Wanderers eye Robbie Keane, Vedran Janjetovic in bid to boost squad

Western Sydney coach Tony Popovic will look to bolster his squad in the new year. with one eye on their 2017 Asian Champions League campaign.

Coach Tony Popovic Popovic says the Wanderers have the salary cap room to build on their squad. Picture: AAP

Western Sydney coach Tony Popovic will look to bolster his squad in the new year with one eye on their 2017 Asian Champions League campaign, although he won’t reveal who he is chasing.

Sydney FC keeper Vedran Janjetovic and off-contract striker Robbie Keane, the Republic of Ireland’s all-time leading scorer, are the players rumoured to be in the frame.

Janjetovic has been granted indefinite leave by the Sky Blues to deal with personal issues and Keane’s wage demands could prove beyond the Wanderers’ scope.

Popovic said there was nothing to report on either man as far as the Wanderers were concerned.

But with the January transfer window drawing closer, Popovic made it clear the Wanderers have the salary cap room to augment their squad.

“If we feel that someone can help strengthen the squad, that will happen in January,” Popovic said. “We’ll certainly strengthen in January in areas that we believe we need.

“I won’t reveal the areas I’m looking at but there are a few areas that we’ve targeted that we feel can help us with the period that we have with the Champions League.”

How quickly those new players might be used could be anyone’s guess, with the Wanderers getting back on the A-League winners list in fine style. Nicolas Martinez and Mitch Nicholls were superb as Western Sydney won 4-1 in Gosford on Saturday to move above the Mariners on the table.

Going into the game, the Wanderers had drawn five of their previous six matches and losing the other.

“We have been performing well, it’s here for everyone to see, but we haven’t got the results,” Popovic said.

“We keep believing in what we’re doing and you can see that’s a very confident team out there that finished a game off very strongly.

“We haven’t been able to put teams away, so it was nice to get four goals.”

Mariners coach Paul Okon said he couldn’t fault the application, attitude and hunger of his starting side, in which striker Roy O’Donovan was the only player aged over 25.

“Can we improve? Absolutely,” Okon said. “We need to be better in those important moments that we need to defend better, but we’ll continue to improve.”

Mariners midfielders Mickael Tavares and Nick Montgomery missed the match with ankle and hamstring injuries respectively.

Okon said Montgomery was a good chance of being back for next Saturday’s game away to Wellington and he would have a better idea of Tavares’ prospects on today or tomorrow.

AAP