Replacements for Leckie and Milligan only hinted at in 30-man squad

The Socceroos are preparing to dive into the cauldron that is Estadio Olímpico Metropolitano in San Pedro Sula.

Before the camp begins, just a few days before the first-leg tie, members of the 30-man squad announced yesterday are galvanising their minds, steeling themselves in anticipation of what will be a gruelling away trip.

The FFA and Ange Postecoglou have been criticised for choosing to base the team in San Pedro Sula instead of nearby Miami or some other less incendiary location. The Hondurans have a reputation for making things difficult for travelling opponents; one apocryphal tale outlines a particularly nasty tactic, where the areas around the opponents’ hotel become impromptu sites for lengthy pyrotechnic displays that extend well into the wee hours. All the players who make the trip to Honduras should be under no illusions as to the atmosphere that will greet them.

So the fact that Mark Milligan and Mathew Leckie will be missing from the opening leg becomes even more pertinent. These two players have appeared in every World Cup qualifier for which they’ve been eligible since March – Milligan was suspended for one game during that run – and have finished every single game they’ve started.

Milligan has captained the team in two of the last four qualifiers and Leckie has scored or assisted in five of the last seven. They are important players, and in the environment the Roos are sure to encounter in San Pedro Sula the holes they leave in the starting XI will be even more glaring, perforations widened and singed under the pressure of the occasion and the heat of the Honduran home support.

So who will Postecoglou choose to replace them? Well, as the 30-man squad will be trimmed by seven in between now and the first leg, we can’t concretely identify the stand-ins just yet.

However, the players who weren’t picked in the preliminary squad can indeed be ruled out, save for an emergency injury call-up. Most notably, this includes Rhys Williams, a player who many postulated could be a good choice to replace Milligan. He will remain at Melbourne Victory – to their audible relief, with a host of other Victory players called up and due to miss their A-League game against Western Sydney in November – and would only really have been an adequate replacement for Milligan were he playing in the defence.

But Milligan has been stationed in the midfield for the last three qualifiers, with Matt Jurman excelling against Syria in the back three. Jurman, along with Trant Sainsbury and Milos Degenek, are expected to remain in place in the back line. Williams has had a fairly good start to the season with the Victory despite the team’s ho-hum return of one point after three matches.

As far as other players left out who might have been candidates to fill in for Milligan, Josh Brillante and Brandon O’Neill are the leading eligible holding midfielders in the A-League but were not chosen. Youngster Riley McGree was also left out.

Mile Jedinak was picked but is yet to return from injury for Aston Villa; it would be an acutely concerning selection if Jedinak were picked to start the game having missed the last four qualifiers and having played just 45 minutes of football for Villa this season.

James Jeggo, who has been playing primarily as a central or defensive midfielder for Sturm Graz in the Austrian Bundesliga, is also an outside chance, though he has been named in the last two 30-man squads and has been cut from both.

No, it appears as though a player from the settled squad, not a new face, will fill in for Milligan. Mass Luongo, a player of some grit and physicality when needed – his turn against Chile in the Confederations Cup, for instance – would be a fine choice, or perhaps Jackson Irvine.

It’s more likely – though still far from assured – that Leckie will be replaced by a new face. Awer Mabil and Ajdin Hrustic have both been named in the preliminary squad and both are playing close to regularly at club level. Both are very well suited to play in an advanced right-wing role, and the inclusion of Josh Risdon in the preliminary squad implies – and the entire country is clinging hopefully to the implication – that Leckie’s replacement will not be used in a wing-back role on the right.

As an aside, while we’re talking of the wing-backs, Brad Smith is injured and will not be involved in these last two playoff games, to the relief of many. Craig Goodwin, Aziz Behich and Alex Gersbach are all waiting to step up.

Nikita Rukavytsya has again been named, but his brief showings against Syria hardly stoked the fires of enthusiasm as to his ability to affect the game; leaden first touches and glaring misses were the hallmarks. Of course James Troisi could be used on the right of the attack if need be, although his tendency to drift into the middle might congest things unhelpfully.

Mabil would be the most exciting choice, as he’s a right-footed player who is deployed largely on that wing for his club, but he was sporadically used – and was effective – on the left for Adelaide back in 2014-15. He has two excellent feet and is not shy of cutting inside and shooting powerfully – this goal from that 2014-15 season comes to mind, and when you contrast it with this Leckie goal for Hertha this season, the similarities are striking.

The dangers of throwing an unacclimated player into a crunch playoff tie are not insignificant, and it could be considered reckless to expect the same production from Mabil that we’ve enjoyed from Leckie, especially lately. But because Leckie has been ever-present for the Roos over the last six months, every candidate to replace him will be comparatively untested thanks simply to a lack of opportunity.

It’s also a fool’s game to try and predict any changes in formation based on what we’ve seen from Ange over the past two games. Will we see a system that resembles the one that was trotted out in the first leg against Syria? Where the single striker, Juric, was supported by Leckie and Robbie Kruse in the attacking midfield and with Behich and Risdon as the wing backs?

Or will we see the formation – short-lived thanks to Brad Smith’s early injury – that was briefly seen in the second leg, with Rogic playing in a quasi-strike-tandem with Tim Cahill, Troisi and Kruse in the midfield and Leckie back at wing-back?

Or indeed the arrangement Ange was then forced to turn to after Smith hobbled off, with Mooy inserted back into midfield and Kruse moved to wing-back, which altered the entire system as Mooy is a very different player to Kruse?

The only common theme over these three formations is the back three. It’s incredibly hard to anticipate what Postecoglou will do, and the fog is made only thicker and soupier with these suspensions.

Ange will have plenty of time to think about the various permutations available to him, as the roman candles, peonies and poppers fill the late evening air around the Roos’ Honduran headquarters. The advantage of playing the second leg at home will be wiped away if a bad start is made in San Pedro Sula, and so the problem of these suspensions and how best to find the solutions is vitally important.