John Aloisi left Melbourne Heart at the tail end of the young A-League’s equal longest winless streak. He’s been a busy boy in the meantime.

There have been trips to Barcelona to learn from some of the best minds in the game. He’s been a regular analyst of the competition on the television. And he’s been working alongside Kevin Muscat as youth and development coach at Melbourne Victory in a championship-winning season.

So it’s fair to say coach Aloisi version 2.0 comes packed with plenty of added features.

“The biggest thing about turning up for the first day of this [new] job was I knew exactly what I wanted,” says the man who took over Brisbane Roar in the off-season. “At Melbourne Heart, I felt confident [when I started], but I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect.

“And it doesn’t matter how many coaching courses you do, they can’t teach you what to do when players are not getting paid on time, or if your club is trying to sell and make cutbacks, like at Melbourne Heart, or that you’re going to sell five players within a pre-season and you lose your most important player and you can’t replace him. They can’t teach you that in those courses.”

One of the things he’s learnt on the job is what he needs around him. At Brisbane, he says, he has the keys to the football department. He’s the one who makes all decisions about the medical set up, about the football operations, about who his assistants and conditioning coaches are, and he’s the one in charge of the budget for player signings.

“I look after all that. I’m the one that makes a final decision on everything to do with football. And I felt that it was necessary, if I was going to take any role.”

His time at Heart showed plenty of promise, but in hindsight, it’s not hard to see how his work may have been hamstrung by a club that had taken one eye off the ball. It’s owners were, after all, about to make a small fortune out of a Manchester City takeover.

Aloisi had only just hung up the boots when he took on the job, though he says he was not thrown into the role too early. “You look at Kevin Muscat. He had four years as an apprentice. For the first six months at Melbourne Victory [after taking over as head coach], he didn’t realise what had hit him. But he learnt quickly.

“So I don’t think that I wasn’t ready. I think I’m better prepared now, yes, but that’s the same with anyone who has had time as a coach. You learn from experience.”

He’s promising a similarly fresh look to the Brisbane Roar this season. The trademark possession game will be still be there, of course, but now with extra precision where it counts.

“What I saw with Brisbane Roar last year was that they didn’t turn possession into beating lines...and actually getting in behind the opposition. They had a lot of the ball, but without creating as many chances as they probably had in past years.

“We still want to be a good passing team, like Brisbane Roar have always been, but just a little bit different in a few of our patterns. Instead of just keeping possession for the sake of keeping possession, we want to really try and hurt teams when we can. Making sure that we penetrate in the final third as much as possible.”

So what happens when a coach of his record teams up with a club that has enjoyed as much success as Brisbane? Nothing much in the FFA Cup, which they were turfed out of in the first round by Western Sydney. But it all seemed to click into place in the season opener last weekend, a rematch against the Wanderers which the Roar took out 3-1.

Aloisi got more than three points from that clash. He also saw that the structures he’s been drilling into his new charges all pre-season are paying off, and that his key purchases in the off-season were no lemons.

“I’ve got players like Jamie Maclaren, that can make those runs [through the defence], and it helps when you’ve got good players in behind him, like Corona and [an old hand like] Broich that can feed him the ball.”

McLaren is the 22-year-old brought across from Perth, where he scored nine goals in 20 matches (seven starts, 13 substitute appearances) in what should have been an impressive season for the Glory that was ultimately all brought undone by a wee salary cap scandal. He scored twice for Aloisi against the Wanderers.

Aloisi also looks to have nursed his team through an off-season of instability: all the headlines have been about debts, late payments and owners the Bakrie Group wanting to walk away from the club. Or being pushed. The situation has been so bad that one young star decided it is better to clubless than to be there.

“There’s still a lot that we are trying to get in order,” says Aloisi of his club’s recovery from those recent dramas. “There are things that are out of my control as well. The Bakries are putting assurances in place that the club is going to be looked after.

“Even though we’ve being going through a really tough time, the players have been focussed on playing and training and trying to be as ready as possible for the season.”

Aloisi’s second test of the season comes this Sunday, at home against the Central Coast Mariners.