The SBS football analyst said the squad was failing to make the most of star signing Alessandro Del Piero and lacked the structure to stop teams picking them off on the counter.

Sydney have conceded 30 goals in the first 14 rounds and head to Perth on Saturday without their first choice defenders Pascal Bosschaart, Adam Griffiths and Fabio.

Zdrilic said the side was seriously depleted by injuries in key positions but dismissed suggestions the squad lacked the quality to make a genuine assault on the final six.

“I don’t agree with that at all,” he said. “It’s too easy to say they don’t have the players – I don’t think that is the case. I think they’ve got the players to do better than they’ve been doing.

“Most people would have looked at Western Sydney Wanderers at the start and said well a lot of these guys were fringe players last year. Now look at them. They’re third on the ladder and everybody’s thinking differently.

He added: “You only have to look at Central Coast Mariners – they are the most consistent side because everyone knows what they’re doing through their squad, player for player.

“You can’t say their squad is 10 times better than the rest of the league. I think they’ve got a good squad and they’re playing fantastic football but I think there are better squads in the league but they’re not playing better.”

Sydney will be boosted by the arrival of striker Joel Griffiths in time for their round 17 game against Wellington Phoenix but Zdrilic said it would be unrealistic to expect the former Golden Boot winner to solve the club’s on-field problems.

The Sky Blues didn’t have far to look for answers, though, with their cross town rivals, Western Sydney Wanderers providing the perfect example of how to build a winning outfit.

“You know exactly how (coach Tony Popovic) wants them to play, he’s got a plan, all the players understand that and they know their job,” Zdrilic said. “When they win the ball they know their job and when they lose the ball they know where to be.

“Now with Sydney it hasn’t been like that – you haven’t really been sure how they’re trying to play or what are they trying to do. With Sydney they’ve been all over the shop and that means it hasn’t been drilled into them yet.”

Zdrilic said former coach Ian Crook may have been blindsided by the late arrival of Del Piero, throwing his plans into disarray, and it was too early to judge the impact of new coach Frank Farina.

But he said there was no doubt the club had to go back to the drawing board to have any hope of saving their season.

“Del Piero for me has been an absolute stand out and really the solution for Sydney is to set the team up to be more compact so when they win the ball they get it to (him) so he can just do what he does best,” the former striker said.

“He has runners like (Yairo) Yau, like (Brett) Emerton and (Ali) Abbas – these kind of guys that have a lot of pace – and (Joel) Chianese when he comes back in and (Joel) Griffiths obviously when he plays.

“These guys just have to make the right run and Del Piero will find them. The fact is they haven’t done it enough times and more often than not they lose the ball before it gets to him and that’s the problem.”

He added: “When (Wanderers) win the ball it’s two or three passes and it’s in to (Shinji) Ono – so why can’t Sydney FC do that? If they’re structured correctly, and they work on it, but it has to be drilled into them.

“Del Piero needs to be used better and more often. You need him as fresh as possible for as long as possible in every game and that’s by trying to work out how to win the ball back without him having to run back and forth trying to win it on his own.

“They’ve got enough younger players to try and do that but then again they need to be very well organised to marshall that.”

Zdrilic said he was in the crowd at Allianz Stadium when the former Juventus star curled in the free kick against Newcastle Jets in round 2.

“Very rarely as an ex-player do I go to a game as a real fan,” he said. “It wasn’t for Sydney FC in particular it was just for the A-League in general. It was like – this is amazing, here we have this absolute legend of the game who has scored this brilliant goal with so many people in the stadium.

“To be honest – it’s been quite amazing how he’s been able to stand out and do so well considering Sydney FC’s position on the table.”