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Socceroos lacked cutting edge: Irvine

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26th January, 2019
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Socceroos midfielder Jackson Irvine says Australia were their own worst enemy at the Asian Cup by failing to score in their disappointing quarter-final exit.

Socceroos midfielder Jackson Irvine has bemoaned Australia’s lack of cutting edge in front of goal at the Asian Cup.

Australia bombed out of the tournament with a disappointing quarter-final defeat to host nation the UAE in Al Ain on Friday.

Unlike their goalless draw against Uzbekistan in the round of 16 which Australia won on penalties, the Socceroos did at least find the back of the net against the UAE when Mathew Leckie and Apostolos Giannou combined only for Leckie to be correctly flagged for offside in the build-up.

The blank was Australia’s third from five matches in the tournament and Irvine says that return simply isn’t good enough.

“We failed to score in two games in knockout stages of the tournament. It’s not going to get you through,” Irvine said.

“It’s hard to wrap your head around just how it happened – lack of creativity. We scored the goal, offside, which I believe was offside.

“We still had 25 minutes after their goal to get ourselves back in the game and didn’t have enough to punish them.”

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The Socceroos next assignment is likely to be the start of the 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign around September.

Irvine said that will be a long time for he and his teammates to come to terms with their Asian Cup disappointment.

“That’s probably the hardest thing about it – now we’re going to leave on this and sit and dwell on it for a while,” he said.

“But that’s the nature of the game. We’re not the first team and won’t be the last team to go through moments like this.

“We’ve got a good core of players and boys that have been around long enough to deal with these kinds of moments and I’m sure when the qualifiers begin and we’re back to it, this will be long behind us.”

© AAP

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