Clearly O'Neill is a starter and Baccus is good when the opponent is tired. Why not bench Irvine? His strength and limited football IQ would be more effective against a tired opposition. 

Law of averages Jones didn't exactly have a bad game. Some passes and blocks will not work in your favour every game. Still, underwhelming. Behich borderline disgrace given his experience. 

After the goal, Irvine was picking up a lot of loose balls in the middle. Unpopular opinion, but he'd get my MOTM.

reckon that was our most convincing performance against syria. They managed to turn a couple of hard changes into tricky situations, but I was happy with the ability of our players to shut out so many counter attacks early on

Its also 5 matches in a row where we haven't conceded against asian opposition. Best we have been defensively since 2009 2nd round of quals

Looked a lot better when Syria tried to push forward. But that isn't anything we didn't know.

Thought Behich was stronger in that second half. Souttar is just a beast.

Need to revisit our choice of 9. Duke just doesn't provide enough in these types of games. Maybe against the Uzbeks there'll be more space for him but even still our other options probably pounce more than he does.

Maybe we're warming into the tournament but we need to be playing McGree and perhaps Silvera. Just a complete lack of imagination outside the box.

Have to agree with everyone criticising the system with respect to the fullbacks when in possession. It's a great way to play if you have an Alexander-Arnold, but not with two poor players on the ball like Jones and Behich. Would much rather see the fullbacks giving the width going forward, even though Behich's crossing accuracy is normally pretty poor.

Bos needs to start ahead of Behich at LB

The day we finally have quality players to play decent football at least functional football will be a sight for saw eyes, the current football we playing is very uninspiring to watch is the really worth it when following the national team where we cant develop a team that's functional in possession?

The lack of technical quality is really telling I would have moved on from Arnie and started afresh but this team really needs to evolve going forward.

I never felt this disappointed even though we won, Syria were average too which makes it worse.

Also, what is it with Ryan racing outside the box and heading the ball rather than just letting it come into the penalty area and him picking it up. He did it once against India and twice today. Very poor judgement.

With average football to boot, I hope this isnt our ceiling as a national team with football like that.

Yeah well said. Lots to criticise but you're right, our battles vs Syria have always been seriously tough. Defence sturdiness is starting to remind me of the Verbeek era.

Positive about our chances vs Uzbekistan because it'll be more open. However we need to be more clinical as when Syria through it open we didn't put it to bed. 

Also not sure what Arnie sees in Jones, ive seen better right fullbacks in the a-league than him.

The Bos sub was very surprising at least he used Silvera more inverted even though he didnt make the best impact it was something different.

It might be in our interest to finish 2nd. It depends on a lot still.

My team for Uzbekistan 

                           Ryan
     Atkinson  Souttar  Burgess Rowles
               O'Neill  Yazbek
                     McGree
            Yengi  Fornaroli Goodwin

Get the legs stretched and move around the pitch. Brain and muscle with a bit of conservation in mind for Bos.
          

Also for what it's worth, not the worst thing in the world if we lose to Uzbekistan. Means we finish second and likely play Oman or Thailand in Rd of 16 and then Qatar in Qtrs before Sth Korea/Iran in the semis.

Jones should never put an australia shirt on ever again

yeah and for all the criticism Arnold is getting, consider the strengths of our squad

we have 6 players in promotion positions - 3 cbs (circati being saved for the olyroos apparently), 2 defensive midfields (although metcalfe has played mr fixit for pauli, even playing wing, but he isn't banging in the goals, he is still quite a defensive when playing in an advanced role) and luongo who has retired for us. We also have ryan who is a former big 5 gk. All of our strength is in defense, so of course he is going to play to those strengths

Our best chance to win the whole thing is to make our defense unbeatable, not to focus on being experts at breaking down a low block

If we're going to insist on inverted fullbacks then Baccus should just be at RB for the midfield overload purpose. Rowles at left back. It sacrifices a lot of attack though. Any time we overlapped f passed diagonally on the floor we looked much better. Silvera's outside boot is a weapon and McGree was able to dance around them.

All our more technical players are under 20 unfortunately. 

He's bored at the back. He needs to be told to stop it and let it come to his hands.

It's definitely not the ceiling. We know who the better players are. It'll be better against Uzbekistan I think as they'll want to attack more.

I think we've stuffed the squad picks. I see no point in some many right backs and Deng when we're already starting to test our midfield stamina and cards. Duke needs a pause and I'm gutted Iredale is seemingly just a train on squad. I'm glad Fornaroli is in top form but Iredale and Yengi have the future ahead of them and need to experience this tournament.

Thats fine against teams that want to attack more but it shows our limitations when we play at this level when we rely on not having the ball. 

Think until the current 15-21 year olds become 24-30 year olds this is just what our squad is. We are better without the ball than with it, we will look ugly breaking down a deep block but we will have a real chance against strong opposition and a decent chance to win the whole tournament

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnQFpiqYKtE

India Uzbekistan on in 30. If for a crazy reason Uzbekistan don't win we top the group and that's that.

Yeah exactly and a good thing is the vast majority are playing in Asian competitions from 17 upwards so they know how it is. All these UK based players who have never played in the A League or national youth teams always get a shock.

just looked at our record

I believe 6 clean sheets in a row in asia is our record which we have a chance of equalling next game

We got Duke, Irvine and Souttar and we haven't scored a single goal with a set piece.

So how does the pathway look if we top the group ?.

tough! I believe we have to get through saudi arabia to make the semis, the japan to make the final then south korea

with some luck though some of those teams hit a banana peal before we do

Thailand & Oman are stronger. So better to avoid them

1:0 Uzbekistan early. They've got a plan and it looks good. Also, India much more up for it in attack affording Uzbekistan space.

10 shots with 1 on target. We're not shooting when we need to be though. People lamenting slow play. Is this instruction or are the players also thinking longer term? It's painful we don't go forward with vigour.