Corica has taken the reins in his first head coaching role following the departure of Graham Arnold to the Socceroos.

The 45-year-old has huge boots to fill and hasn’t been helped by the shock exits of marquee pair Bobo and Adrian Mierzejewski in the past month.

But Corica is adamant the Sky Blues will be out to maintain their ultra-high standards and successfully defend the Premier’s Plate they have won for the past two years running.

The former Socceroo is also targeting another grand final victory and defending the FFA Cup trophy, while an Asian Champions League campaign beckons as well.

"Sydney FC always want to win titles, that’s something we look at before the start of the season,” he told FourFourTwo.

"The club wants to win trophies, we missed out on the grand final last season, which obviously the boys were very disappointed about and that’s something we need to do this season.

"We need to win the grand final again but also no team’s ever won three premierships in a row.

"That’s obviously a focus, a motivation for our players to really go down in the record books and prove… obviously Graham had them last season but we’ve got a core group that is still here and we’re going to improve on it. Our core focus is to win everything if we can keen.”

Corica was a foundation Sydney FC player and helped the club win two grand finals and a premiership. After hanging up his boots in 2010 he has served as the Sky Blues’ National Youth Team coach and as a first-team coach.

He believes he is ready for the top job and to take the club to ever greater heights.

"I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a goal of mine at some stage to be a head coach, I’ve done my apprenticeship, youth team, head coach,” Corica said.

It was just the next step for me – I’m definitely ready for the job. I’m looking forward to the challenge – of course it’s going to be a big challenge with the amount of success we’ve had in the past few years, but that’s the way football goes.

"I respect what we’ve done in the past couple of years but we want to take the club forward and continue what we’ve done.”

Corica’s job has been made harder with the departures of eight players, including Luke Wilkshire, Jordy Buijs and David Carney.

The biggest blow came with both Brazilian Bobo, the current Golden Boot winner, and last season’s Johnny Warren Medal winner Mierzejewski both leaving.

Corica admits the pair’s departure was both unexpected and unwanted.

"They did really well for us the last couple of years, Adrian the last year,” he said.

"We tried our best to keep them but they had very good offers to go overseas. It’s difficult to keep players like that when you have very successful seasons. Players do come and go.

"It was a little bit unexpected and obviously they were two players I wanted to keep in the squad. But that’s football, they did well for us. Big clubs come in and they want to big money for these players and it’s very hard to keep them.

"We have the salary cap here and it’s hard to keep everyone happy. But they did very well for us. But there’s plenty of players out there and of very good quality as well. We’ll take our time, make sure we get the right ones that fit with what we’re trying to achieve."

Corica is on the hunt for new additions and Sydney FC has linked with several big-names from overseas. Trent Buhagiar and Daniel De Silva have been signedfrom Central Coast.

The coach said making sure any signings are ‘good guys’ and fit in with the club culture is vital.

"We’ve got two Under-20s to bring in and they will come from our NPL side,” he said.

"We’ve got Trent from the Mariners and they’ve be quite a few coming in in the next month or so, but we’re making sure we do our homework and it’s the preparation that we do to make sure we get the right player, the right individual that fits into our style of play.

"But also the right person that fits into the culture and you need to be a good guy as well to make sure they get along with everyone as well. With Bobo and Adrian both going that’s the key areas there that we have to really replace well."

Arnold lost just 27 games out of 142 he coached in his four years with the Sky Blues. In that period the club won two premierships, one grand final and the FFA Cup.

Under Arnold Sydney FC favoured a counter-attacking style and a 4-2-3-1 formation. Corica plans to make minimal changes to the playing style with a ‘if ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mentality.

"I’ll stick with things pretty much the same,” he confirmed.

"There will be changes that I’ll implement, but a lot of these players were here last season. It worked very well under Graham and there won’t be too much changes to the playing style.

"Mainly the players that will come in that have to learn how we play and make sure they know exactly what I expect, what the team expects and to win games and trophies."