mabil playing the last 30 mins against benfica

hopefully back in the 11 next week

Double save too. 

This IMO is one of the most accurate and sensible post ive read on here for a long time.

I dont agree with the bit about the national team though

I think Japan has got something like 12 players playing in the big 5 leagues in Europe, very similar numbers to what we had in 2006.

But of course, football is not won by paper, which is why we are at this stage of qualifying. 

Great to see John Iredale doing well too, he's adjusted to the level of football quite quickly. 

out of curiousity do you disagree with the claim that huddersfield play a style that some forumites advocate for the NT? Or disagree with my like of the NT style

You do have to look at Juric's development, then wonder how good Sainsbury could have gotten if he stuck it out in Europe. 

if sains spira and milligan stick it out in europe rather than going to the M/E and rhys herd and kruse dont have their nightmare injury runs I reckon they are all playing in the big 5 about now

that would be 9 players instead of 3 and we would be similar to where we were in 06 

a combination of bad luck and the lure of rich asian leagues has really hurt this generation

not to mention one of our most promising died

jurics goal

we have a front 4 in great goal scoring form in kruse leckie juric and rogic

the second of the two. Particularly when we come up against these teams that pack the final third not allowing us the space to exploit with our passing game. Both Rogic and Mooy are capable passes of the ball however our wide players dont have the room to move into so i believew e find ourselves playing into the hands of the opposition by playing our game in front of them. They are happy for us to constantly switch the ball and just wait until one of our creative players eventually tries to thread the needle and away they go with the counter attack that has been our downfall since ange originally took over.

The way we are playing as a national team also seems counter intuitive to the squads being selected. We have genuine pace in the wide areas with leckie, smith, behich, gersbach and even Kruse yet we dont utilise that pace breaking quickly. I find that even more frustrating when we have players capable of playing those incisive balls for these runners.

One other thing that really frustrates me is seemingly the instruction of ange for our players not to cross the ball early especially when well positioned. This is extremely puzzling when he has Juric, cahill and even leckie on the pitch where we could really dominate aerially against many of our asian opponents

But it's a dilemma if footballers are playing drastically better at club level than for the NT. That much is obvious.

Tom Rogic, Aaron Mooy, Tomi Juric are playing well for their respective clubs. I've said before why I think Rogic doesn't do as well for the NT as for Celtic (namely, fewer talented, technical and pacey teammates around him, such as Patrick Roberts). To be fair Mooy's form against the Thais was good.

But there's still a big discrepancy overall.

And that begs important questions. Is everything possible being done to get the most out of them? Or are things poorly designed for management of a NT (where you can't just make transfers)?

You really do have to be flexible. Guus was flexible in his thinking. I think he was really secure in his standing (what he had done managing other football sides). While he wanted the NT to play to a particular style, he was flexible and nuanced enough in his outlook to compromise things here and there to get the most out of them. And he did. I think it's a fair argument that, by and large, he got them playing at least as well as they did for their club sides.

Right now, by contrast, our NT resembles what has happened with England for ages (but with a huge gap in talent, overall). I.e. a big gap between how they go at club level compared to NT.

What makes you think our players are punching below their weight?
Jurics strike rate last year was similar to his strike rate at national level

recently his club strike rate has risen and thats coincided with a recent improved strike rate for the NT. 

rogic also has a similar strike rate for the NT as club despite asian op being more difficult than spl op

leckie had a huge goal drought for 2 seasons and has recently started scoring for club and country

Their form for club and country is similar and all but 3 of our roos face easier opposition at club level. All but 1 are in mid table teams where 1.5 points per game is a good season whereas at club level they need 2 points per game with little margin for error against tougher opposition (1.9 points per game and look at the reaction). None of them face the conditions and jetlag at club level that they need to for the roos

Perhaps we feel entitled to walk through asia with only 3 players getting regular time in the big 5. But if you compare our squad to previous tournaments by both us and japan, number of players in big leagues is a pretty decent predictor for the big teams historically (australia Japan and south korea). With only 3 players in the big 5 i would expect 1.5 points per game yet we have done a lot better than that which is a credit to the coach and the players

don't think there will ever be a situation where our starting XI for NT will be entirely top league's, it's a bit much to ask really considering many other NT's don't even have this.
I think it's always going to be 60/40 or so Europe/Asia. Common sense says that's how it will be. Obviously I'm talking about south american and asian nations.
NewZealand is doing well here also really considering

Meredith is playing in the Championship every week, not League 2. He has not played league 2 since 2012-13 season, since then it has been League One until this season.

Any interesting games on tonight? My The World Game app used to be so trustworthy and reliable, and showed almost any league that I was interested in (hence I would sometimes give detailed summaries of who played overnight etc.). Unfortunately, I updated the app and now it is the worst thing I have ever seen. It basically only shows The Big 5 (RIP Aus Football Fan), and a couple more...so now I can't even see anything lower than the Championship, and there's not even any Serie B or Belgium.

So now I'm awfully lost....

download another app literally thousands

Bochum (Kruse) v Ingolstadt
Darmstadt (Maclaren) v Dresden
Motherwell (Rose) v Aberdeen
Groningen (Hrustic) v Twente
Venlo (Antonis) v Zwolle

I'm assuming only Kruse and Rose will start.

Andy Rose's Motherwell on BEIN at 9 PM AEST.

If you want a good app showing scores for global sides, I highly recommend Forza football. Picked all the leagues I'm intested in then added all the teams ozzies are at so it's really handy.

Brighton v Newcastle at 01:00 AEST.

Kruse starting. Maclaren on the bench as is Boyd and Platte isn't in the squad. 

Kruse wins the foul leading up to Bochum's goal

Kruse in the thick of it so far 

Lovely goal, Kruse.

Kruse goal, nice finish

Top finish Kruse!

Kruse scores. 

How many this season is it for Kruse?

I highly recommend Fotmob. So many leagues. Set the OZ teams as your favourites. You can set alerts for when teams score, etc. Love it.

+1 for fotmob. Can also add favourite players so you get a notification if they're starting or a sub.