A-League: Jets coach Arthur Papas hopes to strike it rich with front-third recruits

The quartet have been charged with transforming a spluttering Jets attack which yielded a league worst 25 goal into a premiership force.

In a major overhaul, Roy O'Donovan, Apostolos Stamatelopoulos and Ali Abbas were shipped out.

The new faces add to Valentino Yuel, Kosta Petratos, who played 331 minutes in 11 appearances last season, and scholarship players Archie Goodwin and Blake Archbold.

Although admitting there are "no guarantees" coach Arthur Papas believes the recruits have the ingredients to supercharge the Jets.

Boumal (Georgia), Mikeltadze (Greece), Penha (Brazil) and Silvera (Portugal) have taken different flight paths to Newcastle.

Boumal is by far the most accomplished of the group, having played for Cameroon at the Africa Nations Cup (2019) and in the top flight in Greece, China and Japan.

In Japan, he played under former Socceroos boss Ange Postecoglou at Yokohama F. Marinos, the season before Papas joined the club as an assistant.

"Olivier is a good player who has been in a system that has similarities to some of the things we are looking to develop in our team," Papas said. "That is obviously a positive.

"It is important that he gets here soon. It is always a new challenge when you bring a new player in. There are no guarantees with anything. I am quite optimistic that if he can integrate well into the team, he will be good.

"He has played for Panathinaikos, which is one of the biggest clubs in Greece and Europe, was involved in a massive transfer fee to go to China and has played in the J-League. His pedigree is not in question.

"Most importantly, he is passionate and desperate to come here. He has been messaging me every day. He is waiting to finish one of the medicals and hopefully we get him on a plane within the next week."

Papas has been tracking Penha for almost a year and first flagged the Brazilian when the coach was at his last club in Japan.

"He has come through a great system in Brazil - Atletico Mineiro," Papas said. "He has been loaned out but that is common practice in Brazil. They loan out 50 players a year. That shows you how big a club they are and what their youth system is like.

"The last eight months, he has progressed a lot. He got loaned out to Confianca in Serie B and played every minute of football for the past six months, 18 games.

"He is very versatile across the front third, is great on set pieces and likes to shoot. He has won the ball back in the front third, the third the most in the league. That is important. His numbers, physically, are some of the highest in his team in terms of distance, sprints and high-speed running.

"We are getting a very mobile, attacking player."

Mikeltadze, 23, arrived in Sydney on Thursday and has been following a training program in quarantine. A Georgian international, he played for Xanthi in the Greek second division last season.

"He has a spin bike and strength equipment in his quarantine hotel room," Papas said. "The good thing is that he has worked with [Jets assistant] Arthur Diles before, he has played with [Jets defender] Matty Jurman before. I'm confident that we have a very good player."

Silvera, 20, has been playing in the second division in Portugal after a move from the Mariners to Primeira Liga club Pacos de Ferreira.

"He came out of the blocks here and made a move to a very good club," Papas said. "It has been difficult in terms of game time. I have watched a lot of games that he has played and had a good conversation with him. He has so much to offer and there are a lot of things he has to work on. He should come back with a point to prove but also a little more polish."

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