This year history was made when Jerrad Tyson and Kerem Bulut became the first ‘returnees’ the to Western Sydney Wanderers – in other words, the first former players of the club to rejoin.
Tyson joins Nikolai Topor-Stanley and Shannon Cole as the only remaining founding players from the club’s first A-League season after Mark Bridge departed for Thailand. Going on the fifth year of the team’s existence, that would appear to be a very high turnover, even in a league where a transience of playing stocks is a fact of life.
For comparison, Sydney FC have three players who have returned to the club – Matthew Jurman, Alex Brosque and David Carney, of which Carney played in the Sky Blues’ first season. With the departure of Archie Thompson, Leigh Broxham is Melbourne Victory’s longest-serving talent, while Matt McKay is in his second spell at Brisbane Roar – where he was a foundation player (with a fair sprinkling of survivors from each of the club’s eras) and at the Newcastle Jets, Labinot Haliti is in his third spell at the Hunter Stadium. For the Wellington Phoenix, Vince Lia has been there from the start with Glen Moss returning to the club. The Central Coast Mariners are unrecognisable from just a few years ago, never mind their grand final-winning team and Eugene Galekovic has seen it all with Adelaide United.
The main departure for the Wanderers after the first season was Tarek Elrich, who went on to flourish with Adelaide United, while arrivals included Tomi Juric, Matthew Spiranovic and Brendon Santalab – the last of which is still at the club, where he is a fan favourite. During the offseason of 2014, a time in which Western Sydney was embarking on an ultimately triumphant ACL campaign, there was a major shake-up with players like Michael Beauchamp, Youssouf Hersi, Shinji Ono and Aaron Mooy among the exits – and while Mooy showed his quality in Wanderers colours, in retrospect many will feel it was but a glimpse of his enormous potential. In an ultimately chaotic 2014-15, 38 different names made first team appearances for the Wanderers and of the players signed by club that season, only Brendan Hamill remains – along with the returning Bulut.
With another shake-up inevitable, Popovic and the Wanderers joined the trend of going Spanish for 2015-16, signing Alberto, Andreu and Dimas – all of whom would play a part in the run to last season’s grand final – alongside Mitch Nichols and Dario Vidosic. Federico Piovaccari proved such a disappointment that a true centre-forward eluded the side throughout the season, an issue which would ultimately haunt them at crucial times. Shortly after the grand final defeat to Adelaide United, another round of player departures began with Romeo Castelen, Alberto, Andreu, Vidosic, Bridge, Jacob Pepper and Scott Jamieson leaving.
In their place, Jack Clisby, Jacob Melling, Bruno Piñatares, Aritz Borda, Jumpei Kusukami, Nicolas Martinez, Robert Cornthwaite and Steven Lustica have joined the club alongside the returning Bulut and Tyson. While Tyson was never more than a reserve goalkeeper for the Wanderers team, he was and is a popular figure at the club. It remains to be seen whether Bulut will be part of the solution to the lack of a goalscorer, which could make all the difference this season.
There are unanswered questions less than two weeks before the historic season-opening Derby at Homebush – will Popovic make this latest round of Wanderers players click together? A poor performance in the FFA Cup against Melbourne City has raised concerns among fans.
Such nerves may well prove premature.
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