Carlton CEO Cain Liddle said the club is thrilled with their off-season acquisitions in both the trade period and elsewhere.
The Blues were quite active traders and Liddle broke down what Blues fans can expect from each of their additions.
“We were really happy with our trade period,” he told SEN Mornings.
“First and foremost, we’re really happy all the players we wanted to re-sign, signed.
“We were then able to attract a number of players who were really important to us.
“We see a day with Mitch McGovern, Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow being a really difficult forward line to match up on.
“The beauty of Mitch is he has the flexibility to go back if we need him in the interim.”
Carlton traded for former top five draft pick Will Setterfield, giving up a future second-round selection for him.
Liddle said club General Manager of List Management Stephen Silvagni rated Setterfield as the best player in the 2016 draft.
“Will Setterfield is a young on-baller who a number of clubs were interested in,” he said.
“Stephen Silvagni knows Will really well and actually had him ranked number one that year in the draft. He rates him that highly.
“To pick him up, we were absolutely thrilled.”
Carlton added to their depth late in the trade period and Liddle said the club wanted players who could provide some experience.
“We brought in Alex Fasolo and Nic Newman. Fasolo is someone that our team tracked all year,” he said.
“He’s someone that can have an impact immediately.
“Newman is someone we essentially got for nothing at the back end. Nic’s someone our list manager Michael Agresta helped draft to Sydney off the rookie list and he’s developed into a good player.”
Carlton had significant injury problems all season, adding to their struggles as a bottom club.
They addressed this by bringing in well-regarded high performance manager Andrew Russell from Hawthorn.
“We’ve made some changes in our staff, we’ve brought in Andrew Russell who spent a number of years at Hawthorn and he’ll be our director of high performance,” Liddle said.
“We underwent an extensive review of our high performance team at the back end of last year.
“We had some well advertised injuries. We just wanted to make sure we were doing everything possible in that space to make sure we’re developing our athletes in the best possible way.”
Carlton will go into this month’s National Draft with the number one pick, where they’re expected to take midfielder Sam Walsh.