Well hot humid or not that was woeful to watch - yes 3points is 3points what matters in the end but for the life of me, some football would have been nice to see in patch's.
Onya Grant 1st NT goal - well directed header and the chance taken.

Even if the coverage was not up to the standard you would like, I hope you watched the game against China. The football was superb! 

Great seeing you still here, Keeper 66. I must have seen you posting on this forum for about 14 years!

Thanks  for posting this, J.

Agree with most of the positive comments.

Mistake!

I think of the CBs, Souttar was a bit shaky early on in possession against China. Ditto, Sains, but both have done better than I expected.

I know a few on here have been long term Sains fans. However, until the last two games, I thought he has steadily declined, perplexingly, since his peak at the Asian Cup 2015. If  he is as playing more consistent club football in Israel, he has definitely improved again. His timing of his tackling is back to where it was in 2015. He is much more assured  in possession too. A further recent improvement, is when I suggest Sains'  timing of the tackle has improved  recently, he is not giving away the many fouls/free kicks he was conceding in dangerous positions too. 

Sains is  so much the coach on the pitch directing traffic from a pivotal CB position. This is great for us, as CB is an easy position to organise the team shape and lines   in front of the player. 

I thought  nimble payers would have wrong footed  Souttar  much more than  he has been beaten in the last two games. We all know he is a monster in the air, but his jockeying, delaying, showing and timing of tackles has greatly exceeded my expectations for such a tall, big player. I do not know what he has been  doing on the training track, but he seems to have improved this stand out weakness from the first games he played for Aus.

Until Souttar was selected, Degenek was easily our first choice as CB. I'm not sure where he is playing this club football ( Red Star?), but apart from the horrific mistake that knocked us out of the Asian Cup against UAE, he has been our top CB. That Souttar and Sains  are  deemed by Arnie to be playing better  than Degenek is good for the Socceroos.

Boyle has been a real find for us. He has a lot of current confidence and flair around goals. ATM he is our most consistent attacking player - playing well in every game he plays. I feel if Arnie is objective ( he may not have  been about Sains for a few years) Boyle shows up  Leckie and Kruse's entire careers for the Socceroos. If they've been our best players, as wingers, their inability to score goals has cost us a lot of games we should have won.

Boyle is quite blown out  with the Socceroo set up and playing international football. He has done more with the service he has had from other teammates than his predecessors since Cahill's good days. He he been very pleased with the quality of  service he has received. He loves international football!

Mabil might struggle to play in extreme heat and humidity. Although not always consistent  like Boyle, Awer has scored lot of Socceroo goals, his predecessors, Leckie, Kruse and even Ikon and Nabbout, failed to score  from playing wide roles.

This wing duo of Boyle and Mabil, have partially addressed our inability to  convert goals from so many chances created in the last few years, that should have been converted. Long may their form continue!

Duke is really consolidating his place. He is more of a self-reliant central  striker than Maclaren in particular, and even Taggart, who rely on high quality delivery , and, teammates to read their offensive runs and know their idiosyncracies to enable them to score.  This needs a considerable degree of familiarity.

 Duke's  ability to get into the game quickly  with his energetic closing down and patrolling a  greater area as  the central striker has been effective. He has improved his skill set for international football.  He may not have had the quality and quantity  of delivery in his WSW club scenario, that he has enjoyed with the Socceroos. Duke has been a late developer. 

Arzani although far too right foot and right side of the body dominant, and unable to impress overseas coaches,  he still has 1v1 dribbling and ball carrying qualities, plus his shooting,  that create an offensive threat. He has improved his defensive game and tracking back too. He had some good moments  for the Olyroos. What we've seen of Arzani with the 2018 WC and at Melb City, at his young age, was pretty exceptional.

Looking at our last 3 qualifying campaigns, we have always slipped up on the road somewhere (or even at home) so the ability for this team to keep winning is impressive and shouldn't be downplayed even if the result last night wasn't the most inspiring performance.

2010:
0-0 draw away to china
1-0 loss at home to china
1-0 loss away to Iraq
0-0 draw away to Qatar

2014:
1-0 loss to away to Oman
2-2 draw home to Oman
0-0 draw away to Oman
2-1 away loss to Jordan

2018:
2-0 away loss to Jordan
2-0 away loss to Japan
2-2 away draw with Saudi Arabia
1-1 away draw with Iraq
2-2 away draw with Thailand

Yes - he has surprised me. I haven't seen him play in England but he looked a bit shaky in these areas early. Very solid recently and he reads the play very well  

Saudi's appear to be strong in qualifying again. Could be a real battle for 2nd again like last time. 

yes these are the sort of games that we have lost or drawn in previous campaigns. Against an organised defence in trying conditions away from home, so i will take a win. next window is another test. oman will be similar and have shown that they are no easy beats then away to japan. 

Yes, their next games at home to Japan and then China will give us an indication of their prospects. Its probably handy for us that ostensibly our first real home game will be against them in November.

I dunno if it's been covered on this Topic but I genuinely believe us playing out of Qatar may be highly beneficial.
-The travel from Europe is less.
-The air condition stadium takes the temp down to 22 and negligible humidity.
-Understanding of the pitchs in Qatar will assist us if we make it.

Wonderful win, so important to get the first goal.
The Vietnamese quickly reverted to a 5-4-1 when not in succession, GA tactics of getting the ball into the edge of their final third then turning back to pass the ball around the centre worked perfectly, interestingly the Vietnamese were very slow to press and didn’t full press until the final 5 minutes.
Good decision not to bring in Arzani as he would have turned over the ball and this may have led to a late equaliser.
Ryan Grant super effort from the A-Leaguer.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/socceroos/socceroos-vs-vietnam-world-cup-qualifiers-qatar-2022-player-ratings-analysis-news-aaron-mooy/news-story/3d189be84536e8ad72529d1f2526a011

Player ratings. Mabil and Mcgree only 4 each. Souttar and Duke 7

Don't know about the 6 rating for Brad Smith, he was dismal and it was a good move for him to be replaced after only 55 minutes. His combination with Mabil was nearly non-existent, his passing was poor, and he seemed like he was struggling when tracking back. I would have only given him a 4 as well, maybe even less.

Yes I watched the China game, I watch all games, and I agree the quality of the football against China was good. While the quality against Vietnam was poor, the pitch quality and the humidity were big factors.

Checked my profile and saw that I have been on this forum for 11 years. I find this forum interesting, with a diverse range of opinions from mostly fairly eloquent posters, although it is a bit disappointing that some of the longer-term forumites appear to have left over the past couple of years.

My blood is too thick for Nevada

Insightful and well-written appraisal, Decentric.

I haven't seen too much of Daniel Arzani since his return. Before his injury, it was his ball control, agility + speed which made him such a handful in 1 vs 1 situations before. The worry is that, post ACL, a footballer might lose his speed and agility. At the Olympics I noticed that he managed to sprint back from about the halfway line in order to clear the ball from the Aussie penalty box. It looked as if this sprint was extremely fast. It may be confirmation bias on my part, but it made me hopeful that he still has his speed. Aside from that, I was confident that he still has that x-factor. The thing is for him to refine his attacks a bit more. His decision-making has always had room for improvement. Game time will help that. Here's hoping he can get a lot of minutes under his belt in Belgium.

I particularly like your analysis of Mitchell Duke. Even if he doesn't score as much as others, he exemplifies the idea of defending from the front. Imo, the benefit of this is twofold. Firstly, it takes a lot of pressure off our midfield and defence. Secondly, it can force mistakes out of opposition defenders.

We mightn't have a striker in the mould of Romelu Lukaku (let alone with his quality). But, as you say, we have goal-scoring options in Awer Mabil, Martin Boyle and Daniel Arzani. We also have Nikita Rukavytsya. So there are definite goal-scoring options, and the discipline to force mistakes out of opposition defences. That might well be enough.

hey keeper,
yet look what they say in the player ranking re Smith
That’s evidenced by him making as many passes (29) in his 56 minutes as Rhyan Grant did in the full match. His combination with Awer Mabil showed some promising signs despite several missteps on both accounts. His passing was reasonable though, and he was always willing to overlap down the flank in a gut-bursting effort. Had Mabil’s pass in the 13th minute had been just a touch shorter, Smith would have picked up an assist after fizzing a low cross into the six-yard box.

Mind you I agree with you and IMO there were many like him and worse.
He had no room for one being how the Viets structured, so many of us were tripping over each other it seemed.
Mabil was useless even before fatiging for me.
Hrustic got a 6.5, for me he pushed getting a 5.
Rogic 5.
Taggert 4.
Duke was a god send and should be our point man, he's always been goer I like his energy.

Yes I read what they said about Smith, but I still think he was poor. If he made 29 passes (presumably they are talking about successful passes here), then I suspect the vast majority of them would have been short, no pressure passes just keeping possession. Simple stats with no context can be misleading. Would be interesting to know how many bad passes he did or how many times he lost possession, my recollection is quite a few. I also don't recall too many attempts at overlaps, he and Mabil mostly got in each others way. I wouldn't at all say his combination with Mabil looked "promising".

I agree with your ratings on the others.

With Duke, I find him an interesting player. My feeling is that he tends to be good when the conditions are tough, because he does have lots of energy and sometimes that extra bit of effort is the difference in breaking down a defence rather than technical play which can quite easily come unstuck. Conversely, when the Aussie team is doing well and can string together some sharp incisive passing, I think the more technical players tend to look better and Duke looks a bit more of a plodder. I would be looking to use Duke more in those tougher conditions, and less in the not-so-tough conditions.

Weren’t all the Socceroos wins away from home? Ie - none were played in Australia? 

The next games are really interesting.We play last time losers Oman and Japan play Saudi Arabia away.If Japan lose and we win thats a two win break for us and Saudi Arabia.

Ryan - 9
Souttar - 8
Sainsbury - 7
Grant - 8
Smith - 6
Irvine - 6
Hrustic - 7
Mabil - 1
McGee - 4
Rogic - 5
Taggart - 4

Duke - 8
Mooy - 1
Behich - 6

Definitely Not now

The home match vs Vietnam will be Jan 27 in Melbourne.

Must win. We're getting to the point of Last Chance Saloon in regards to the qualifying.

Hi guys, does anyone have the presale code please on Ticketek? I have registered, but never received the code. Cheers!

Massive triple header on 27 January.

Saudi v Oman
Japan v China
Australia v Vietnam

Each home team only won the away fixture 1 - 0. Both Oman and China can kiss goodbye any chance of direct qualification with a loss. Some history politically in the first two clashes. With our game in Melbourne, winning will put some pressure on both Japan and Saudi to also win as we should finish our game first.

Really don't know which I prefer, Saudi to win and then us face a demoralised (?) Oman, or for them to be still fighting for a place in the fourth round/direct qualification.

email from MyFootball with ‘click here’ link to Ticketek site for pre-sale is all i got?

Thanks mate. For some reason, I haven’t received it. If it is just a general URL and not specific to the individual, would love if you could please share the link.