Jets To Finish In Top Four

The lads at FourFourTwo have given their flawed predictions for the A-League this year and I have a bone to pick.

Trev gave the Jets the Wooden Spoon and the highest anyone at FourFourTwo gave them was 7^th. What? And, oh, what's that? The Captain of the Mariners gives us the Wooden Spoon too. What a surprise.

So what's your prediction for the table after the last ball has been kicked this season?

I'm not going to predict that the Jets will take the title this year. No, the fan in me wants me to say yes but the part of me based in reality says no. 

Obviously, industry pundits' predictions in the FourFourTwo magazine, such as FoxSports commentators and newspaper journos seem to have a more balanced view of the Jets ability, placing them sixth.

But I've got an interesting question for you: who were the big name players last season? Who were the fan favourites and the goal scorers? OK, now you've thought of that, were any of those in the Mariners? No. (Sorry, they probably were if you were a Mariners fan, but for the sake of this story we'll ignore them).

So the point is that a team can be five seconds away from winning the Grand Final, and challenge the other leading team all the way, without star power, without Flores, van Dijk, Thompson, McKay, Smeltz, Broich, Barbarouses or Hernandez. Yes, that's right, the Mariners had Matt Simon. Matt Simon! And Adam Kwasnik.

Don't get me wrong, the Mariners have some solid players. And didn't they do the job right! But no real blinding lights. Musti made a splash, Perez fell over a few times, but what mattered most was the way the team was organised. It was tight, players knew their roles, defended very well, they played to their system very well and they came within a whisker of winning the Grand Final.

Even Brisbane Roar were given little chance of achieving much last season. Many of their players looked like solid A-League material but not title winners. But because of the way the team played, they took the league by storm.

My point is that the Jets can do this too. No, we don't have Harry Kewell, nor Brett Emerton, we don't even have Jason Culina. But if our solid base of players can keep mostly injury free and play competently to the system, I can't see any reason why the Jets can't be in the top four.

We have no strikers. Apparently. What about Ryan Griffiths? Jeremy Brockie? Chris Payne? What if Jeffers came back? According to the Jets coach, the 4-3-3 system will allow more attackers in the final third, with goals coming from a wider variety of attacking players. OK, that's the part I still can't convince myself of. If that mantra is right Branko, why didn't that happen last year?

But I'm going to suspend disbelief for a bit and hope that the Jets can function as a really, really hard team to beat, and that the goals do fly in from Abbas, Zadkovich, Jesic, Griffiths, Brockie, Payne and others.

With the work the Jets coaching and fitness staff have done in the pre-season compared to last year, I think the Jets will be better, rather than worse than last year.

So my humble prediction for the final A-League table for this year is:

Melbourne Victory
Brisbane Roar
Central Coast Mariners
Newcastle Jets
Adelaide United
Sydney FC
Perth Glory
Gold Coast United
Melbourne Heart
Wellington Phoenix

Brisbane will win the Grand Final again. Actually, cancel that. The Jets will have a dream run in the finals and take out the Grand Final. That's it.