Perth Glory captain Adam Taggart reckons his team can be the A-League Men's surprise packets this season, declaring finals as a minimum target.
Glory collected the wooden spoon last season in a campaign that yielded just five wins and seven draws from 27 matches.
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Perth conceded a league-high 69 goals in 2023-24, including a whopping 22 in the final four matches as the wheels dramatically fell off.
That run of heavy defeats, which included an 8-0 loss to Melbourne City and a 7-1 defeat to Sydney FC, resulted in the club parting ways with coach Alen Stajcic.
The highly rated David Zdrilic has been thrust into the hot seat in his first role as a senior coach, but the outside predictions aren't looking pretty, with Glory tipped to finish near the foot of the table again.
But with new owners in place to go with a new coach and a new-look squad, Taggart is confident Glory will buck the odds this season.
"It's definitely a new era and a fresh start," Taggart said at Tuesday's season launch, in which it was announced he has been retained as captain. "I think for all of us, that [new era] just gives us a fresh opportunity and that bit of optimism that we can be a bit of a surprise package this year, and use all of that freshness and new people to push this club forward.
"I think we obviously need to be in the top six as an absolute minimum.
"I know that everyone says that, but I think for the club not finishing in the top six the last [four] seasons, it's obviously something that needs to be rectified.
"Challenging for finals football is an absolute minimum. For me, that is winning every home game ... and improving our away record."
Glory made huge changes to their squad during the off-season. Gone are the likes of Daniel Bennie (Queens Park Rangers), Aleksandar Susnjar (Newcastle Jets), Stefan Colakovski (Wellington Phoenix) and Josh Rawlins (Melbourne Victory).
In their place, familiar faces Josh Risdon and Brandon O'Neill have returned to their hometown club along with a host of little-known entities.
The new coach remains optimistic about what the team can achieve.
"You always go into a season wanting to win everything you can," Zdrilic said. "We've got the mindset to be very aggressive in every game, home and away. The belief is for us to find a way to win every game.
"Everything's new. So there's no reference to anything other than this is a totally new culture and entity."
Glory kick off their season away to Macarthur FC on Sunday.