Trent Sainsbury's stats.

Over the whole pitch he had a passing accuracy of 98% with 44 completed passes.

The all important defensive pass accuracy was 100%, completing 30.

He made 6 passes that were deemed difficult to complete.

This is interesting in that nearly one third of his passes were made in the attacking half. He was used as a ball playing CB who had many forays into midfield.

In 1v1 duels he had a ledger of plus 8 out of 22 contested.

In these 1v1s he dominated heading duels, winning 5 and losing 1.

H won 2 strength duels and lost 1.

He won 2 tackles out of 2 contested.

He made 3 intercepts from good reading of play.

He made 4 clearances.

He also had 6, 15 metre plus ball carries.

He  only committed 1 foul and won 4 free kicks.




He had a pretty good game.

The reason for this was he because he was played at RWB decentric instead of higher up the field at RW where he has less time and space. He reminds me of emerton in the sense both were outstanding athletes with sound technical skills in particular their dribbling but poor balance over the ball, no ability to change direction and little creativity meaning they are better in wide open spaces further back in the field. I honestly believe leckie could be world class at RB or RWB.

In just one game, it could be more shots at goal compared to the opposition shooting at ours.

We might get a bit more idea when I finish the Iraq game.

He is still relatively inexperienced in international football. 

I don't think he has gone backwards at all, but he isn't too successful at shaking his markers, or reading ahead of the play and working out where the best place is going to be in order to score goals. 

I'm just doing the Iraq game. It  will be interesting to see if he dribbles around players more often than the UAE game. He has had 1 shot on goal against Iraq - an impressive turn and swivel. Then he launched a powerful shot that just missed.

Those stats suggest Juric would be better at the other end of the park. A bit late to be converting to a CB, though. I remember you were very impressed with Juric around the time of WSW Asian CL final. Do you think he's gone backwards since then?

Here are Juric's stats.

He made 19 passes in the game.  18 were in the attacking half  at 86% accuracy. This is pretty good in this position, as one is usually closely marked.

 He made 10 difficult passes. Again this is good.

In 1v1 duels a he had a ledger of minus 2. He was involved in 18 duels.

He won quite a number of strength and heading duels. He  won 3 tackles, which is  outstanding  in this position,. Unfortunately, he still lost  more 1v1 duels  than he won.  Juric didn't manage to dribble around anyone.

 His worst stat as a central striker, was 0 shots at goal, which is basically shocking.  He just could not shake or elude his markers.

For all his grunt work and achieving quite a number of passes under time and space pressure, his predatory instincts were poor.

Cahill usually averages 5-6 shots at goal per game for the Socceroos for comparison purposes.

I didn't record them, but I don't think there were any Juric assists for shots at goal for teammates either.

I'm now about two thirds of the way through the Iraq game. At this point in time, Juric has had 1 shot at goal in 130 minutes of football from playing 70 mins against the UAE and 62 against Iraq..

Cahill had 1 shot in 20 mins against the UAE. His average for most Socceroo matches is 5-6 shots at goal per game.

Regardless of where they play in club football, even if Juric is doing well for a decent team in the Swiss League and City's coaches have made the shocking mistake  of playing Cahill as a midfielder or putting him on the bench, he has more game sense than Fornaroli and Juric put together as the central striker.

Juric has made constant  mistakes and made poor decisions, as has Irvine in the same games.

Even though Cahill can appear to be uninvolved, he is always dragging defenders out of position, blocking runs of defenders, using dummy runs, using his team-mates as a screen for his own runs, treading on their toes to leave them behind in his runs, shoulder nudging them out of position, etc. Often the refs don't see it either! Cahill is now a very, very cunning player who loves the big stage and the big occasion.

He just knows where to be and has incredible goalscoring nous, even without sufficient 1v1 evasion skills on the ground. Even though it may have cost City, and the Socceroos, by Cahill's coaches preferring to play others.

JVS and Valkanis's club decisions at City, could well cost the Socceroos' qualification for the WC.

With Juric opposition defenders are winding  him up. When Cahill is on the pitch he is winding them up with his outstanding street smarts and cunning game sense. Ange has got it wrong big time not using Cahill as the first choice.

So have JVS and Valkanis cost City. It is noticeable with City, that Cahill is constantly using nasty little elbows, nudges, fouls, then apologising to players as though it is an accident, if, the ref sees it and adjudicates. It unsettles them. Even against UAE he scored from a foul.

Regarding your last point, it was interesting to see Timmy holding the arm of another Melbourne City attacker which stymied the defending run of McGowan (who had been between them) sufficiently to give him (Timmy) the metre advantage when running to meet the corner kick from which he scored.

Welcome to the forum.

Tactically with this formation, Ange appears to be trying  to create a 3-4-2-1 in defence, with Leckie and Smith tracking back in a line closer to Milligan and Jedinak.

Then as Australian builds up through midfield,  Leckie and Smith move up in a line with  Irvine and Mooy to create a 3-2-4-1.

At times this can be extended further to create a more traditional 3-4-3. This is when  Australia penetrated the attacking third of the pitch against the UAE, Smith and Leckie often moved into a line with Juric.

Also, a trailing attacking midfielder, manifesting in either Irvine or Troisi, was  close to Juric in this phase of play.

Another interesting stat scenario  is that of Matt Leckie. He seems to have improved his technique over the last year. 

Whereas other wing back Smith lost the ball due to poor control on 5 occasions and made 2 unforced passing errors, Leckie  lost the ball due to poor control on 1 occasion and made 0 unforced passing errors.

He also demonstrated 1 moment of exceptional skill.

Leckie had a 1v1 duel ledger of plus 4, from 24 contested. In those 1v1 contests he dribbled around players on 4 occasions.

His defensive passing accuracy was 93% with 13 completed passes.

Overall his passing accuracy over the whole pitch  was 80% from a total of 26 passes completed, after having mishit 5 attacking passes, usually under time and space pressure .

From 2 shots on goal he scored 1 goal from a headed corner. He has scored 2 goals his last 2 games.

From  passes directed to him, he was culpable for the unsuccessful pass on 2 occasions.


In the last year, exemplified in the UAE game, Leckie seems to have improved technically. 

I would think that for a lot of the game he tracked back to help defensively. Ange's tactical concept appeared to be to create a 3-4-2-1 in defence and then move to a 3-2-4-1 in attack.

One other area which is of interest is intercepts. These eare not blocks, but can be defined as when players intercept opposition balls from effective reading of play.

Milligan made 7.

Sains 3.

Wright 2.

Jedi, Troisi and Degenek 1 apiece.

One of the players I thought struggled against the UAE was Bailey Wright.

At  first glance his passing stats looked pretty sound.

He made 27 defensive  passes at 92% accuracy. Of the two errors, 1 was unforced, which can be catastrophic in this part of the pitch.

Overall he made 35 passes at 90% over the entire pitch  which looks good.


With 1v1 duels he had a ledger of plus 1, which is acceptable in his position.

However, Wright conceded 5 fouls often in dangerous positions around the Oz goal, possibly all on Abdul Rahman. Many of these would have resulted in Abdul Rahman beating him all ends up, if he hadn't committed the fouls.

He was also dribbled around by Abdul Rahman on 2 occasions. So he really struggled to contain the UAE star.  

 Most of his 1v1 duel successes  were from strength duels and heading duels.                                              

His combination with Smith was also poor. Many of his passes directed to Smith failed to be controlled by the English based speedster with poor first touches.

Degenek was definitely a more effective RCB, although he was lucky not to have had to mark Abdul Rahman as often.

I don't reckon Tom Rogic ever played under Pim. Maybe it was Holger?

Either way, I vaguely recall a line-up similar to that being very, very quick and with enough space to work with (it might have had Robbie Kruse, too).

What's missing though is that x-factor footballer, whom the Italians call a fantasista. A fantasista will be a natural athlete (in the Mathew Leckie, Nikita Rukavytsya style), with the technical skills of somebody like Tom Rogic and the football IQ of somebody like Aaron Mooy.

We're missing that. That type of footballer is the gamebreaker. It makes it that much easier to attack through the middle and score from open-play.

I think Daniel Arzani and perhaps Lucas Derrick might be a go in that role. Very technically gifted, with 1 vs 1 ability, and fast and agile.

I don't think Taggart is particularly quick. At least, he has never demonstrated it. On the ball, he has never demonstrated that quick acceleration. Similarly, breaking through the lines to get onto a through-ball, he's not so quick.

A lot of Taggart's goals are eerily similar. And they mask these kind of weaknesses. This, I think, is why he was almost innocuous in the youth World Cup and in Europe. At a higher standard than the A-League, he needs those things and seems to lack them.

MacLaren, it seems to me, is slightly quicker. But is still not what you'd call really quick, it seems to me. They're both more, what I'd call, poachers in the style of Scott McDonald. Not target-men.

Nikita Rukavytsya is, imo, what you would call a very quick attacking footballer. But he is inconsistent in terms of touch and decision-making.

One other stat is that we played 5 long balls including  keeper clearances in the whole game, whilst UAE played 20.

A few years ago under Pim, I think, we played the fastest forwards we have ever had in a friendly against South Korea, I think it was Rukay, Oar, Rogic and Leckie.

They absolutely burnt SK for pace in counter  attacks. SK are usually  one of the quickest teams in Asia too.

If Ange used MacLaren and Taggart as  central strikers, he could work on those two killer pass combos that split defences open. I'm noticing in many games how our opponents are doing this to us, whilst we rarely do it.

This UAE game was no different. The UAE keeper or defenders often lumped it long to Abdul Rahman, who often played a killer pass that nearly put a UAE forward away on goal. Oz sometimes doesn't  track runners well.

This is a fair comment.

I think JVS and Valkanis have failed to use Cahill as effectively as they could've at City this season.

Cahill's goal sense in the penalty box is astonishing and still improving. He is  mentally strong, too. It doesn't worry him if he is uninvolved in the game for long periods, or he makes a near most dummy run to provide a scoring opportunity for a trailing midfielder behind him.

PV4 has noted previously that Cahill treads on defenders' toes, or gives little shoulder nudges to offset their balance to gain an advantage. 

having maclaren, taggart with leckie and smith/gersbach on the wings would be a ridiculously quick and agile attack force.

For wing backs, which Leckie and Smith effectively are in the 3-6-1, I cannot imagine too many others as athletic as them getting up and down the pitch from attack to defence.

If the team became a more conventional 3-4-3 with a midfield diamond, or flat midfield, then players as more conventional wingers in the attacking  line don't have to do as much work. Burns, Kruse, Oar, Goodwin are candidates.

Players like Davidson would have the qualities to play as a more athletic and mobile CB than Wright. Thie s would result in less defensive cover needed from wing backs.

Given Degenek wasn't beaten 1v1 in the game at all, it indicated that Leckie's cover was adequate. The ref whistle may have helped.

I include blocked shots, because I cannot determine what distance from the player/keeper blocking the shot.

3 Oz shots were blocked.

It is far from perfect methodology, but I'm open to ideas.

A number of balls,  circa 3-5, mainly from Abdul Rahman, spilt the Aussie defence, but were ruled offside - just.  

he plays better with better quality players around him. Shame that he couldnt get a work permit when he trialled at arsenal metz and others nearly 10 yrs back. Also shame ange blocked his dream move to crystal palace in 2013. Really think he could have played top level he doesnt have a single deficiency as a CDM.

thanks for the effort for this. I was pretty curious how some ppl were saying Denegek and even Bailey Wright had crap games.
For me Bailey and Milligan choked Omar completely out of the game bar a couple clumsy tackles which were unavoidable tbh.
Probably should pat themselves on the back because Omar is never quiet , even against Japan game before seemed like he was running amok

so guess I'm trying to cast a bit of attention to the fact that this defensive strategy worked so well. Better than anything we've seen so far, even Japan couldn't hold Omar to a few influential touches and that's it rofl

I don't know about Taggart. Some of the Perth games I've watched this season he's gone missing for long periods of the game. That is in the A-League, would hate to see what would happen against the likes of Japan or a European side. 

McLaren on the other hand, even if he has a quiet game, still manages to chip in with a goal or two.

Yes both quite haven't set the world on fire with their Socceroo performances yet - but I'd be inclined to pick McLaren, especially on current form.

Good work Decentric.

I think Leckie struggled to provide the defensive cover that Degenek required. Could a better option be to play an attacking defender down that side over Leckie??

The problem I see with Juric is that he lacks the one great quality Tim Cahill still has left, anticipation. He fails to see that one play ahead and so often looks slow. 

Question - you mentioned we had 20 shots (6 on target) and UAE had 4 (3 on target). 

Why so many off target for us? Did we shoot from outside the box more than we usually do? The ratio just seems incredibly wasteful to me.

And inversely, UAE's ratio is phenomenal. But did they hold off from "wild" shots and that is why? 

Awesome run down Decentric. A lot to digest there!

Welcome to the  forum, Glazier.

I thought he was better for the Socceroos than Victory too.

Some players lift with better payers around them. 

This is  something good about Ange in recent times.

There is a premeditated game plan to give Milligan the ball to distribute. He is like a metronome. His loss will be felt against Saudi.

Sains is fast developing into a quality player too, who is also a preferred  distributor.