I think Degenek was good, getting much better, but if Rhys Williams continues what has been reported as excellent form for Victory (I did not see the game) then I would like to see him start at RCB alongside Sainsbury and Jurman who surprised me by being so good. .
Risdon on the right in the away game seems to be the best option and hopefully Gersbach on the left.
Jedinak is going to be underdone so I am not sure he is the right choice as DM. Perhaps Irvine, but not sure.

Ryan
Risdon - Williams - Sainsbury - Jurman - Gersbach
Irvine - Mooy
Kruse - Juric - Troisi

Positive is Milligan will be getting more match fitness despite his away leg suspension. Risdon too and hopefully Gersbach. 

I'd really love it if we'd qualified. Seeing Amini, Irvine and Goodwin starting would be very interesting. 

Iran drew 1:1 in Russia and Japan beat Haiti 2:1.

Jurman and Degenek showed they can work in a back 3 well with Sainsbury. Ruka was a revelation and wish we had him earlier in the qualificatiob process. Should use him on the left next game as Leckie is suspended. Lack of switch of play balls was baffling seeing how the syrian legs were exhausted late in the game. Good to see is using more width well but some earlier balls over their defense to Ruka or Leckie could have stretched their formation. They both havr pace and rogic or mooy the passing skills to do it. Kruse and Cahill i find frustrating. For much of the game kruse was very wasteful and Cahill was absent but they won the game for us in the end. Both mooy and rogic were not so crazily marked and both played good games. I was starting to think that playing both leaves s big slow moving hole in our formation but last night both upped the tempo in bpo. Again our trandition to sttsck was often slow alloeing them yo park the bus, but we had the 1v1 skills to make chances this gsme. Against better teams though it will be the jspan game again. 

Glad we scraped through, i thought we were farked when they got that free kick until it went off the post.
Ruka surpirsngly had a good game for his cameo , but to me Milligan had a blinder bar that 1st dodgy pass

Sorry if it's been asked before, who else is suspended for the next play off other than Milligan?

Time to sleep. Waking up to our opponent. I might wake up during the night and check my phone. I'll say it's going to be Panama. 

Leckie. 

Jurman like a duck to water. Imagine what a couple of others could do to our side! 

Here's an interesting one. Are there any rules regarding suspended squad members having to travel to the destination of a specific leg? 

Could Milligan stay in Australia and Leckie forgo the central American stopover? There's no way I'd want either to do unnecessary travel. I think Mooy returned to England after being suspended for our home UAE match. 

I can't see any reason why FIFA would require them to be there for the first leg - although Ange may want them there to work on tactics with the main squad? But yeah I agree, might as well send both to Sydney to keep them fresh.

Milligan especially. It'd be really senseless going there and back. Leckie us arguably on the way. 

The route to Honduras is bloody tough. From Frankfurt you can go to Atlanta and have a long layover. Heathrow has you via Atlanta or Houston. At least a 22 hour trip. 

Panama has flights from Madrid or Amsterdam while from Sydney it's via LA. From Europe it's around 16 hours. Our Asian based players would have a massive journey too. 

Panama appears the easier from the logistics and I imagine is less threatening than Honduras on matchday? 

Eh? They just need to draw to Trinidad and Tobago, who have won 1 and lost 8 during qualifying, to get through. Even if they lose, Panama needs to beat Costa Rica or Honduras needs to beat Mexico.

It's either Panama or Honduras.

Anywhere on foxtel showing panama/honduras/usa games?

I just cannot get over Ange the enigmatic coach. His book also delineates him as an enigmatic character. I've read a lot of football books and i think he is more perplexing than Johann Cruyff, Louis Van Gaal and possibly Brian Clough.

*Ange delineated specific criteria for Socceroo selection a few years ago, but has broken it frequently. Playing regularly for a club was one prerequisite.  He applies this inconsistently. Smith continues to be selected and makes horrific mistakes that are decisive and he plays little club football. Spira is dropped for playing regularly in the wrong league and may be be guilty of not taking the next step up - but few others have either. His CB partnership with Sains won us the Asian Cup.

Sains struggles for game time in the CSL  yet is clearly one of the best CBs in Asia.  Hal players, Milligan, Cahill and Risdon all lack match fitness, but have played surprisingly well for the Socceroos.

Jurman has performed admirably for the Socceroos and is one of the few players elected who fulfil  Ange's original selection criteria.





* Why does Ange continue a single game after game plan to only use one system, his voodoo 3-4-2-1? He never uses a 1-4-3-3 attacking midfield triangle, a 1-4-3- 3 defensive midfield triangle or a 4-2-3-1 anymore. He never changes the formation in any given game despite the state of the match.  Why? The 4-3-3 variations and 4-2-3-1 are systems the players are familiar with at club and national team level. We are so predictable for opposition coaches.




* Against Syria the best the team has played was when Ange had balance in his voodoo 3-4-2-1 system by playing Behich and Risdon out wide, so Kruse and Leckie could focus on their clever attacking runs in the attacking third. Australia had its best spell of football in the two legs whilst Risdon and  Behich played as full backs. They did  a lot of defensive wide work enabling Kruse and Leckie to find pockets of space, create dummy runs, receive at speed, and get in behind the defence. Even then the quality of their final balls can be inconsistent.Maybe Behich and Risdon didn't  recover that well from the first  Syrian game?




* Does Ange underrate the current Cahill like his Melb City coaches? He has scored 50 international goals, including  3 successive World Cups against the best teams in the world. This is a similar conversion rate to John Aloisi and Kennedy at about 50% conversion rate per game played, yet City don't even consider him the solution as their target striker? Cahill hasn't lost any ability in goal craft if teams do the donkey work cover the rest of the pitch. Cahill also has the mental strength to score in the biggest games when other players crack under pressure.




* For all the good build up work Leckie, Kruse et al do so well, they simply struggle to do what counts most - convert goals at international level on a consistent basis. I think Leckie may have about 7 goals out of circa  50 played and Kruse about 5 out of 50 games played.  Cahill has scored 50 for about 100 played. Kennedy had 17 from 34 and Aloisi had a  1:2 conversion rate. Conversely, big club stars Dukes had 11 from 44 played and Macca had 0 from 25 played. Club football is a different beast from international football. Many never make the step up.




*Playing the better battle hardened Asian teams in tough conditions is probably a big step up from a lot of European club football, particularly mentally. The fact that players like Sains and Burns cannot get regular game time may indicate some of the better Asian leagues, the Gulf, Saudi, Iran, J and K league, the CSL and Thai league may have improved immeasurably relative to us and mid ranking European leagues. Even Mooy and Leckie don't dominate the better Asian opposition considering the high standard they currently play club football.  



*Why has Ange dropped Spira? He may  not have taken that next step, but after Cahill he is possibly our most experienced international player. Why select Smith, who has played virtually no club football whilst dropping Spira? Jurman has been a surprising revelation and credit to Ange for selecting him, but Spira should still be in the squad.




* If Ange can be vindicated in that Australia has had so many scoring opportunities per game compared to the opposition, and played more balls in to the penalty box, with overwhelming territorial and possession dominance, then the stats must show that the chances the opposition create are often from long, direct balls over the top and accelerated attacks forcing our defence to turn around and defend facing our own goal.

Conversely, Australia's shots in the box must have opposition defenders in front of them on many occasions as they defend deep  so much. For Australia to launch our own accelerated attacks we must have fast wide players in attacking positions like Kruse and Leckie, with wide defensive cover behind them like specialist full backs, Behich, Gersbach  and Risdon.

Your last point Decentric is spot on, so tired of hearing how many chances we create when simply put they aren't high quality chances at all. Teams let us take 15-20 long shots a game, they don't mind us taking a scrappy shot in the box which their keeper has covered or the 10 defenders camped in their. We don't move the ball fast enough, nor do we switch the play enough to actually break through a teams defence properly like they do to us.

I'm just another frustrated Aussie footy fan and no expert . I wanted someone to explain to me why mooy isn't a big problem in this formation that Ange keeps using . If he's the engine he looks like it's running at about 500rpm instead of 3000rpm . 
He did some really good things and back tracked really well a few times as well some neat short passes in attack , but often when he loses the ball the defence is very vulnerable and he's way to slow to recover .  
When he came on Leckie may have well as become a cardboard cut out , the play went down the left side every time at a snail pace . 
He receives the ball runs around in a circle three times and beats his marker twice and then passes a short pass down the left to someone who is under more pressure than him . 
Rogic looked ten times more dangerous without Mooy on the pitch and he seemed to move the ball on a one touch pass or gave himself room and attacked the defence . 

Please explain . 

The game was so annoying.

Syria flooded the MF and blocked the channels for Australia to pass through.  We were slow to transition, slowed down situations where a fast break would have opened them up.

Ruka comes on and arguably one of the fastest players.  Australia keeps on knocking the ball around the MF and I can't remember a single time the ball was knocked over the Syria CB heads for Ruka to run on to.

With Arnie, there is no Plan B.

No, sorry there is.

Plan B: refer to Plan A.

doesn't look like it

Yep ridiculous that both ESPN and Bein Sports are showing the same CONMEBOL qualifiers when the CONCACAF ones matter to us here.

Can you not get them on ESPN? I did that last time and just put in my foxtel username and password.

Nope they're not on WatchESPN this time. Absolutely maddening :blush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2QZ7Qru-AY  panama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY1qgaFlGXk   honduras

Youtube have the games on now

Panama with English commentary http://realstream247.net/ch166.html

^Mexico v Honduras coming at you from 1984

Wow I thought only Arsenal could dominate games that much and only win by such margins ... admittedly they wouldn't create a quarter of those chances (with that scoreline anyway)

Mexico 1-0 on Honduras

T&T beating USA 1-0 wtfffff

USA are down 1-0!!!

This.
I'm there watching this slow snails pace of play.
When we had the chance to counter and there were plenty - just as our first goal thats how to kill a game, their defense having to turn/chase us we moving forward bang just as Cahills first goal.
(might I add just as their goal, counter bangbangbang goal)
WTF can't Ange see that we all do.
I won't go on about x player this x player that for it was out there for all to see, we lack "IT" so much its not funny.
Oh hang on just one for me, Ryan, I have heart palpitations every time the ball gets towards him its not funny. 
I like the bloke and wish him all the best but seriously, I have NO CONFIDENCE with him between the sticks.
Yes Ange it is hard - to be honest your not in a good spot despite your own flaws ( none of us are perfect) - our cattle is ordinary but we got what we got.
Bring on whoever and I'll be there cheering but OMG I'll be chewing my nails off.