‘More improvement to come’ says Arnold following India victory

Socceroos head coach Graham Arnold believes his side will improve after opening their Asian Cup campaign with a hard-fought win against India in Qatar.

The Socceroos’ opened their tournament in Doha with a 2-0 win over India, and while three points were secured, Arnold said his side will need to improve their performances to go far in the competition.

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"I can honestly say that we've got to improve a lot more than that," Arnold said after the match.

"We're here to win the Asian Cup and to reach the stars, you have to have high expectations and put those expectations on the boys and get them to believe in what we can do.

"I have to give full credit to India. I thought that there was probably a little bit too much excitement (from us) first half for the competition to start, but after we got to halftime and showed them some good clips about what they were doing well, second half we did very well.”

It took 50 minutes for the Socceroos to take the lead, through Jackson Irvine, before Jordan  Bos scored his first goal for the Green and Gold 23 minutes later after coming on as a substitute.

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Arnold was full of praise for the impact Bos made on what was proving to be a tight affair.

“You always have to look forward and bring younger players through and Jordy Bos is doing well in Belgium,” Arnold said.

“He can obviously play left fullback and left wing so he brings a lot to the team.

“I believe in Australian youth and I really do think we've got some good quality players coming through and it's a great experience for them to be here with some senior players at this Asian Cup.”

Although the 2-0 result looks comfortable at first glance, the performance underlined the difficulties Anrnold's men find in breaking down resolute defences.

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"Bahrain was a perfect preparation game for us because they sat back and made it difficult as well," Arnold explained.

"Obviously, India tonight did the same and we'll no doubt get ready for that again against Syria."

Australia sit top of the group after Uzbekistan and Syria played out a nil-all draw. The Socceroos return to Group B action on Thursday night (AEDT) against Syria at Jassim bin Hamad Stadium.

SUBWAY SOCCEROOS AFC ASIAN CUP QATAR 2023™ FIXTURES (GROUP B):

Every AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023 match will be live on Paramount+