jedinak and wright might both get promoted

Jedi does what he does very well.  Broke up Birmingham attacks all game and while not always on target he releases early, giving his front men space. The frantic pace of the EFL suits what Jedi does 

rogic apparently will feature for the u23s on monday and is likely to feature in europe on thursday

before injury he was more of a creator than finisher this season with 4 goals and 7 assists from 1500 minutes. Last year he had 12 goals and 6 assists from 2200 so he is scoring a little less this year

It was a very unlucky tackle, I think worst case maybe fractured knee cap, he didn't look like he was in that crazy pain you would expect from an ACL tear... he was having one of his best games this year.

we should setup like hudders did last night, play Arzani in the 10, Mooy deeper controlling and recycling the ball, Jedi simply there to clean up and look for Mooy and Arzani.

But we are atrocious. Mooy is class however. That ball into the box was sublime. 

Anthony Carter came on in the last few minutes for Benfica B. 

Well then.

Ryan in the BBC team of the week.

Mooy made the ESPNFC team of the week.

Mounie killed it. Kane, what a load of manure

BBC team of the week Izugeiro fark off

And? No inference whatsoever can be made from that. Barcelona will score after a couple of passes, they'll also score after twenty passes. That we're the middle of the road in terms of the number of passes we put together before taking a shot means nothing. We make lots of sideways passes and can't outmaneouvre the opponent (either by off the ball movement or individual ability on the ball).

Grazor try to pretend you're not Australian for just half a second. Then reflect on the qualification campaign which you watched. We were abysmal at breaking down opposition defences in remotely congested final third. Producing (hitherto unsubstantiated) statistics which have no contextual basis and limited relevance does not strengthen your argument. Nor does it suddenly make Australia decent in the final third in terms of creativity.


Believe it or not, it is possible for a team to have more than one problem.


And again, it is possible for a team to have more than one problem.


Oh believe you me, Arzani will open up passing lanes (if only by virtue of the diligence with which opposition defences will need to defend him with).

When you play against a guy with 1 vs 1 ability who moves well off the ball, it diverts your team's resources that way. That guy always has to be accounted for (and marked tightly in certain areas). This means that the others in the team get less attention. As such, the mere presence of an Arzani type opens up passing lanes. I agree though that Robbie Kruse is also very good at opening up passing lanes with his off-the-ball movement. But I question your ranking of who's good at opening up passing lanes and who's not? What's the basis for that? Is there any piece of analysis to substantiate this view?

the british have their bias.  it's hard to listen to in the commentating.  i thought mooy was good but also a little off the pace in the game.  a couple killer passes make up for it but im still not sold on him as a #8.  pritchard and kongolo look like they are settling in well.  this relegation battle is sensational this year.  funny how the fortunes of the bottom 8-10 clubs might well be more interesting than the top 6 in the end. 

pity australia is special and we like having a shit go nowhere league with no p+r............

Milligan starting in the ACL against Iranian side Tractor Sazi. I think it's being played in Oman due to political bollocks.

the stats are from 538 spain and germany are #1 and #2 for how much passing they do before a shot which is what you would expect. We weren't a overly possession focused team we were actually moderate in this regard and generated a stupid amount of shots and  completed passes into the box. If those result in goals people say "gee they are creative*" even though the build up is exactly the same.


I'm not sure what stat would measure how many passing lanes you open up. Its true if you are double teamed you make it easier for other players to open passing lanes. Just watching kruse all his career he is very good at finding space especially behind. Perhaps a stat would be "how many times you recieve a pass in the opposition half unmarked" but don't know any stats which look at that. Positioning is at the moment the biggest flaw in statistical analysis of players and one of the most important parts of the game


*everything normalized to the level the roos at. If you were to rank the following qualities how would you rank them: ability to generate chances, ability to convert chances, ability to prevent conceding chances, ability to stop the opposition converting chances (last ditch defending), ability to starve the opposition of the ball what would the order be? If you believe the quals were an A,B,C,D,E or F campaign the relative ranking won't change and I would put creativity near the top. At the confeds I would put it higher than ability to starve opposition of the ball and in the quals i'd put the order the other way round but both near the top

We need to see more from this kid Arzani.
So you're basically saying Arzani is as good as Coutinho @ a World Cup? He will be this explosive attacking instrument that will wreak havoc on top defenses.
Dunno man, Rogic could barely make a dent in any teams against a bus. More what you want is Noubett or something in counter mode

90 minutes for Curtis Good with the U23s. Wonder where he'll go next...

Hopefully the a league

It's not too late for him to be a late bloomer

He is about as good as ninkovic or Castro at the moment but behind mooy when he was here. Does that make him good enough to be selected above other wing rivals? If he starts banging them in then I say yes otherwise I'm on the fence

So the source is fivethirtyeight.com? Okay, fair enough. But what's it saying? That more passes suggests stronger creative ability?

But that particular statistic (average number of passes completed before making a shot) doesn't shed any light whatsoever on whether we're good/bad/otherwise in terms of creativity and breaking down the opposition in the final third (particularly against a tight defence). You can put together dozens of pointless sideways passes and then have a nothing sort of a shot. Or you can you put together dozens of sideways passes and an opening may flukily open up which might permit for a shot. That pushes up the number of passes up significant but doesn't mean they're good passes.

Similarly, a CDM might turn over the ball in the middle third, and spot a diagonal run for a winger. He may weight a through-ball perfectly and the winger may slot it home. So there's an instance of excellent creativity/ability to break down the opposition with just one pass.

That statistic you've provided has no contextual significance and, as such, doesn't measure how good we are in terms of attacking prowess and creativity.

On the basis of viewing the qualification campaign, the NT have big problems breaking down defences (particularly when there's limited space). One of the big problems is lack of a winger with speed and close control. That sort of footballer is a strong tool in breaking down a defence. Distorted stats don't alter that.


The whole purpose of Angeball was that we supposed to be a possession-focused team.


That's because it's probably not really possible to quantify, statistically, how good or bad or bad a footballer is at opening up passing lanes.

The best that can be done is to observe and to look for certain earmarks of their play (particularly in the context of the team and the opposition).


I'm not sure how I'd rank those things (and I'm not even sure they are statistically quantifable). But I'm not sure there's any point. It's possible to suck at all of them. The implication of such would not be to ignore areas where you don't suck the most. Rather, do the various things which can be done to improve the respective areas.

Of course, I'm not saying that Arzani is as good as Coutinho at a World Cup.

I'm saying that Australia are shit at football and that Arzani has some of the skills that are missing.

Kane literally scored 1 goal ? at the end of the match. Mounie 2 goals and assist. destroyed Bournemouth almost single handedly.
crock of the sh*t. Yeah Pritchard was very good. Van La Parra got hacked down literally everytime he was on the ball. He's quite good when he's got a little smidgen of confidence, his ball skill is amazing

grazorblade, and anybody else, I just had a thought.

Shall we continue this conversation in NT thread?

Probably a good idea

So what is Arzani's position ? scratch that I'll answer it myself, he is a CM but I'd argue he's vary similar to Troisi and co

ok rofl

Milligan with an importance clearance in added time
https://twitter.com/AbosH_17/status/963101726533398529

did anyone catch the aston villa derby?  if you believe australian media jedinak was motm.  good to hear that he is back in the mix and in a promotion spot. he is too good for the championship.

It appears he had a solid game. As to comments about Jedinak and Wright being promoted, if both their clubs go up, I expect Jedinak to be retained as a valuable squad member while Wright will hopefully be given a start at the beginning of the season at least. Except Wright to have similar difficulties like the two Brighton defenders.