Let Rene have a go... Wllkshire and Kewell as assistants to provide some guidance to our younger players. 

Silvera could play in the middle imo 

Silvera would be better as AM then boring as shit Metcalfe. Nisbet should be livid with Arnold.

even Ryan Teague is way better than Metcalfe 

As it stands, it doesn't matter what coach we have, players just ain't good enough.

The golden generation was exactly just that, we need to lower expectations. 

Keep Wilkshire away from any team. 

We want Ange.
No we were a coat of paint away from losing to Syria
But we lost to Bahrain
What Bahrain, we want Ange.
No he's at Spurs now.

That sure makes interesting reading. Don't know how Arnold swung his salary. Ridiculous. 

As harsh as it is, I have to agree with you there.
Hypothetically, if Arnie was gone, no other Aussie coach is going to want the gig right now. It's not just that the players aren't good enough, it's the pool of players is less like a pool and more like a teacup. Not alot of options. That combined with the pressure from the Australian public, it would be a dumb job to take on right now.
I've said it for over a decade now, people need to seriously lower their expectations around the NT. Our results have been better than the sum of our parts, but it shouldn't be expected that we qualify. 

It should be expected we qualify. Surely we’re still among the top 8 or 9 teams in Asia. We only need to finish 4th and then win the next group of 3, probably against teams like Bahrain, Kyrgyzstan, Oman and the like. And even if we finish 2nd  in that group, we still advance to the playoffs. 

Kevin Muscat would put him in his pocket. He loss 3 points yesterday because of poor coaching and complacency.

If he doesn't start Nizz and Irankunda on Tuesday, I'll assume he's taken a Saudi bribe to set us up as poorly as possible.

Agree with this.... No excuses NOT to qualify anymore.... 

I dont agree, Indonesia will be very physical and the conditions hot and sticky, I dont know much about little Nisbet but putting an inexperienced playemaker in and expecting him to change the game in such a hsotile envirnoment would be suicide.

Irankunda is just wasted at national level at the moment, why the hell even put him on the pitch as it plays out? No service, no ball to run onto, the poor kid was trying to drive at players from outside the box for lack of any other movement... I bet the first thing that crossed his mind after the match last night was how farking good the Bayern Youth team puts it on a plate for him.... 

Just on Arnold, it’s ridiculous how much you all understate his achievement at the World Cup. He had an awful squad on paper, no better than the 2014 one player for player. He worked a minor miracle to get us out of the group with 2 wins and giving Argentina a headache in the second round. His tactics were exactly on point and he fully deserved being named best coach.

I think he had a lot of help from his Dutch disciple who is no longer by his side and it shows.

Yes Arnold did well at Qatar - but since then the Asian Cup disappointment and last night being beaten by 80th ranked team in world. He really has had enough chances now

I think we have the backbone of a strong team. One that should qualify from Asia. But it requires generational change. Arnie is too conservative and too predictable. We don't do ourselves any favours with him as coach. He's unwilling to change. 

He's on big money. I'm not sure about release clauses though. He's been there at least a year though hasn't he? 

I'd hardly call the best player in the A League an inexperienced playmaker. He's Australia's most technical player and definitely most creative player.

Not to play him is suicide.

Nice list, thanks for compiling

But which of those paid at pr less than arnold do u think would do better? We probably end up with 14-18 points with any of them. We have 3 regulars in the big 5, all defensive minded players. indonesia have a regular in seri a, japan and south korea have a zillion, jordan have a regular in ligue 1, syria have several in argentinas top flight
We really dont dominate on paper, there will be bad days and even good days will be ones where we win through a lucky pen or deflection. Same was true under ange who is an epl coach. It sux but we just arent that good and surely the anger needs to be at our lack of pathways. How many teams have multiple national teirs and p and r?

+1 tho i do think if a league expanded to 16 teams with academies, had a home and away nyl and introduced a semi pro nst we would become good enough by early 2030s.

Ive never seen a national team coach that aussies have been satisfied with (aside from short term superstars like bvm, guus and venerables). Heck, i havent seen a coach that hasnt been scapegoated. Even verbeek who cruised through the final round pf quals

It's not just 10. Most of our media are always upbeat. It's either, "we played well and earned our win" or " We battled hard and we are just unlucky". I've only ever seen Fozzie be brutal. It's pointless trying to get the audience upbeat because eventually they will figure out how shit we are and just turn off. Why is it that we don't keep the crowd after a world cup. They eventually see the actual local product and just realise that it's terrible. 

The other problem we have in this regard is that I think the directive from the FA is to not be critical. I got told that by a few in the FA when I was in some journo meetings. When I expressed some thoughts, they called me a "Eurosnob" and said i didn't value the game. I never got invited to another FA event after that. 




I've no issue with signing foreign players. Unfortunately, players in our NPL don't make the step up and do well regularly enough. The other issue is that when they do go to Europe, they don't cut it because the level is too high. You only get better by playing against better quality. 
Our problem in this regard is that we haven't signed top quality overseas players regularly. When we have, we never allowed them the chance to be constructive. We only allowed them to speak positively, even if that was false. 

if i'm at WSW, I'd be thinking to myself that I need to spend the next season soaking up every minute with Mata. Learning from him and just developing my game. If i'm WSW management, I'd be using him to go, "right, tell us how we can improve. What can we do to go to that next level. Critique us and give us that insight". 

I just heard the press conference, Vince rugari asked a very fair question regarding why we can’t break down block defences and Arnie basically said that we lack in 1v1 ability with the players and the ball didn’t bounce the right way for us.

That itself is a reason why I want him gone, just a coach who can’t problem solve our deficiencies. 

For a team that relies on counter attacks and set pieces, it’s severely struggles in possession and if Australia wants to be a better football nation then something needs changing at the top.
I would like to see a proper technician in place that could get the team playing in a certain way that will give us a best way to be functional and successful in the future.

But first FA say that they are a football focused organisation, so let’s see that into action! 

Yeah the worst part about it isn't the fact that we couldn't score, it was the fact we couldn't pass the ball. The u23 side at least knew how to pass the ball. Perhaps we can use the midfield from there

the u23 side are technically stronger than the seniors, but most aren't yet strong enough to push for starts. We have some poking their head through though in bos, irankunda, circati and hopefully robertson and volpato soon. Triantis, neiwenhof, farrell and rodriguez might also make their debut before 2026

I wonder who they were but those Ange press conference grilling sessions were something else. Fox had a very negative angle at the time and Slater was hypercritical. The questions were warranted at the time but Arnold gets off way easier. We need journalists to ask follow up questions and use real specific game moments to try to get into what the hell the plan was. At the same time, does it even matter? Should we try and run someone into the ground? The job I tough and it's a game of opinions but I also wonder if a media grilling against Arnold is worth it. 

Christ, how did Arnold get that? Jobs for the boys? He should be on one-tenth of that and the rest performance based!

Wish someone called Arnold out on his comment 'we can't call anyone in from the A League to replace Yengi.' Why not if Behich and Taggart are there. His comments are too inconsistent when things go wrong. Miller is available again. Starting him Indonesia away is suicidal. Hope it's Deng or Circati.

Trying not to keep hounding Arnie but then he was asked whether Circati will play RB again. His response was 'Can you find me one? I can't get anyone from the A League as it's not in season.' Best response would've been 'Well it seems to be ok for fucking Behich'.