His TV analysis was always very good, he's calm and disciplined. His coaching record at the next level down is as good as you'd like to see, even if with the fair wind of being at a big and successful club. He has international playing pedigree and credibility. He's captained and won the Championship in the A League. He has had Australian U20 coaching connections and is otherwise heavily connected into the Aussie scene, well respected and will be capable of attracting Aussie talent where we need to fill squad gaps. He's demanding, detailed and insists on hard work.
He's also fairly young and motivated about his coaching career. He's recently completed a football sabbatical where he studied under new Arsenal manager Unai Emery at Paris-St Germain and Pablo Machin at Spanish side Girona FC.
And we get him, when previously he has turned down the Jets.
Jeeze, he's as good as we could expect.
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Last year we had a top 6 squad that stopped playing for and listening to the coach. Problem areas weren't getting addressed, players were mostly demotivated. That's with the notable exception of only a few, mostly the kiwi kids. Even Krishna went sour.
And we became a disorganised rabble. All it needed was a decent coach for it to have been a respectable or better season.
If Rudan can improve on at least a couple of import positions, and make some astute kiwi/aussie squad recruitments then we should have every reason to be looking at top 6 and with reasonable hope for pressing the top 4. To hell with the jinx stuff, we should be demanding at least that and I am damn sure Rudan won't be aiming for anything less.