I'm quite concerned about Ernie Merrick being an analyst. He was  already  a pro accredited coach in the old system, and to the best of my knowledge has not retrained in the new revamped coaching methodology since 2008. I know coaches who have had old Soccer Aus licences. They have just had to attend national conferences as a participants, and their old badges  are reinstated. One of the assessors told me a C Licence in 2012 was a more highly credentialled accreditation than an A Licence prior to 2005.

Merrick has not been forced to adopt the newer methods, and be assessed, like all the A L coaches who've trained since 2008 onwards have learned.

The  irony is in response to  your first point I don't think any team had  the deep defensive block/Partial Press against the Olyroos that the senior Socceroos have encountered, but more of a Half Press, which is still a conservative  measure in BPO.

What is pleasing is that the Olyroos played so many balls into the pen box with players in support, whilst the senior Socceroos can't do it against arguably inferior opposition to what the senior Socceroos have been playing. 

Toure is an interesting case in point. He had 2-3 shots against Jordan from his 30 odd mins, 7 shots ( including a pen) as a starter against Indonesia and 0 shots as a starter  against Qatar. In the era when I used to record stats for comparative criterion, Cahill playing as central striker averaged 4-5, or 5-6 shots per game.

 Toure got some good shots in. He hit the post at least once, and  went close on a number of occasions with shots just wide or executing difficult shots  for the keeper to save, from  well struck balls with good body position.  But he didn't score, which is of paramount importance.

A Kuol got at least 2 shots against Jordan ( couldn't identify a few of the perpetrators of the 15 shots), possibly had 0 against Indonesia and 1 against Qatar.

Milanovic as a winger had at least 1 shot against Jordan, 0 against Indonesia off the bench and 5 against Qatar. He missed an open goal when he headed it wide with 1 shot!

Brook  as a winger had at least 1 shot against Jordan, which nearly scored as the keeper just deflected it from going into the corner; at least  3 shots off the bench against Indonesia; and at least 7 shots as a starter against Qatar. Again in one of the latter two games it involved another fingertip save from the opposition keeper to one of Brook's shots and a number of very close Brook  misses. 

There were easily enough good shots created by Aus to score many more goals than the 3 opponents. They scored 1 goal from 18 shots at our goal, whilst we scored 0 from 60 shots at their goals.  I recorded we hit the woodwork 3-4 times too.

Yep given we had an experienced dutch TD overhaul our coach and player development this feels like a weird move for FA and board to appoint Merrick in this important role.

Anyway, the final third play is something to work on, clearly we struggled in the final third however I dont think it reflects on the players ability and more through the coaching and preparation they had.

This is the hardest bit to produce players with the ability to pierce the defence, a rare commodity in football in this country.

And yet the Aleague produces a higher goals per game ratio than most other leagues? I dont watch any of it but how is this possible these technical gifted, NC produced, new platinum generation players can pierce Aleague defences but not those of Indonesia or Jordan?

C'mon man there is a problem, we all have to agree on how to fix it.

2 different issues here, producing players with the ability to pierce defences & scoring against Indonesia & Jordan.
We don't produce enough world class playmakers or wingers with the ability to break down defences, something we are working on.

As for not scoring against Indonesia or Jordan, maybe this is because the players are Liverpool fans & watching re-runs of Nunez & Salah.
I think the Olyroos, like Liverpool has been creating chances & not scoring.