 1 | Abbotsford FC | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2 | Amputees FC | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 3 | BONDI ICEBERGS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 4 | City Water Motel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 5 | Crimson Eagles FC | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 6 | Dunder Mifflin FC | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 7 | Glasston | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 8 | Melbourne Rockstars | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 9 | Rodborough | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 10 | SYDclub | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 11 | Shrewsbury Biscuits FC | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 12 | Skoolage United | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
The 55th running of the A-League welcomes five new teams. City Water Motel, Abbotsford FC and Skoolage United won direct promotion and the Melbourne Rockstars and Rodborough got through with some fortuitous results from the Playoffs. Abbotsford, Melbourne Rockstars and Rodborough are all first time A-League Clubs, with City Water Motel and Skoolage United returning after rebuilding their playing rosters. For City Water this was a short turn around, but Skoolage have been adrift for some time, down as far as Div 2 for a prolonged period of time.
As I’ve mentioned in my Playoff article both Rodborough and Melbourne Rockstars can consider themselves fortunate to get through, as neither side was the best in their group. So we can expect to have the trend of a strong top half of the ladder winning big against the teams that have either sold up completely in Cheltenham who assume short price favouritism for the Spoon and Bondi Icebergs running a largely U/21 squad. Both teams should finish 12th and 11th respectively.
Only Bondi Icebergs who have already sold up, Dunder Mifflin and Glasston have players retiring, two in the case of Dunder Mifflin and four for Glasston. This is bound to affect their competitiveness and both teams finished comfortably mid-table last season. How much further they’ll drop depends as always on the quality of the sides that come up.
Of the teams that remain from last seasons A-League the Crimson Eagles, Shrewsbury Biscuits and the Amputees all have good squads and will feature prominently at the top of the table. There is always one promotion side that will be highly competitive and join the fight. This season it’ll likely be Skoolage or City Water Motel. I’m basing this on the luck based nature off the Playoff results for Rodborough and Melbourne Rockstars, which along with Abbotsford come from Div 1.1 and they all seem of similar strength. Which for me places them towards them bottom of the league vying for regulation playoffs spots to avoid automatic demotion.
Words from the Managers
Senile Old Men – Crimson Eagles
Top 3 was a good result for first season up in A-league since returning to MZ.
Players are approaching the right age, and I still have a foreign spot to fill (hopefully a striker with more than 4 heading to open up the possibility of wings)
Bullish on another top 3 berth if deterioration isn’t too harsh on the newly turned 28yos
Scruttino – Amputees FC
The team’s inability to score despite taking plenty of shots let us down last season despite solid statistical performances. Our talisman up front Remy Bundy is still young at 24/25, he’s still got some experience to gain before reaching his peak, but the future looks bright and we’re hoping to crack the top 3 for the first time. Shrewsbury are still the favourite, but we’ll give them a run for their money.
Paulg7 – Rodborough
Hello everyone, great to be part of the big A-League for the 1st time. Kinda been stuck in 1st division forever so this is a new challenge for me and my boys. I will probably stick with the same group of players that got me here. Anything around mid-table I would call it a success.
On the other hand I’m going to keep investing in my youth academy, as this is one of the best parts of MZ – Training potential superstars. Always a chance one of them will get a league game debut.
Paul
Dagriggstar – Skoolage United
Pretty lucky to have won div 1.3 last season to be honest, think toss got simmed in a couple of key games and I slept walked to the title. On one hand I do have a couple of NT level players but on the other hand got a back 4 composed of three 22 year olds and zero first XI players with more than 8 tackling (I do have a 20 year old dude on the bench with 10, maybe I should play him). I’m not expecting miracles don’t be surprised to see a few sales mid-season since I have a group of 4 older guys that may not meet the age profile for the team I’m building…
Eric the Eel – Shrewsbury Biscuits FC
Who knows how it will go! Happy with top 3. Sold oldies and youngsters not quite there yet. Some superstars approaching 21-22 years old so who knows? Need more foreigners 😀
A-League Season 55 Ladder Predictions
I’ll break the table up into groups of teams rather than where I think they’ll specifically place at the end of the season. From the looks of things this could be another open field of teams where promotions sides have a good chance of surviving.
Top 3 contenders – Shrewsbury Biscuits FC, Crimson Eagles and Amputees FC
Promotion smokeys – City Water Motel and Skoolage United
How far will they fall? – Glasston (4 players retired) and Dunder Mifflin FC (2 players retired)
Relegation playoff contenders – Rodborough, Melbourne Rockstars and Abbotsford
The bottom two – Cheltenham and Bondi Icebergs (2 players retired, but troy has sold up, so it doesn’t matter as much)
Written by Scruttino
aussiezone 