Strikers
While our midfield was maligned, our forwards were certainly not without critique this year, Dylan Macallister played only a handful of games this year and while he looked good early, he dropped off the radar pretty quickly, a great clubman who has a contract for next year, it’ll be interesting to see how Aloisi uses him as there are certain parallels between Macallister and journeyman Daniel Macbreen, given Aloisi is likely to have him on contract regardless of if he wants him for the next year or not what role does he play? Josip Tadic had a solid year, although he couldn’t string together a really good run of form, whenever he looked like getting into a top gear he’d either be injured or would suffer some degree of setback, hopefully next year with better service and some more help from either a more creative attacking midfielder or another striker he can put away a fair few as this was what held us back at large, a lack of an out and out striker. Eli Babalj came back with a whole bunch of fanfare, but the man was clearly down on form and confidence and couldn’t really recapture the form which saw him sold in the first place, by some accounts he’s looking for a move back overseas, but from both a Melbourne Heart and from a personal development point of view I’d like to see him tear the league apart again before looking for pastures new.
So with a fairly good strike-force and only playing one striker, what do we need? We’ve got a good finisher in Tadic, a good targetman in D-Mac and a nice all rounder in Babalj, three different types of striker all of whom didn’t really excel, so to a degree its the delivery which needs to be adjusted. But some raw pace wouldn’t go astray, ex Melbourne Heart trainee Simon Zappia had a superb last year with Weribee in State League One and has turned his attitude around nicely, in addition to which he finds himself within a very impressive Oakleigh squad for this year, a good season under his belt would find him snapped up, getting him back would certainly not be our worst decision. Tarcan Kefeli can’t stop scoring (this year or last year), or break into the Hume City first team, I’d love to see him in the youth team at least,.
All Heart 