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."