dear threadites...

You want to discard the player who has made the most assists in the last two years and been involved in the equal most goals with Leckie. Of course Leckie is not involved in the first game.
And you call me delusional.

He has a punchable face, which makes people undervalue him. Nobody else in the Socceroos can do what he does and few can match his work rate.

I picked FrankFrank up in the other Kruse thread as being one eyed but thought I would clarify here that I still would not drop Kruse.

He is no more frustrating than any other player in his wastefulness and at least does something 1/10 as opposed to Never.
Wanna talk about wasteful? Rogic deciding that he is going to score a belter for the Socceroos no matter what like he does for Celtic so doing nothing else but taking wild pot shots anymore for the last few games and never getting his head up for a pass is starting to wear a little thin.....


Kruse will play in Leckie's position in Honduras and will be better for it too. I feel sorry for him and Leckie most of the time.

Leckie gets used by Ange so much I am just amazed he hasn't broken down. Imagine being asked to play like that in 3 straight group games of the world cup. You will kill the poor bastard. I also think he feels the burden/weight of being one of the supposed better players in the team as opposed to being surrounded by equal and better talent in Germany.

Anyway, this was about Kruse.
He is doing ok and will continue to get better again.
Playing a different position every game can't help these guys either it's getting ridiculous

Would have edited for grammar and cohesion. However, given it's pointless and the website won't freaking let me again anyway, I won't.

If you discount the stabbings, and fights with fence posts, and bottle throwing ,and pub invasions, and Melbourne side-street brawls,  pitch invasions (including attacks with fists bottles and boots against a visiting Kuwaiti youth side), I'd say it's always been fairly peaceful here.

Yeah i find it bewildering, aside from Leckie i cant think of another Aussie winger as good as kruse over the last 5 years or so

Ye he does waste a number of good chances but he brings so much more to the team compared to his negatives. He is the only one in our team who continually finds space and stretches defences, honestly look what happened when he got subbed out in Malaysia. We turned to absolute shit with no outlet and no one capable of pushing the Syrian line deeper.

His runs off the ball cannot be underestimated, this creates space and opportunities for others. The only other player on the field who makes simular runs is Leckie (without the same level of timing etc). It was evident at the confeds cup that when kruse didn't play we were too static.

Whether people are jealous or plain and simple no nothing about football - without Kruse in the national team I reckon we wouldn't be even in the playoffs, we would have been eliminated by now.

Okay yes he doesn't have the best touches in the world or score as many goals as everyone would like BUT he works his ar$e off for his country and his team mates.

The problem is that everyone thinks its easy, we all watch football in England, Spain or Germany don't we......Well these guys still miss hit crosses, take bad touches, shoot into the stands.....its about time people in Australia get behind the socceroos and all of the squad not just the 'so called' superstars in Rogic and Mooy.

Frank Frank appears to be Kruse's girlfriend, Dad, Mum, Grandmother, Grandfather, brother, uncle, aunty or cousin.

Now that Kruse is fit again, apart from profligacy around goals in good scoring positions, he has performed well in recent matches.

Fair play to him. Hopefully, Kruse's recent good form continues.

^This 100%. People picking on his face and the ridiculous strained immature look he has on face after being fouled or knocked off the ball gasping for air after another lung busting run. Doesn't make him a bad player

Watching on a tv too means you can't see the whole field of play and the runs people make

Great point this. Very true. Many aussie fans who have been weened on afl and rugby and watch the roos on tv have next to no idea of both a. what is and what isnt good movement and b. now much movement a player is making. 

Aaron mooy by contrast looks like a rolls royce and seems to be lauded as such by most aussie punters but they fail to see his failings in speed of ball movement and off the ball work. He looks so calm and polished on the ball so people fap about him (and he is def good at these things) but the untraned eye misses his shortcomings because they are harder to see. 

So there you have it. Double the amount of assists than anyone else in the side. I think this is another symptom of the perceptual bias people have towards kruse - when his stats flash up of 50 odd caps and 5 odd goals people look at it and go "wow thats shit he must suck" but without considering his assists, which regardless of what club he's played for he's always been an assist machine. I think his 1 season at Fortuna he had the 2nd or third most assists in the bundesliga despite playing in a relegated team. In his brief time in china he chalked up an close to an assist a game and now at Bochum he has an assist a match average.  

2 more assists to Kruse in his last match for Bochum

Saw the highlights..  Do this for the NT team, most of us will shut up.

Main strength in his game is his movement, he's excellent in that regard in finding space and still has decent speed.

But he's weakness is his technique, often has a poor first touch which leads to taking more than one touch thats needed, also he isnt strong at hold off possession enough (probably a major reason why he gets fouled so many times) plus doesn't score enough goals to be a major threat for teams.

The good of Kruse is very good but also exposes his bad side of his game as a reason why he frustrates fans. 

If i can find a comparison it would have to be Brett Holman who has a similar in profile, his major strength which is movement and ability to find space but a weakness like Kruse is his technical ability, also has a poor first touch and struggles to keep possession under pressure efficiently. 

Grazorblade makes a great point though, it seems with European scouts they appreciate players from our players more is not only the physical and mental strength but most importantly wa high level of intelligence around the pitch which Holman and Kruse possess. (this is called spatial awareness)

I always believe the weaknesses in Australian players is not only a high-level technical ability but most importantly is spatial awareness i.e movement off the ball and overall decision making to solve football problems. We always never had a problem with physicality but the other two issues let us down to often.

And from what ive seen from our youth teams not so sure if solved the first two problems especially when it comes to spatial awareness.

What does that come to its simple its coaching, is the NC doing its job on i havent seen it yet. 

His final product is significantly improving at club level now, hopefully he can be a bit more consistent at the NT level with a good amount of matches under him at club level. We've already seen an improvement but there is more to come we can hope.

And if you watch Mooy live you'd realise his movement and off the ball work is top class. 

He has been, Kruse to Cahill goal. The thing about highlights you don't see whether he mucked up another 10 chances.

See i don't think he's technique is that bad. It's better than leckie's anyway. I remember during the confeds cup when kruse replaced leckie in the final match v chile how much better kruse looked over the ball than leckie, ie cleaner first touch and much quicker handling speed. Then Leckie came on and you could see the difference in touch. Thing is because kruse was playing deep he didnt have as much pressure receiving the ball as he normally does where he is about to be battered. Difference with leckie is he has the strength to keep his feet and hold guys off. So for me it isn't technique but its a balance and core strength issue.  

Kruse is an admirable graduate of the Archie Thompson School of Offside with Distinction

I think Leckie's first touch and ball control is improving this season. A couple of times against Syria I was surprised at how he controlled the ball.

I disagree, Kruse gets offside by running there, Archie would just stand off side, not try to get back on-side and then be surprised when he was offside

Half the reason Kruse kept getting caught offside was because Mooy was too slow releasing the ball.. this is why Robbie kept complaining to him. He doesn't ordinarily get caught offside that much but mooy takes too long to release the ball with too many touches. Archie is a totally different story routinely stood offside as mentioned

Archie didn't understand the rule.  What's Kruse's excuse?

Angling attacking runs to the diagonal and also hooking them helps to stay onside, but it is difficult to time forward runs.

Bang on the money.

Leckie's technique  has improved over the last year.


When ball carrying  down the right flank he has also mastered a difficult move, known as the Ronaldo Chop in Brazilian Soccer School parlance.

 He uses the inside of the right foot  to drag the ball behind his body, which is now starting to wrong foot  and beat players. Subsequently, he shoots with his left foot as he beats his marker and goes inside.

A dominant player in an attacking position will get a "goal scorer point" every second game (goal scorer points are goals + assists). Our four main attacking players have a point around every 3 games. So no one has dominated but kruse has been one of our better players despite his injury woes stifling his club opportunities. Given that he has played for leverkusen I would expect that by the time he has a full season of buli 2 under his belt he will be the only player capable of this sort of return

On the plus side we get a lot off the bench in either cahill or juric and we get a lot from deep with mooy, luongo and jedi so that mitigates our cutting edge up front