Arnold: It's now over to the kids

Graham Arnold says he will let the kids play when Australia and New Zealand meet again in another friendly on Sunday at Eden Park in Auckland.

Arnold revealed he wanted to reward the players that played significant roles in helping the Subway Socceroos qualify for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ by starting a more experienced side on home soil.

Australia marked its Centenary celebrations with a narrow 1-0 win over the Kiwis on Thursday night at Suncorp Stadium, courtesy of Awer Mabil’s splendid strike.

Arnold admitted his side needed to be more ruthless in front of goal and was frustrated after losing the physical battle.

“I think if there’s one thing a little disappointing was that I thought we lost the physical battle,” he told reporters in the post-match press conference.

“The New Zealanders were quite physical, but the (majority of the) boys just arrived yesterday.

“… Overall I think we should’ve scored a couple more goals.”

Arnold confirmed he will be implementing wholesale changes for Sunday’s clash across the Tasman.

An initial squad of 31 will be reduced to 20 with the boss stating he will take only two goalkeepers and give opportunities to the youngsters in the squad, with almost all but one of the starting XI not making the trip.

Seven players could now make their senior debuts for their country with none of them featuring on Thursday evening.

“I wanted to pretty much reward the boys that helped us and gave a lot of sacrifices and got us through the campaign,” Arnold explained.

“And obviously that’s the older group, and they’re all staying here in (Australia) or going straight back home (to their clubs), the starting XI – maybe one will stay.

“But now it’s for the kids.

Arnold added that his attention now turns on providing the chance for the young brigade to impress and stake their claim for a World Cup spot and beyond.

“The young boys you can see there’s a lot of energy and they’re desperate to get on that pitch and I’m looking forward to see how they go,” he said.

“A lot of them I had with the Olyroos and I know them obviously well and a lot of them are playing a lot of football overseas.

“They arrived late a good number of them, the ones that weren’t on the list and they’ll recover over the next day or so and we’ll train them hard Friday and then we fly out Saturday to play Sunday.”

The 59-year-old reserved praise for Mabil, who was the Subway Socceroos’ most dynamic player on the pitch and capped off a strong display with that goal.

“You can see the shape that he’s in even though he’s not playing that much in Spain,” he continued.

“He’s still very fit, very strong and very, very happy for him.

“As I said we changed the way that we played and we tried to press them really high with the three front boys and our chances came from that pretty much – that’s what we trained on.”