Agree. Arnie was yelling at him to push in too. Then Leckie comes on and sits very wide generally.
Too one note and just relying on our fullbacks for any sort of attack really.
Agree. Arnie was yelling at him to push in too. Then Leckie comes on and sits very wide generally.
Too one note and just relying on our fullbacks for any sort of attack really.
Kudos to anyone who stayed up through all of that.
Can’t see us going much further at all.
Anyone looking for highlights (including all the pens) can see them here:
Massive kudos to Ryan for keeping us in it. Id have been very tempted to sub on Vuka
Sainsbury really needs to sort his club football out. He’s rusty and it’s REALLY showing now.
How was our boy Rhyan Bert?
I think it can give us hope that our opponent needed extra time to get past Kyrgyzstan.
Beyond that, I would’ve gone into this tournament signing off on a semi-final defeat to an impressive Korean side, even before our injuries started piling up.
Basically played as a right winger all game and didn’t have much to do in defence. Made some great runs in behind, particularly once the Uzbeks started to tore. Often the passes in to him were to his feet rather than ahead of him so he couldn’t provide much. When Leckie came on, I thought the two of them linked up well together.
UAE are rubbish. No Omar A, they are very beatable. Korea on the other hand…
On the positive, I think out defensive shape is great and we are doing well at winning the ball back.
The passing from middle to final 3rd is so risk adverse. Maybe Amini to come in for Rogic?
Man, I watched that whole match last night, including extra time and penalties. I haven’t been that bored watching a game of football for as long as I can remember. It didn’t help that Uzb had 5 or 6 defenders in the box the whole time but we really need to work out how to play against times that set up like that. I was over the moon for Maty’s penalty saves, you could see how much it meant to him. Also happy for Kruse. Brave to step up for that pen amongst all of the negativity towards him, and he executed it very nicely. I’ve never been much of a fan of Kruse, but some of the vile shit he’s had to put up with from fans is just ridiculous.
I’m relieved that we’re through now, but somewhat jaded because it means I’ll need to stay up and watch another shit game like that.
Yeah that’s an honourable pass mark for me with this squad.
Dire performance, Leckie came on and immediately demonstrated the level that front 4 should have been playing at.
But yeah too many crucial players out to do any damage in this tournament.
Without having seen the game … hopefully with Leckie having had an appearance off the bench to test out the body and work off any rustiness, that should be it as far as a starting spot for Maclaren. He’s just not an international level player for mine, and it doesn’t help that on top of that he came into the tournament low on confidence, neither scoring nor even playing at club level.
Agree with others that with this depleted squad, quarters is roughly a pass mark. However, considering we haven’t faced (nor will we next match) any of the other big handful of sides, I think pass mark should be reaching the semis and getting arse blasted by South Korea.
Slow, ponderous football for the whole game. Nobody, bar Leckie when he came on and Ryan out wide, showed any urgency or quickness in attack. The amount of times Ryan was on his own with space to run into and his hand in the air screaming for the ball only for Milligan/Irvine/Degenek/Sainsbury to turn and sideways pass to the guy next to him was ridiculous! The pace of our play needs to lift dramatically.
They stacked the defence but were static, we should have gone at them with quick passing, movement and one touch football instead of sideways passing between our central mids and defenders. They were happy to let us do that all the way to the end of extra time.
Rogic is not a creative midfielder. Never has been. Neither is Irvine. They attack with the ball and at the ball respectively. Amini needs to play in the absence of Mooy.
Decided to stay up and watch, great result in the end thanks to Matty Ryan. What a beast those two saves were. I did think we were pretty unlucky to not get a goal during normal time we didn’t seem to get a rhythm up front. Grant was looking sharp and has to be one of the fittest in the team his work rate and creativity on the wing is great to watch he’s really cemented that spot. It was a typical park the bus AFC match.
The Ref for me was terrible and I believed caused our first penalty miss due to asking Behich to move the ball seconds before he was about to take the kick… He tried it on Kruse but decided to leave it? Plus every time we jumped for a ball a foul would go against us, seems they think we speckie players for a header.
You gotta give Kruse credit there, ignored the bastard and did his job.
Absolutely. They were able to stack the defence precisely because we were so slow at advancing the ball.
To an extend I can understand why, after an awful first half in which basic technical ability seemed to desert the entire team, we might come out and play the ball patiently and conservatively to work our way into the game. But as the 50 and 60 minute marks rolled by it was clear that we were completely on top; and as the clock ticked through the 70s and into the 80s, watching Milligan ignore even completely safe sideways passes across the centre circle to Irvine, in favour of pinging it back 20m to Sainsbury in his own half, got increasingly infuriating.
As I said last night, had we lost that shootout we would’ve only had ourselves to blame. Rarely does a team get such little value out of so much control of the game, and seem so nonchalant about it in the process.
On Rogić, I think it’s clear that he should not play in front of dual-6s. Maybe it could work with Mooy or somebody playing as a #8 and taking the responsibility of linking the back 6 with the front 4, but his value comes almost exclusively in his touches around the box and coming out to half-way to receive the ball is simply not his game. I am more convinced than ever that we should try him as a false-9, or coming in from one flank with a fullback offering the width.
It’s easy to say that, but then you’ve got blokes like McKay & Kruse who’ve managed to rack up 59 and 74+ caps respectively. Kruse has carved out a decent club career but is the absolute poster boy for not being able to step up to international level.
I wouldn’t write Maclaren off just yet, especially with our lack of options at #9, but he’s probably done starting this tournament and needs to go back and start banging them in at club level if he’s to earn the right to get more game time over the next WCQ cycle.
Agree we get past UAE and it’s a pass mark for the tournament. Even without the injury toll there’s no shame going out to any one of Japan, Korea or Iran.
Yeah I’m still happy for Maclaren to get a bit more of a run, particularly through the WCQ but IMO Giannou has done enough to get a start. Given we seem intent on looped crosses into the box, Giannou is much better at getting on the end of them.
I can’t blame Mclaren for his lack of service. He had I think one chance the whole game. There was not one player seemingly willing to feed him or look for him to make a run. The only player looking for someone to get on the end of a ball was Ryan and that’s not Mclaren’s game.
It was obvious how much we missed Boyle and Arzani. Players who look up and see an opposition defender and aren’t afraid to run at him. Ikonomidis did a couple of times but nowhere near enough.
Yeah you can criticise Kruse performances (but also hes been selected by every Socceroos manager of late meaning theres some tactical reason that we arent understanding) but all the hate he gets is disgusting. Stick to “you played shit and butchered some chances and didnt give enough going forward overall” not the personal insults he and his family get. EDIT: to clarify Im talking to the Australian football community as a whole mainly on facebook and twitter I havent seen as much of it here
You get the feeling though that some love to hate so much theyd have adored Kruse missing his spot kick to get Arnie’s side knocked out in the round of 16.
Thanks to Australia and Uzbekistan for making that game such a shitshow. I managed to sneak in a good hour and a bit extra sleep during the game.