One Way To Kill The Mood

November 13th, 2011 | by: Jack | View Comments

Let’s not mince words here. There was so much wrong with the Socceroos. Off and on the pitch there were far too many mistakes. It wasn’t good, we’ve taken a step backwards, but it is not crisis time.

Far from it. Oman aren’t exactly Holland or Brazil, but they have a very capable manager in Paul Le Guen, who managed Lyon and PSG to 3 League titles and a French Cup respectively. He’s done something only a trio (him, Zaccheroni of Japan and Rijkaard of Saudi Arabia) of managers in Asia have done, and won trophies in Europe’s big leagues. Once they edged ahead, this really showed, they found ways to limit us and hit us on the break, with Mark bailing us out more than once.

Yet to be the best, we have to best the likes of Le Guen. Tactically astute he may be, but his squad lacks the talent of ours. Worrying me more is the ease in which he restricted us.

One of the great strengths of a 4-4-2 is also its flaw. A system where two midfielders sit, the full backs and wingers go on and one striker (Kewell) drops deeper to feed the other (Kennedy) is easy for the players to understand, and allows for attacking verve in the middle and out wide. However, on that token, it is easy to counter. Negate the wingers, and they are forced inside or very deep out of frustration, and everything is very central, which if you play with 3 or more Centre midfielders, is just what you want. We have two capable central midfielders in Jedinak and Valeri, who for me can contain all of the midfielders in Asian on a good day. What they can’t do very often, is make the difference in attack.

For that we relied on Kewell to pull the strings, spray the passes out and run at the defence. But his form has been nothing g special, he is old and he rarely plays with Kennedy up front. The cohesion was simply not there. It was little surprise when he was hooked, but what Osieck bafflingly did, was to put Kruse on.

I like Kruse. He’s quick and offers something different. But his urge is to be on the shoulder of the last defender, and use his pace to get behind them. What he is bad at, is the Harry Kewell playmaker role. He doesn’t have the creativity, and the way he plays for club and country isn’t going to develop it

For me, our problem was one of tactics. Now, we had Kennedy and Kruse far up the pitch with the wingers too deep or too far forward, and Jedinak and Valeri trying to play pinpoint passes, or striding the ball forward a la Xavi or Iniesta.

But they are not Xavi and Iniesta. Which is why it is so unfathomable to me, that we left Mitch Nichols on the bench. Why leave a play so capable of making excellently timed runs into the box, like against Adelaide for the Roar, someone capable of sending the centre midfielders running, to bring others into the game. Why leave a player who has been doing this all season, is fresh and ready from playing so few games, not only on the bench, but on the bench when we had a free substitute, left unused, as Holman toiled in vain to do anything useful, while Valeri was clearly ill-equipped in his defensive slowly slowly approach to break the Oman defence down is disconcerting. I called these games formal friendlies, for experimenting. Yet we had no experiment, just the same formation, with the same players (bar three I think), and no way of changing it. Verbeek changed his system too late. Let’s hope Osieck changes his soon, or at least gives us a plan B. Changing Kewell for Kruse is good at a glance, but Kruse is no playmaker, yet we had one on the bench.

Osieck is a great manager, underrated and didn’t deserve to be treated the way the Red Diamonds treated him 4 years ago. Had we won, I’d be lavishing praise on the 4-4-2. He stuck to his beliefs which is fine, but we need to find that back-up plan very soon. Whether it’s a 4-3-3- or a 4-2-3-1 or 1-1-8 I don’t care. But we must adapt in a situation like this. With us cruising through to the next round. The next round where we will not cruise at all if we have to face a South Korea or a Japan, such mistakes will be unacceptable. Should players be removed from the squad on this performance? No.. Should we stay calm and remember all the progress we’ve made so far, but build on it rather than copying it? Yet.

(Next game is Thailand, which pleasingly occurs while I’m not at home, so expect a alte round up as I find a way to watch the game.)