South has announced seven (7!) new signings for the Australian Championship and yet only confirmed the exit of one player, Yuzo Iwakami.

The exit of Iwakami came as a little bit of a shock to fans as the experienced Japanese Defensive Midfielders played a significant role in helping the club avoid relegation and win the Dockerty Cup in the final part of the season.

In hindsight it appears that his signing was always intended to be a short term ship-steadying move, of which he played his part successfully, and his eventual exit may have in fact paved the way for further international signings which have since come to be announed.

So who have we signed? Well, forwards mostly. Japanese Right Winger Yuki Uchida joins us following a great season at Dandenong Thunder, and Striker Manny Aguek returns to the club after leaving Avondale. Forward Bilal Habib also joins us from Altona Magic, whilst Centre Back Thomas Giannakopoulos round out our NPL pillaging, joining us from Dandenong City.

There has also been a picking from the still warm carcass of Western United, with three players joining us from the dissolved* club. Khoder Kaddour and Sebtastian Pasquali arrive to bolster the midfield whilst Oliver Lavale offers yet another attacking option.

One can’t help but wonder why the club has been so active in the transfer market considering the improved form in the second half of the season. I think there’s a few reasons for this.

Firstly, although our late season form was ok, it did not demonstrate the ability to keep up with top teams – on average. Yes there was the Semi- Final win against Avondale, but there was also the 3-0 loss to Oakleigh.

Secondly, there was also going to be a concentration of state talent ahead of the Australian Championship. This was to be expected of all teams and to be honest I’m surprised we haven’t seen more top players from the bottom NPL teams signed up by other clubs. Giannakopoulos, Habib and Uchida are deserving of a national platform – if it wasn’t going to be South it was likely going to be someone else to pick them up!

Thirdly, the demise* of Western United provided a late opportunistic source of players. One questions whether Pasqali, Kaddour and Lavale were part of our initial plans at all or rather were reactionary signings following the recent ruling about Western United player contract releases.

Either way we have a confirmed net intake of six players which brings our squad size to about 31. That’s a lot of players for potentially only six games!

So what is the club going to do with all these players? Will we retain the large squad for the OFC Professional League and 2026 NPL season? Are the new signings only short term for the Australian Championship? We’re going to wait and see, as there’s too many variables to consider at the moment.

So thinking just one step ahead (instead of ten) we must ask, how is South going to line up now?

Well, firstly we need to factor in unconfirmed rumours about player exists. It appears Ren Nagamatsu has left the club and a number of other players are rumoured to have left too. Although I would have loved to have seen more of Ren, with at least three serviceable options for his position now, it’s likely the club will be able to weather the blow.

So what might our team look like? Well apologies, I’m about to reveal the biggest weakness of this blog, actual football knowledge – regardless – we have options across the park now, at as a minimum a new midfield and forward line up to work with.

Considering this was a greatest weakness during the season (we scored the fourth fewest goals in the league this season) this is a pretty promising development. However there are two concerns I have with this team.

Cohadzic did a wonderful job organising our existing list and infusing it with new players, but this transfer window poses a much tougher challenge in some ways. He will need to navigate half of a new starting squad, team chemistry issues, and even disappointed first team players who will inevitably lose their spot.

Secondly one must question the messaging to the rest of our program. I am very interested to see how many South juniors and former juniors actually get a run, it would be a shame if we simply bring in an entirely new squad for the Australian Championship.

Either way, it’s certainly exciting times and at face value it looks like we’ve done very well out of the transfer window! Certainly a lot to track in the coming weeks!