So a possible 4-5-1 against France?

Wright/Sainsbury/Williams/Behich (4)

Jedinak/Milligan
Irvine/Mooy/Luongo (5)

Juric (1)

Arzani's workrate at the moment is just as bad as Rogic. He's not close to being NT ready, absolutely moot point discussing whether he is competing for starting spots when he'll be lucky to make the squad.

People here seem quite critical of Kruse at times. Yes, he does fluff a lot of chances/passes/crosses but at the same times he does create those chances. We fell apart against, I think Iraq, once he went off. The opponents respect him and dont know what he is going to do. One of the best things about his game is he takes the ball and possession quite deep and drags the defense back. This is what we need against all 3 teams. To keep them away from shooting range as much as possible. Leckie compliments this also. 

Yep, his performance against Syria was vital, for a good 60 minutes he was constantly creating chances and pushing their defence back. The moment he went off they pressed us to death in our own half knowing we had no threat and we were hanging on.

This thread reminds me of how much we need a decent striker. Weve never really had one. Viduka thought he was to good for us. I'll never forget that comment he made to Guss. Asking him why he's coaching a crap team. Also making that only playing to 50% when he left Celtic.

Mabil is also being underrated.

As for Arzani. we will play a home friendly aganist Argentina or someone at Perth or Melbourne or Sydney before they head to Russia. He should be subbed on for this game for a cameo. He can be one of the 9 subs. He shouldnt be selected for March. Nor WC unless there are several injuries. 

Juric could still do a good job for us if he decides to have his shooting boots on for a couple weeks. We just got to hope he peaks the right time of the year.

Moot point or not, imo, the discussion is merited if considering whether the footballer brings something to the side. You're most welcome to disagree with the proposition that the footballer does bring anything much. But that's worth discussing, at any rate.

Imo, pragmatism is a two-way street. For too much of the qualification campaign, Ange veered too much in the direction of all-out attack and didn't consider a more balanced approach. His words in the recent interview would seem to attest to the psychology of that; he thought of it in extremes. But you can go too far the other way, also.

In an ideal world, we'd have a starting line-up of eleven footballers all with excellent work rates and defensive ability. But you need an outlet of attack. As long as most of the side are defensively strong, you can afford one or two in the attacking third who aren't so good defensively. And it's a sensible trade-off which can enhance the overall defensive strategy. Without Rogic or Arzani, the only real route to goal is Cahill. And it blunts Mooy's effectiveness, imo.

Personally, I reckon the most pragmatic thing is to make sure the central midfield triangle are decent defensively (by going with Mooy, Jedinak and Irvine). Then you take a bit of a gamble on the right-wing with a footballer with some attacking ability and something which Mooy can work with.

Arzani is still behind plenty of Aussie footballers in terms of being an attacking outlet. He isn't ready yet, not even close.

How many senior Aussie footballers are strong in 1 vs 1?

I will say, to the detriment of my argument, that it's probably safer to count on Kruse's crossing than that of Arzani at this stage. And that is a key route to goal with Cahill there. Also Robbie can still work well with Mooy.

But genuinely think that Arzani can be more of a nightmare for defence's to contain than anybody else (except Rogic, but in short doses).

Never has a decent striker is a bit over the top. Viduka, Cahill, Kennedy and Aloisi were all more than decent.

I like this optimism.
Juric is a good player apart from his lack of goals. But he does have purple patches every now and then. Fingers crossed it happens during the World cup.

Can't believe some are calling for Rhys Williams and  Josh Risdon. Wiliams loses his cool and is a risk of conceding a penalty way too often . Heart attack material. Risdon mixes good runs and crosses with a high error count each game. Neither are NT level

Viduka's scoring rate of 11 goals in 43 games was poor.

The other three have, or had, a strike rate of circa 50% of the games they played. This is a good conversion rate.

What worries me most about Risdon is a lack of the speed over the turf necessary for a full back.

He has been frequently outsprinted at international and HAL level by opposition players. There is not much one can do about this.

His attacking play is a strength.

If behich can play right back, then we still have plenty of quality options at leftback.

Meredith, Elder, Gersbach, maybe smith if he can show some form.

One  of the strengths of Kruse and Leckie is that their runs off the ball in Ball Possession  going forwards creates dummy runs and effective movement for passing lanes to be created. This is needed to break opposition defensive lines.

Sometimes Kruse and Leckie have not been on the pitch at the same time and Burns has not been selected in the squad. There has been little forward movement in the attacking third.

The major weakness of Kruse and Leckie is their abominable finishing. They've played many games for Australia and barely scored any goals.

Nathan Burns, but everyone seems to not rate him.

If he can get sane game time at club level, I like the look  of Gersbach at LB from what I've seem of him for the Socceroos.

It would be good if Behich can play RB.

He has done well in the HAL and for the Socceroos, but his club coaches don't seem to have rated him since he left Australia.

He wouldn't be the first.

I know from experience how subjective coaches are in appraisals of players.

This is a good summation of Kruse's talents.

Often his attacking play leads to chances being created for teammates.

I admit Josh Kennedy was a hugely underrated player. He won best player awards constantly in the J league. That era really was a golden generation. I wonder why then? It was just a given that we had players in the premier league. Even the 2nds were playing at the top. Not sure if we are going thru a drought or the golden generation was a fluke?

He's been at Ajax for a while now.

You must know what reply is coming....

Where he has made how many senior appearances?

I have high hopes for him too but I think we have done our dash of promoting youth footballers (especially now Ange has gone).

This would be more useful if our players had the skill and decisiveness to exploit passing lanes, but they often hesitate or are overly cautious and decide to play backwards.

Probably drought. We do have some promising players coming through that are 16-20 tbh

Sure, but my initial point was that you can't put Arzani above him, not that he should be capped. Pasquali would surely have made many more appearances had he stayed at Victory, no doubt.