Abbas was the Jets' most dangerous player in the finals series.

Gold Coast also showed an interest, but the left-winger is expected to put pen to paper with the Jets early next week.

"The terms - the money and the duration - are essentially done," Jets chief executive John Tsatsimas said yesterday. "There are a couple of finer details to work out, but everything is pretty much agreed to."

Abbas's agent, Vlado Bozinoski, said other clubs had made approaches, but the 23-year-old's preference was to stay in Newcastle.

"Ali is happy there," Bozinoski said. "He is starting to enjoy his game and people can see that as well. Unless something drastic happens, he will be there. Hopefully by the middle of next week it should be all done."

The Jets tabled an offer to Milicevic in November, and Tsatsimas said recent talks were encouraging.

"It is an upgrade on what he is on this season, but whether it is enough remains to be seen," Tsatsimas said.

Milicevic, 29, has also attracted interest from China and new club Melbourne Heart.

His signature would round out the Jets retention targets.

"We signed most of the people we wanted to retain early on," Tsatsimas said.

The Jets broke for their end-of-season holiday yesterday and do not return until May 1.

By that stage Tsatsimas hopes to have finalised most of the playing roster, which could include as many as nine new faces.

"The plan of attack is find out where the weaknesses are, determine the players we want to target, what the timeframe is, who is available and go from there," Tsatsimas said.

Defender Tarek Elrich is recuperating after groin surgery on Wednesday.

The explosive Jets fullback is in Sydney at his parents' house and hopes to be back in full training by late May, three weeks after the Jets start their pre-season.

"If it was in season I could be back in eight weeks, but I'm going to take it easy and make sure everything is right," Elrich said.

He has been plagued by the problem for 18 months and is looking forward to running freely.

"Branko likes to play attacking football and for his fullbacks to overlap and get forward," Elrich said.

"But he understood I had my groin problems and didn't expect me to make 20 runs forward a game.

"He was happy with three or four as long as they were quality.

"I assisted a few goals this season, but hopefully I can get forward more often and get a few more."