Douglas Costa

Obviously had a bit of a changeover towards the end of last season with Patrick Kisnorbo coming in for Ufuk Talay.

But look, probably one of those seasons where, and, you know, Sydney FC traditionally do bring in some bigger kind of foreign players and some exciting players, but they probably, you know, not as big as the season before with, um, Douglas Costa, et cetera.

But they probably didn't live up to the expectations, Sydney FC, and that's probably what happened with Ufuk Talay being let go towards the end of the season.

And then obviously Patrick Kisnorbo got them all the way to the grand final, which they unfortunately for them lost to Auckland FC.

I think for the, for the first, was it maybe six to eight rounds of last season before he got injured, he was the best player in the league.

And when Douglas Costa was here the season before as well, he had to play out of position.

So I, I think the quality is still there for him.

He's just been unfortunate with some of the exter- external circumstances around him.

We have said that before.

Um, but I think they'd be most people's, um, odds on favorites, uh, to win the league at the start of the season.

But again, we, we made a lot of the same arguments two years ago when Douglas Costa came in as well.

Mm.

McKennie in the middle was the one new thing we got.

which was interesting to me to see how it works out with Douglas.

Yeah, I mean, I look at that lineup and it's just, it's apparent, it's evident that Spalletti, has his guys that he has trust and he has belief and faith in, and he wants to find a way to get all that in.

When I'm seeing Chico out there and Nico Gonzalez, McKinney, all these guys, Chelek, Kalulu, it's just these are the guys he wants to bank on, he wants to go with and trust and has faith in, and I wholeheartedly can see why and agree with it.

But we make the change, and I'm fine with it.

And then when it plays out, McKinney moves advanced.

Saar comes in and stabilizes next to Douglas Luiz.

And then you have Nico Gonzalez shifting to the left flank.