shouldnt he be teaching us how to grind out 1-0 wins to get us through to the round of 16

I'd like to see Jedinak at CB, he's done it a few times for Villa. Rhys Williams performances deserve a call-up as well.

The right-back is the major problem for the Socceroos, two other options, is Mitch Duke playing in Japan, or Hibs player, Martin Boyle who's apparently eligible to play for the Socceroos

Im a villa fan, would never want Jedi at centre back, he's been shit when he has played there for us.

Boyle is more a wing back/ right mid as Hibs play with a back 3, same with Mitch Duke more of a winger like Leckie doubt he will be able to perform at right back

Wright at Right Back was terrible. Should never see him there again. Yes, Rizzo mightn't be International quality yet, but at least he knows how to play Right Back.

Undeniably at this point in time, Sainsbury and Jurman are our best defensive pairing, Behich is brilliant getting forward but a little suspect getting back. Would like to see the more physical Meredith play against Columbia with their wingers.

Jedinak and Mooy need to learn how to play together, felt a little disjointed in the middle there. I'd prefer Irvine as Jedinak's midfield partner, in this formation. Mooy needs to be the 10 if Rogic is coming off the bench. 

Leckie is in seriously bad form. I'd consider moving him out and chucking Kruse on the right, at least he's played in the last couple of B2 games.

Nabbout needed to play in Petratos' spot, felt sorry for him he didn't get much service.

In saying that Petratos was our best, had a couple of questionable first touches at the beginning, but thats only human. I'd like to see him a bit more central. 

Overall we played fucking Shit, but no need to panic at the moment, this is a very experimental game plan, but I feel that Van Marwijk may have under estimated how bad we are in general.

We need a settled starting 11. 

glitch in the matrix

sainsbury has cracked is before about playing at RB.  i believe there was a story floating around about him turning down a european offer early in his career because they wanted him to convert to RB.

the options aren't great. imo the best performances over the last 6 years in right back have been williams, milligan, and franjic.  they have all had a match where they were fkn amazing. i think williams only had one run, milligan was good once.  franjic had a few good games, but was lost in the generally poor defence that we had and is now past his best.

imo milligan is still an option.  but the modern game requires pace and lungs. so the older guys are going to struggle. imo degenek has mostly been very solid at RB but from the line up i get the feeling that BVM is not going to be playing players in positions they dont play at club - hence the wright at RB and degenek at CB even though they are better in the opposite positions.

i think it's dumb not to give one of our many lefties a run at right back. 
these are our options in order of my preference.
degenek, milligan, zullo, gersbach, williams, meredith,  grant (is he back form injury soon?), wilkshite, 

also i think borello deserves a look in the bigger squad. 

jedinak has always looked shit in a 2 man CDM pairing.  he needs to be the sole defensive mid. he doesnt know what to do with himself in the front half of the field, so when mooy drops back to pick up the ball jedinak is lost. also, mooy does not hold his own defensively, his numbers are good, he makes tackles, intercepts, but he does not control the midfield anywhere near milligan, loungo, and especially jedinak.

imo mooy is wasted as an 8.  he is a great 10. maybe not as lethal as rogic, but much more reliable.  

I want to start a bit of conversation about Jedinak. Maybe we are looking at the wrong way.

Headers, clashes of bodies, poor passes. Does the game become more a (physical) shit fest with him out there ?

Are we losing some opportunity to pass more, and get more into a passing game? w/ Rogic, w/ Mooy, w/ Luongo

It most definitely does, he's a big reason why we are so poor in possession because even if he doesn't turn it over the pass to whoever very rarely allows them to quickly drive forward because he doesn't lead anyone into space and is simply slow in his decision making. It allows teams to set up defensively and press Mooy with his back to goal which leads to slow movement.

So unless we are playing a physical and shit side like Honduras i don't really see how he fits.

Jedinak was at fault for a number of things in this game, however you might not blame him for Mat Ryan's pass, or maybe you would.

Not only does Jedinak fuck up his passes, maybe his crash and bash style causes half the rest of the team to play like shit also. 

In terms of who was at fault for the goal it was definitely Ryan, the moment Ryan had possession Jedinak had his back to goal and was jogging up the pitch so the pass should never have been played in the first place. But systematically Jedinak should be getting into the space and looking to receive the pass instead of expecting Ryan to hoof it down the pitch. He's just not a good fit for a possession based team, apart from his technical limitations he is also not suited mentally for the system either.

What I found a bit strange was Norway was playing long to a tall striker, we had two smaller CBs, so more vunerable in the air, yet Jedinak, who is very strong in the air, was quite often further forward than Mooy and seemed to do little to help out the CBs in the air. 

Mark my words, in their current form, Wright, Denegek, Milligan and Jedinak will all get used and exploited at a World Cup.

I'm not sure they are that level anymore. 

Dont think Degenek won a header all night.. Jurman and Sains should fix this.. i'd be keen to seen brilliante at RB.

Degenek's not an RB. Don't know how the fuck he ended up there, watching him play makes me nauseous.

Our CBs against Norway were not up to it, in any way/shape/form. BVM would have been pretty dissapointed me thinks.

this ability is actually something we lack

Hasn't Irvine played before at RB? Maybe worth trying him there in a friendly for the Roos?
Irvine has a good read of the game in terms of when to get forward and has the engine to be able to play box-to-box.
He is also reasonable defensively with a decent turn of pace.
Starting XI could be something like this:

The Socceroos are going backwards. They are now not as good as the 1974 socceroos..

It's far from time to panic imo. This was a shit performance with a number of players getting their chance to show they have something to offer. Rather than dump the whole team and claim the sky is falling, i think what we can take from the game is we have seen a number of players who have really staked claims to be included, some established players who are really on notice and will have plenty to prove in camp and the next couple of games . I'd break it up as such:

Those at risk or on notice:
Jedi, Milligan, Wright, Degenek,

Those making a proper claim:
Susjnar................

Personally i think we really improved once Luongo was introduced and the ball started to be moved a lot quicker while also adding a lot more mobility.

Others will be given their chance in the next couple of games and in camp. Lets wait and see what happens as the team really starts to take shape

I wonder how big the extended squad will be for this training camp. Is it possible after this game we may be looking at 30-35?

Just off the top of my head i would expect Williams, Da silva, Arzani, Borello, oar, gersbach, Dougall to all be included

I can't remember a performance that bad so maybe

but first game in charge and our squad is decent compared to a lot of our history apart from the GG so there is some reason for hope

It is better to find out who is up to it (and where) in friendlies than at the WC.

I'd hazard a guess BVM wanted to really give a few players a chance to prove themself ... and perhaps show their value else where on the pitch. Didn't really work out for him though .... that back line was horrendous, and Jedi unfortunately I don't think suits our system anymore (or players like Luongo have over taken him).

Such a ridiculous schoolboy error though.  Both fullbacks pulled out wide after Ryan had the ball and then, inexplicably, the moron played it straight up the middle.  Even my 13 year old son knows you don't play straight up the guts from the keeper.

And don't start me on Milligan's soft cock 'tackle' on the edge of the box for the first goal.  Tries a pathetic little toe-poke and got burnt big time.  If ever there was a time for a ball and all tackle here it was.  What the fuck level do these blokes think they're playing at?

Some of these blokes should be ashamed to pick up their paycheck.  Milligan should donate his match fee to the nearest charity ASAP.  Pathetic.

We are going to get raped in Russia.





  

I watched Colombia defeat France (in Paris) 2-3 on the weekend after being down 2-0. The scary thing was France were magnificent and looked like belting Colombia especially in the first half.

Taking a positive view it indicates Colombia are a match for France which means if we dont get poleaxed by them on Wednesday, we may be able to compete with the French as well.

Conversely if we play like we did against Norway we could easily ship 5, 6 or more.

Over to you Bert.

 

Some of these "Starters" play their BEST HARDEST FOOTBALL for the National Team, which is dire and pretty completely wrong in my opinion.

By that I mean, they view it as a holiday and then going back to work again. 

Because, they get thumped like this. Milligan's performances @ club are rubbish, he does literally nothing in a game, barks commands. (for me this sounds alarm bells)

Denegek probably does a bit more in J-League, but against no skill equivalent to good forwards internationally. Plods around probably with no work.

Of course these clowns won't be up to it.

At least Sains has experienced th@ level @ Inter and won't shit his pants, could comprehend attack before it happens.

Jedinak has become lazy and sloppy now , no doubt because he never was @ the level (a hack) and is now swapping positions all the time for his rubbish Championship team.

Wright is no way near good enough for RB.

All up I'm surprised BVM has even fielded this team tbh, shows how hard it is to guess where some players are in our team.

What did people think of Petratos, over say Kruse or Leckie ??? 

Did he play better than Kruse ? 

I thought he did reasonably well considering the circumstances of his national team debut :unsure:

In comparison to Kruse and Leckie, I'd say it's somewhat difficult to make a direct comparison as Petratos's game is not so much focused on getting in behind the defence with pace a la Kruse and Leckie (although Leckie did sweet FA of that against Norway). But Petratos did seem comfortable in possession most of the time and at least looked to create going forward some of the time, he just didn't have much support. I don't think Irvine (as a #10) is the kind of player that Petratos can link up well with, I'd like to see him combining with Mooy (further up the park as a ten) or with Rogic and Juric.

I think he did enough to at least be worth a further look - with more of our starters (at least Rogic, Juric, Luongo) around him he could have more of an impact.

I've only seen the first half and a bunch of highlights.
Jedi spent alot of time playing further forward than Mooy and he doesn't have the skill set to be a no8. Both are too slow.

They clearly still have the Ange mentality with back passes/slow build up/short passing=not moving the opposition around.
This is what Bert needs to shake out of them

A lot of commentators talk about when Ange did this and Ange did that and how we would always play forward and attack.
I don't know what team they had been watching the last 2 yrs but apart from the Chile game i've hated watching us.

Transition has bean coached out the the team and they need to learn how to hit on the beak again.

I'm sick of seeing Leckie receive the ball with an acre in front of him only to see him check back to recycle possession.
  

Hard to say if he was better as Kruse didnt get much time but he didnt look out of his depth at all. Not many chances to go forward though and ended up passing backwards a lot but that was as much about where he was getting the ball. 

Had one or 2 forays forward which looked promising.

Similarly it was hard to gauge Nabbout as well as he was so isolated. 

 Maybe as Spider said on TWG, Ange knew this team cant sit back and absorb so designed them to defend from the front... God I hope he's wrong.

Petratos provides a lot of forward momentum, he's not really one for passing backwards all the time, so I think he's exactly what we need. It might lead to him losing the ball more than our other players, but he also creates more chances. It's hard to compare him to Leckie and Kruse because we don't know how different they'll be under Bert and if Kruse will start being more attacking minded in the new system.