Preaching to the choir, mate ;)

Not to be selected over the likes of Nabbout or Maclaren for a world cup.

Having 3 19year olds as possible WC players... good or bad?

Atkinson-RB
Arzani-RW
Folami-S

I wonder if arzani skeptics watch him play and if so do they actually pay attention. Arzani seved up 3 golscoring chances on a plate on sunday, not his fault they werent put away with just the keeper to beat. Just ask Newcastle about how direct he is and how his end product is, especially ivan vujica who spent the first half chasing arzani's shadow.  

As for his shooting it would be misrepresenting his role by suggesting his primary purpose is a striker, but he's shown he has that when the option is on:

Not direct enough......................:ermm: Arzani is probably one of the most direct players we have seen in some time

To be fair, the 45 minutes that Folami has played is already more than Tim Cahill has managed...not to equate the two or anything but it understandable considering how poor we are in striking options.

Some strange picks in this thread.  Elder sometimes starts in league one, yet he should be at the World Cup? Please. Folami is even weirder, having played a single half of senior football in the championship...

For the NT you would have to ask Decentric

for club per 90 minutes

Luongo: 1.5 intercepts 3.9 tackles 
irvine: 0.9 intercepts 1.6 tackles
Jedi: 1.1 intercepts 1.6 tackles
mooyzil: 1 intercepts 2.8 tackles
Doogall: 1.2 intercepts 3.3 tackles

Anyone know who is the better pass interceptor/anticipator @ DM for Australia. Or who causes the most turnovers.

Think I'd prefer pass interceptions as a stat. Anyone able to dig th@ out of somewhere?

My 23 man squad for Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup

Mathew Ryan
Brad Jones
Danny Vukovic 

Alex Wilkinson
Trent Sainsbury 
Rhys Williams
Aziz Behich 
Mathew Jurman 
Connor Chapman
Callum Elder

Mile Jedinak 
Mark Milligan 
Aaron Mooy 
Massimo Luongo 
Tomas Rogic
Jackson Irvine
Dimitri Petratos 
Daniel Arzani

Tim Cahill 
Tomi Juric
Ben Folami
Mathew Leckie
Robbie Kruse

Please name the 20. The kid is fucking light years ahead of anyone his age he made Ikon look like a sunday league player.. if he doesnt go it will be the biggest fuck up in Aus Football for sometime especially if Iran take him for the future. We had several players that went to Brazil and didnt play a minute just at least take the - oops, I just ate my own poop... along.

we can't use him on the pitch the same time as Rogic, he isn't versatile enough. but wouldn't that be nice

Regarding Azarni, I feel this is where we get stuck with turning our creative talents into DM's.

He can pass a ball downfield, but no goals, no end product and not direct enough really. Can't play defense really.

For a winger he mucks around with the ball too much, so any forward momentum is lost. Not quick enough either.

What is his position in the NT? What will he do if you pair him up with Rogic ? another player who can pass and create space, but can't shoot and can't play defense. He's a CAM for sure but no where near as good as Rogic, very hard to draw comparisons

fmd, this "Arzani going to Iran" thing is so overhyped. All indications are that he wants to play for Australia, but overzealous journos want to generate some controversy so they stir up his Iranian links.

Similarly, all this talk about his "ego" or him being a diver,or him only playing half a season of pro-football are non-sequiters and irrelevant. The only question we and Bert should be asking is whether Arzani can be useful enough to the national team to justify his spot on the plane, and in my opinion the answer is yes. All other considerations are irrelevant.

Would like to see arzani move to a more technical league where he might have less space to really push him to the next level. He looks great here in the a league but what about in holland or japan? 

attitude aside he reminds me of rogic when he was here with his vision and 1v1 ability
when he played for the NT if anything he looked more lethal because the a league is more physical than international football and euro leagues which stifles technical players somewhat

so if his ego can be held in check he might step up just as much as rogic did. Of course when rogic came into the team 4 years ago our team was much weaker

arzani has not had a long run of form.  half a season. it's been remarkable but there would still be doubts.  BVM not putting him in the squad means that arzani has to push harder to be included next time - instead of threatening to join iran.

i have a lot of reservations about wazza at melbourne. but one thing i agree with was the need to bring someone in to reign in the egos and bad attitude that last seasons squad was riddled with.  you can see him riding arzani and trying to sort his attitude out, this is good. the last thing we need is another big hope with an ego bigger than their performances.  it seems to kill players.

i haven't seen him at wsw, but deng was a liability at melbourne. nowhere near atkinson. so one good performance vs taking the spot and holding it down with good performances.  i know who i would want in the squad.  also atkinson can play up the front if need be.

also if arzani is seen as a guy with a potential ego problem they might want to wait til the world cup before selecting him so that he is working his but off till ten

I think that was the case with multiple players such as; Borello and Maclaren. Ultimately Arzani probably wasn't ready to make the March friendly squad, but an extra couple months of matches and improved fitness and work ethic should see him in the prelim squad at the very least.

The only way Arzani will be a world class player is if his level of quality increased 10 fold by Russia. 

As good as he could potentially get playing in the A-League, I feel he could only learn bad habits finding any sort of rhythm with the calibre of the players around him.

He needs to jump up in standard quickly. I don't know how that would happen? Perhaps he really does need to show his quality @ the World Cup. 

But honestly, can't shoot and nothing much comes of his play generally.

He needs to increase his physicality, speed , stamina/endurance, and definitely needs others around him with same quality to really thrive. 

CitySam

Do you reckon it's wishful thinking to suppose that Daniel Arzani will probably be part of that next squad and that the reason that he wasn't part of the last squad is that Bert van Marwijk didn't want his progress with Melbourne City disrupted?

Friendlies don't count, needs to be a qualifier or a tournament.

I think it was the 3rd or 4th of June, after the Czech Republic game and before the Hungary friendly is the timeframe.

[quote]The next competitive match is at the World Cup. That means that if Bert van Marwijk is to use the next available match to cap Daniel Arzani, it must be at the World Cup. I'm all for using other competitive matches to cap footballers. But to do that at the World Cup is a stretch. I don't think Arzani's inclusion is justifiable on the grounds of ensuring his commitment to Australia given the circumstances (i.e. that the next competitive match is World Cup group stage match).[quote]

I could be wrong but I don’t think this is how it works.
I think friendlies count as competitive matches. They contribute towards the FIFA ranking so may be considered competitive by FIFA.

Hope that happens. When do the finalised squads need to be be declared?

We have a 35 man squad for a few weeks and a friendly before we need to cut the squad down to 23, i imagine Arzani will be brought along and judged if he is good enough for the 23.

With Bert wanting to have more training over matches i really hope he has the team focus alot on set pieces. Just dont have the players to score off open play. 

Work to the teams strengths.

I don't think that's the problem.

The next competitive match is at the World Cup. That means that if Bert van Marwijk is to use the next available match to cap Daniel Arzani, it must be at the World Cup. I'm all for using other competitive matches to cap footballers. But to do that at the World Cup is a stretch. I don't think Arzani's inclusion is justifiable on the grounds of ensuring his commitment to Australia given the circumstances (i.e. that the next competitive match is World Cup group stage match).

BVM's remit is to guide the team to achieve as much as possible at the World Cup. And rightly so.

Imo, this is what justifies Arzani's inclusion in the WC squad. The question is this; are there 20 other Australian outfield footballers who are more useful to BVM in helping the Socceroos to do as well as possible in Russia?

Tommy has to pushed up to play as SS.