- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
With willing incisors now sunken with relish into the meat of the 2018/19 season, most teams in Britain now have a clear taste of the campaign to come.
At this point, then, and in lieu of much else to focus on while waiting for the FFA Cup semi-finals and the commencement of the A-League season, why not check in with our Roos plying their trade in the United Kingdom?
To the Premier League first. Aaron Mooy is probably our most prominent Roo in England, and his Terriers have started the season poorly. Yet to win in the league – or cup – Mooy was at least spared the chastening 6-1 drubbing Manchester City inflicted in matchday three.
In the five league games in which he has appeared, though, the results have been only slightly better with defeats to Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Leicester, and draws against Cardiff and Everton. Mooy has started and finished every match he’s played in, but healthy involvement will be of only lukewarm comfort; Huddersfield have the equal-worst record in the league and sit bottom.
As he does for the Socceroos – and to varying degrees of effectiveness, depending on who you talk to – Mooy is the conduit through which most of Huddersfield’s play travels; of all Huddersfield players, Mooy plays the most passes per game.
Using the fairly precarious advanced stat expected goals (xG), Huddersfield have not been unlucky – or, more precisely, their position at the bottom cannot be excused by unusually poor finishing on their part, or unusually good finishing on their opponents’ part – because their xG differential is also clearly the league’s worst.
While they should probably have scored more goals than they have – a goal-scored tally of 3 against an xG-tally of 5.3 – their goals-against tally so far, 14, is only slightly higher than their xG-against tally of 13.4. Clearly, Mooy isn’t to solely to blame for this, but questions remain about how potent a team can be when arranged around Mooy’s fairly conservative style, especially when partnered with a similarly blunt midfield colleague.
Mat Ryan, our other Premier League-based Roo, is having a fine season with Brighton, who sit 13th on the table. Brighton’s 3-2 win over Manchester United seems a little less striking now that it’s been placed in the context of the odd malaise United are suffering generally, but it nonetheless was an impressive victory.
(Patrick-Leigh / CC BY-SA 2.0)
The fact they managed only to concede a single goal in the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool, on the other hand, has gained a finer lustre in the weeks since; only Chelsea have similarly suppressed the Red goal-machine this season. Ryan has played in every game and is clearly the first-choice keeper. He’s made some highlight saves – this one against Liverpool was a beauty, and his late diving punch to secure a point against Southampton was crucial.
If he can maintain this level of form, Brighton’s chances of a successful season are greatly improved.
In the Championship, Mass Luongo and QPR have recovered from a shocking start to the season, righting the ship and sailing into the mid-table after four consecutive defeats to begin the campaign. Luongo has started every match.
Mile Jedinak has been a stalwart for Aston Villa, despite a squall of negativity surrounding his move to the centre back position. Villa are 11th and have only lost two of their ten games, but a handful of draws have left the claret and blue section of Birmingham frustrated.
Jackson Irvine has personally enjoyed a fine start to the season with Hull City – having scored three goals over the entirety of last season, he’s already matched that total through six games this term. Known more as an all-action, driving central midfielder, Nigel Adkins has regularly been playing Irvine on the left wing, taking advantage of his rather potent ability to arrive as a well-timed puncturing force in the box.
His brace against Rotherham United saw him plunder in exactly this way, making willing and ravenous weak-side runs into the penalty area to convert crosses from the other wing. Still, his individual success notwithstanding, Hull are not playing well generally, and are a point above the drop zone.
Bailey Wright, whose Bristol City are doing quite well sitting eighth, hasn’t appeared for them yet this season due to injury.
We’ll wander over to Scotland now, the place of professional residence for so many of our leading Roos; Tom Rogic, despite being left out of the Socceroos squad due to, as Graham Arnold stated, a persistent knee injury that required injections, has played fairly regularly for Celtic, although was an unused substitute in their most recent league defeat to Kilmarnock.
Celtic are in a highly unfamiliar position, for them; the last time they fell below the second position on the Scottish Premier League table was back in matchday two of the 2016/17 season, August 20 2016, and only by virtue of goal difference. They sit sixth on the table this season after six games played and are six points off the leaders Hearts.
You’d think even the most partisan Hoops fans will be welcoming the dash of competitiveness this young season has been seasoned with.
Daniel Arzani is yet to appear for the senior Celtic team, but is being blooded at the reserves level. Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has reiterated recently how vital it is that Arzani builds up the required level of fitness and physical resilience to impact at the senior level – Rodgers is rightly flattening the carbonated atmosphere around the young winger, because it would be unwise to send him strolling tender and unprepared into the cauldron of senior football.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
He curled in a lovely free kick for the reserves the other week, and is up to his old tricks, booked for diving in his last reserve game. For Arzani, it seems, it’s only a matter of time.
Our other Roo repository in Scotland is Hibernian, where Jamie Maclaren and Mark Milligan are curling their fingers around first-team spots. Maclaren has two goals and one assist in five league games so far, playing limited minutes. He, of course, enjoys the foundation of his successful loan spell there last season, where he scored with handsome regularity.
Milligan, though, is a new face – to both Hibs and Europe generally – but has wasted little time seizing on this rather late-career sojourn abroad. Having been left out of the squad in the first two league games after arriving at the club, he was an 72nd-minute sub in the 3-2 win over Kilmarnock on September 15, and played the full 90 against Dundee last week.
He also managed 105 gruelling minutes against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup quarter-final, lost eventually on penalties. It seems Milligan’s rare mix of true grit, positional versatility and on-the-ball finesse have been quickly embraced in Leith.
Of course, we have plenty of other Roos elsewhere in Europe, and indeed the world at large. Trent Sainsbury and Aziz Behich are together at PSV in Holland. Milos Degenek is quickly becoming a club hero in Belgrade.
Matt Leckie and Robbie Kruse are working their way into the season in the first and second German divisions, respectively. We have Roos in China, Japan, Norway, Belgium, Denmark and Saudi Arabia.
Still, the cultural and historical ties we have to Great Britain means our gaze often darts first to their pitches, and to the Australians who are playing on them.