A useless coach now that we have already qualified for the world cup…..Where’s the innovation? Where’s the creativity?? Time to employ a South American coach or someone who is prepared to do more than just eck out draws against sides in the lead up to S.A.

As for Mr Russell, you must be smoking something good to say that Pim is doing an amazing job despite the fact his setup was boring tactically against Holland….

With this sorta form, might as well retire Nicky Carle and give him the coaching position!!

Fair go

I don’t see anyone calling for Pim to be sacked, but we all have little things we would do different, not better but different Greg.
I

It’s a bit like an ugly guy who constantly complains that his beautiful girlfriend, whom he loves to bits, is not a supermodel. The ugly guy should just be very happy that he’s got a girlfriend more beautiful than he can really expect to have. Of course she could be more beautiful – but so can any woman!

So guys, get over it! The Socceroos are currently 14th in the world rankings. 14th! And remember that this ranking is on the basis of RESULTS! If any of us had been offered this ranking at any time in the previous history of Australian football, we’d have gleefully jumped at it. So just sit back and enjoy the success, admit that Pim is doing an amazing job, and save the criticisms for when the results start to head south.

He does get into position very well and gets in more scoring positions than anyone. He is the master at being in the right place at the right time…it’s just infortunate he can’t really do anything when he is there

So I think his time is up as a Socceroo, Vidosic seems to offer so much more and Holman can dissapear from the team until it clicks and he starts scoring for AZ. Plenty of people are saying that so rest assured I don’t have Holmino in my preffered 11 but I just don’t feel the need to shout that to the world.

I am more concerned about the drop in form of Bresciano and Grella who were fantastic in the 05 -06 season but have dipped tremendously.

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KB

Unfortunately Carle can’t be chosen now, a player of his style needs to have their touch and absolutely needs regualr football more than anyone. Unless he is at one of the big seira A clubs training hard with a big squad of quality midfielders you absolutely can’t pick him if he is not playing.

I would like to see Cahill play as a central midfielder. Not a defensive midfielder but not an attacking midfielder either. Only want him really pushing when we are controlling possesion and say Kewell playing as the link man has got the ball at his feet.
i would also like to see Cullina as a central midfielder too, a little bit more advanced than what he plays now and Valeri or Grella as the sole anchor. A Diamond really with Kewell at the top

I would just like to see how Timmy would go with a role requiring more touches in the middle as a link man, not sure if his distribution would be up to it but if it is it would be a tremendous boon.

I personally don’t think the Dutch system suits us… Because we can’t get our players into camp as often as the Dutch do to work on one touch football… I prefer the Sth American or Italian system, organised and structured playing patient possession football working from the back, 2—4—2—2 or 2—3—3—2

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KB

Anyone else noticing that Widdle Pawl Twimbowli is sounding more and more like Johnny Howard with every telecast?

Harry: They must be thinking what do they have to do to beat us?

Robbie Slater: (referring to Oman) “What better way to prepare than against the No. 3 in the world…” Leaping Larry points out that the Dutch NT has never previously been categorised as the ideal warm up for an Asian Cup qualifier.

Paul Trimbole: (referring to Neill) “He’s looked a little bit like he’s lacking match conditioning, and that’s obviously because he hasn’t played.”

We’ve gone from happy to qualify, to disappointed that we won’t make a mark in the last 4 matches of the tournament in a very short 4 years, arguably with a less talented squad than the one we took to Germany.

I particularly love that Fischer Price doesn’t rate Emerton as anything other than a right back, contrary to a succession of fairly well qualified club and national coaches that have picked him at right mid, when he was the best option for that position.

I’ve had more than one whinge about Pim in the past, but after the qualifying campaign, he’s clearly a genius and his players love him. Moreover, he’s got a plan that he’s executing pretty well.

If you want to think about it critically, the importance of being able to secure a draw against a top team is amply demonstrated by this (which I have referred yall to before): http://www.football-rankings.info/2009/09/2010-world-cup-seeding-formula-based-on_3714.html Take your pick of the groups – particularly now there are likely to be 2 groups of death, with Portugal finally having got its act together.

Which leaves kewell on the left and Timmy in the mid

A striker up front

Culina and Grella in the middle (with either Valeri or Jedi deputising)

Carney at LB, Lucash and Moore/Kisnorbo at CB

that is, bar injuries or form dips, the starting squad. Bresc is our first reserve in AM and Holman is our AM reserve if we want to defend a lead.

A good result might be having a weaker African nation (and there aren’t too many of those).

A frightening prospect is to end up with a top European nation or Brasil again, a second European nation, and a top African nation – all likely.

Against Oman at home a few midfield players would have to have an off night for the same 4-2-3-1 he used against Holland not to suddenly become entertaining and potent.

I would imagine we would be in a group with 1 team outright better than us, one team around the same (but slightly better than us) and one team the same or worse. We will probably beat the team around our level perhaps an African team with a couple of very talented players but not as solid as our team. We then may get through with just a draw against one of the other two teams or failing on goal difference.
We will then battle hard but not be good enough in the knockout stage.

Australia needs his goal threat but as a midfielder he’s very limited at the top level. Likewise, I don’t he’s strong or disciplined enough defensively to play as a holder.

I think Vicentin has made this point in the past – Holman is pretty much a poorer version of Cahill – meaning we can’t afford to start a game with both – I think we had our proof of that the other night.

I doubt that in the WC Pim would start with both Holman and Cahill – it’s likely that one of either Bresh or Vidosic will replace the former – this is what I meant about Vidosic becoming a smokey – I didn’t mean for the sqaud – I meant as a starter.

My opinion/negativity stems from my sense that playing ultra-defensively every single match has made Australia inflexible and devoid of creativity.

Is it really the limits of Australia’s ambition in South Africa to set up the side exclusively to attempt to eek out a trio of scoreless draws? Should we be satisified with avoiding any defeats and be hopeful or replicating that group stage result (should we even qualify) in 2014 and beyond?

Verbeek’s ambitionless team is most unlikely to win 2 out of 3 group matches, regardless of the opposition. In terms of World Cup and Asian Cup matches, perhaps if we took more risks we’d lose more, but also win more.

Rant over.

The reason I feel we are always playing with 10 men KB is not because of Homan, it’s Cahill. While Timmy is a great goal sneak he often doesn’t offer too much else.
The amount of times he touches the ball is pretty low and I don’t think there is any plan to bring him back a little deeper and get him more involved. Obviously he is one of our few scoring outlets so you can just put him down as our second striker but that means we can’t afford another.

I would prefer Kewell as the withdrawn striker and see if Timmy’s passing game is good enough to operate right in the middle. He is tough enough that I thought he might be able to take over one of the holding roles or perhaps we play with 3 central mids. One as an anchor (Grella or Vieri) and Cullina and Cahill on either side. Perhaps leaves us a little narrow though.

I am pretty happy with Pim’s results though. He has done well with pretty much the same team we had last time but less one Mark Viduka and all our key players being older and quite a few on the wane.

Let’s not forget we were playing No 3 in the world & ‘technically’ we are not in the top 30 in the world, but we are starting to admit this & this is a start.

The team is very average in my opinion.

Here’s a scoop for you: we aren’t one of the top 10 teams in the world.

Here’s another scoop for you: Probably only our goal keeper and our attacking midfielder would make the squad for any of the top 10 teams in the world; and then neither would be guaranteed a start.

So, the situation seems to be that (when Pim is not experimenting), our best team can beat all the teams that are “second-rate” like us (Japan, Ireland etc…), and we can make it very difficult for top 10 teams to beat us.

Short of us miraculously turning up a dozen Champions League level players, that seems like about the best possible scenario.

they’ll struggle against Oman never mind at the World Cup….