JETS coach Ernie Merrick plans for hired gun Abdiel Arroyo to make his debut in the FFA Cup but senior men Nigel Boogaard and Nikolai Topor-Stanley could be put in cotton wool.
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After a week of pre-season testing, the Jets got to work at Ray Watt Oval on Monday.
Fresh faces Nick Fitzgerald and Matt Millar were on deck, but Boogaard and Topor-Stanley did a modified session.
Dimi Petratos, who spent two weeks with the Socceroos at the end of the campaign, resumes training on Monday.
Arroyo is scheduled to arrive on August 1. Unlike the rest of the squad, who enjoyed a two-month holiday, the striker is mid-season and played for Panama at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which finished last week.
The Jets meet Melbourne Victory in the FFA Cup round-of-32 at AAMI Park on August 7.
"Abdiel has been playing and training regularly so he should be pretty fit when he arrives," Merrick said. "He has the profile we were looking for - big, strong, very quick, an in-behind type of player, who gets on the end of things.
"I expect him to be fully fit and ready for the FFA Cup, provided he arrives at the beginning of August. I don't know if we need to play him 90 minutes but I wouldn't mind giving him some game time."
The Jets will have three hit outs before taking on Victory, including a friendly against Wanderers in Sydney on July 31.
Merrick joked that Boogaard, who had an arthroscope in the off-season, and Topor-Stanley were "up stairs having a cup of tea" on Monday.
"I would not say whether they will be able to play on August 7, it depends on the level of fitness," the coach said. "Put it this way, I wouldn't push them into playing a full game if there were any doubts. I would rather save them for October 11 when the season starts."
Merrick was impressed with the condition of the players on Monday.
"The training program that [conditioning coach] Chris Smith gave them has obviously worked," he said. "Most of them have lost weight. Big striker Kaine Shepherd has dropped four kilograms and they are all looking much fitter than expected."
Keeping players on the pitch, especially in the front third, will be a priority.
"We had so much trouble keeping our goal-scorers on the park last year," Merrick said. "Jason Hoffman was out for 14 weeks, so was Joey Champness, Roy O'Donovan missed eight weeks through suspension.
"It is those type of things that can determine how much success you have.
"I identified the top 15 players in the squad and looked at how many games they played. They should play about 1900-to-2000 minutes, which is around 22 games. Out of the 15 that I identified, only six of them managed to play that sort of game time. If you look at Sydney, they virtually had the same squad week in week out.
"That is the difference. Having you best players on the pitch for as long as possible."
