easy in hindsight, but reckon you'd have done it in real time too. i would have. instinct.Originally Posted by parksey
not going to blame him. going to blame holger and the shit performances in the previous 5 games for our current position.
nil all 15 minutes gone in the oman v iraq game.
I dunno. reading the no spoilers thread PV4 was hating on him (McKay) all game.
That thread made for excellent reading though.
Boz and PV4 were like clairvoyants.
Poor buggers.
i don't tend to throw my arm out like that when playing tbh.
this.
first rule of defending. dont attempt to fly anywhere.
McKay OUT
we're just a couple of depressed, negative pessimists
we're bound to be right supporting this lot
conceding late pens is our main business gutgw
Socceroos or jets?
do we still need to simply just win the next 2 or mathematically can we afford a draw/loss??
Bresciano, omg.
I swear he has been outright Australia's most talented player for the last decade. He isn't ridiculously tall, doesn't have a superhuman leap, doesn't run around like a headless chook, he's just good at football. He runs at half the pace he did back in the day but he's still managed to transform himself into possibly an even better player than he was.
First time I have done this in years but well done to luca$h Neil.
Probably one of the main reasons (other than schwarz outstanding save in the first half) Japan relied on a penalty to score the only goal for them. Besides marshalling himself on the 18 yard box he defended superb and his distribution was slightly better than the long balls I am used to.
Og on the other hand i think is done.
Agree with militia on bresc blokes ability to open the game up is immense and passing game is so simple and smart at the same time.
Next game would have jedinak in for Milligan, both have the same ability in defence but jedinak will be able to offer something going forward as well which I didn't think Milligan did
Simplicity of the Mackay matter;
Don't play players out of position zullo in next game
Imo Japan with out Honda and kagagawa would be shit but I think everyone thinks that.
Schwarzer, Neill and Milligan were our best
I was unimpressed with Kruse despite a few good runs and Oar looked out of confidence in the first half
Honda and Kagawa really played us off the park
agree with basically all of this.
will add endo to the standout japanese players. particularly in the first half he was slicing & dicing us. if it wasn't for the work luca$h did, we would have conceded about 4 goals solely from endo's passing. and speaking of luca$h - man, best player out there last night. i am his biggest critic, and probably fumed more than anyone that he was included in the squad after his 3 games this year and general oldness. but he amazed me last night.
like i said in the no-mfkfc thread - bresc needs to be given a bit more freedom. he was relied on too heavily to defend last night, and particularly in the first half was made to look silly a bit. give him the ball when he's got a man close to him, give him a few runners darting away from him, and he's brililant. get him to do the defensive running of a 23 year old and he's past it. would love to see him in the hal. i really hope it's not ridiculous to think that hsg would at least enquire into him.
i usually love mckay, but he was so noticeably out of position and lost last night. it's simple, like rover said, just play a defender in that position. between mckay and og, we were a ticking time bomb to conceding. it was no surprise whatsoever that one of them two led to the goal. i wish lolger would have picked up on this in the first half and even put thwaite or someone out there, just to shut up shop.
now that lolger has seen that his instructions to oar to release the ball early in a cross-field switch wasn't working, i hope he gives him a lot more freedom. over in the anti-mfkfc thread we were all saying how lethal he looked when pushing past a man, and his goal was through sheer determination (and luck). let him loose.
all in all - don't forget that we deserved nothing from the game. if japan needed more than a draw, they would have felt robbed. we were diabolical except for brief moments, and the whole game was spent thinking it was only a matter of time before we conceded. whether we make it to the world cup or not, can't help but feel we'll perform even worse than we did in 2010 - and i will be highly embarassed. our goal shouldn't be JUST to qualify for the world cup, we should be aiming on jagging second place in the group. i don't think we have this mentality currently
my understanding of it:
2nd Oman Played 7 GD -2 Pts 9
3rd Aust Played 6 GD 0 Pts 7
4th Jordan Played 6 GD -6 Pts 7
we play iraq and jordan. oman play jordan.
my understanding:
if oman beats jordan, we must win both (and regardless of scores will auto-qualify). if oman and jordan draw, we have to win at least one, do a bit of head maths with the goal differences, and it probably ties in with that winning game needing to be against jordan. if jordan beat oman, we need to beat jordan and work out our goal differences.
basically winning both will shit us in. beating jordan is the big one for us, and it's played before oman play jordan. potentially we can get through with a win and loss, but a lot has to work out for that to happen.
I disagree, we had a game plan. we carried it out very well. Do you expect us to go to japan and play a similar game as them? we would get thrashed!
I didnt think we were diabolical, i thought we were very effective! Sat deep, forced them to shoot from distance alot. We scored a goal (yes it was lucky but we got it) and really shwarzer only really had to make 2 real saves!
Just because we defended alot doesnt mean we were diabolical or didnt deserve anything!
And why didn't Tom Rogic come in instead of Vidosic
And why didn't Holger use the 2 subs he had left on the bench in the 87th and 89th minute to take the momentum out of the inevitable backlash that was to come after we had scored. Why wouldn't use the 2 subs to stop the game and give our defence a 45 second rest (x 2) to regroup and have a breather. Not to mention put out to fresh players to chase and close down in the middle of the park and help out for the last 6-7 minutes. ****ing coaching 101 that is.... We got pretty much what we deserved in the end, but once we scored we should have brought it home.
Precisely!
+ 1
What I don't get about the whole McKay thing is that for the Asian Cup he was universally considered the best player of the tournament for us, playing in a bit of a roving midfield role similar to the one he'd played at Brisbane with Ange. So...why the fxxx are we playing one of our best players in a completely unsuitable role?
(fwiw I don't think he played badly last night, apart from the handball obvs)
PS As much as the media like to use the old hyperbole with many of Australia's games these days, Japan - Australia matches have turned into cracking fixtures imo. Always tight, huge passion in the players and fans.
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