Talking Points: Graham Arnold on FIFA World Cup Qualifiers™ March squad announcement

Kristian Bullock 1710462141,1711028412

Subway Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has announced Australia's squad for the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qualifiers™ against Lebanon on March 21st and 26th.

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Here are the main talking points from his press conference: 

On the current squad

I said before the Asian Cup, it was about regenerating the squad, but also with a number of retirements, it was about testing the boys and at the end of the day, the squad is I believe a strong squad. We took an inexperienced squad across and I was very, very pleased with what the boys did, they would have obviously got a lot of lessons from it, and that's what we're looking forward to.

At the moment with World Cup qualifiers, it's about bringing boys in more or less now, who know what needs to happen, what we do, because we get one training session pretty much. By the time the boys come in to camp, it's about having boys that know exactly what we're going to do to win these two games.

[Looking forward] especially with Bangladesh away, the timing of that game, there is a lot of players that will have their season finished already. So it's about picking the squad that's ready for the Bangladesh game, obviously over there. And then obviously, we then have the Palestine game here.

It's great to have Ajdin [Hrustic] back. It's been a long while since he's played club football, but he's doing well at Heracles now, and you can see the impact he's even having on Heracles' performances. 

Introducing Adam Taggart into a strong front-line

It was a good thing about going [to watch Taggart] live, you can see if his body is right. That was the whole reason that I left him out of the World Cup in Qatar. He was playing in Japan at the time fighting injuries, fighting his own body. 

But you can just see that's all fixed up now. He's got a great relationship with with Alen Stajcic. He's working well over there being captain of the club, looking at his body language he is showing very good leadership on the field. And you know, if he can get those half chances he's capable of putting the ball in back in the net.

Having Adam Taggart back gives me another option up front as a number nine. You probably see there, there's quite a few number nines there, but, it's about getting the mixture right.

I think they bring all of them bring something different. Yengi, you can see he's a big target man, and we do expect Lebanon to sit back. These type of nations they do defend very well and they make it sometimes hard to break down. But with those types of nines that I've got, they all bring something different and that's important.

Photo Credit:James Worsfold/Getty Images

Lewis Miller's hamstring injury

Lewis called me straight from the dressing room this morning, so it's too early at the moment. He even says that it's too early to rule him out, he's going to have scans and get checked on and then we'll obviously deal with that in the next couple of days.

I have no doubt Lewis will learn [from the Asian Cup] and he has been already, from watching him at Hibs, the way he's been defending at Hibs. I've been through plenty of moments, and these types of things in my career, but it's about the type of players that learn from those mistakes. He's learned a big lesson in that moment in time and it's important that the kid keeps going and working hard and believing in himself.

Defensive depth to cover Miller injury

Kye Rowles roles can also play [as a full-back]. That's the good thing about what we did over the last year with some of those friendlies, to keep trying different ways. Jordi [Bos], he obviously plays that role at Westerlo every week, so it's a familiar role for him. But when most of the boys get into camp Tuesday night, we'll have one session to try and get the tactical side ready for Thursday night.

Players who narrowly missed out on selection

[Callum Nieuwenhof] was in the squad, but he'd done his hamstring, obviously that ruled him out. Aiden O'Neill has been suspended for these two games. For Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, I watched him on Saturday night at Perth and he has been impressive. He's probably one for the future that we'll be looking at for sure.

Harry Souttar's Leicester game-time

I think Harry knows that he's got we've tried to help him in a lot of ways by playing him [for the Socceroos]. When he plays for us he scores for us. He would probably be the leading goal scorer over my reign, but he always comes in great shape. Even the fact that he's not playing at Leicester, I know he's working extremely hard and I know he's ready for these games.

Harry Souttar Socceroos vs South Korea AFC Asian Cup 2023

Extensive injury list

This camp I think we have got about 12-13 player with injuries. I normally contact the ones if I need to leave them out from the camp, just so they hear it from me first. I'm always mainly texting a lot of the players to just make sure they're all okay.

Excitement for intense atmosphere in Parramatta on Thursday

It's going to be great, the stats are showing that this is my 11th game at home in 52 games. So we've had a lot of games away from home and maybe it'll feel like playing away from home again, but we're experts at playing away from home.

Development of Lebanon and Asian football as a whole

Today, the money that these nations are investing, even Lebanon, all of those nations are getting better and better, especially defensively. 10 years ago if you looked at the physical, just the physical side of us compared to some of these nations, physically we were much stronger and better, but today that's not the case. It's important that we get our structures set up that we can put players in 1 v 1 positions or create an overload for a 2 v 1 and get those type of chances and make sure we finish those chances off. 

I do know that nations in the Middle East are really pouring a lot of money into their local football, you can see what's going on in Saudi Arabia and in Asia overall. Even in East Asia, they're pouring a lot of money in, being at that Asian Cup and seeing Malaysia draw 3-3 with South Korea, those type of things. It just shows you how much we're coming along.

We need a restructure of our game, our domestic game. I've said it plenty of times, we need to play more football and our junior national teams need a lot of support.

Arnold's plans looking ahead to North America 2026

Over the last two years, if I looked at the list of possible players that I had before, I probably had about 100 on it, now dropped down to about 50, with a lot of retirements. The thing for me is, if I look at the age of the squad, and this is one thing that I have to always consider moving forward is there is a big gap between the 25-year-old and a 30-year-old bracket. I think in that age we've produced two or three players. 

So it shows where the gap compared to probably 10 years ago. If you look at those boys, you've got Ajdin Hrustic, Awer Mabil that are in their mid 20s, and then you've got Ken Burgess, who I stole from overseas. But from 26 year old up to 30, i've only got a handful of players. 

So that's why getting right ages 25 and down is so important. From 30 and above, some of those probably won't make 2026 as well. So I've got to obviously have an eye on that as well.

Difficulty in selecting young stars for Olyroos Asian Cup campaign

Tony Vidmar at the moment is getting quite a number of overseas based clubs refusing to release plays in April. And so I think it'll be predominantly the A-League boys in that age.

I think the one thing a lot of people need to understand, it is the pressure that kids get put under from their clubs overseas. To play for Australia is a lot for Alessandro [Circati] and for Christian Volpato it is exactly the same. They just want to focus on their club careers at this moment in time. 

I do believe that both will play for Australia and I do believe Christian will want to play for Australia. It's just at the moment the timing is not right for them, especially with Alessandra as his team are going for promotion to get up in the Serie A. But overall, you know, I think we've got the cover for those players at the moment and the Socceroos will, in the future, benefit from those type of things.

Match Details

Subway Socceroos v Lebanon
Thursday, 21 March 2024
CommBank Stadium, Parramatta
Kick-off: 8.00pm AEDT
Tickets: Start from $20 Child, $25 Concession, $30 Adult, $80 Family via Ticketek
Broadcast: 10 Bold, 10 Play and Paramount+


Lebanon v Subway Socceroos
Tuesday, 26 March 2024
GIO Stadium, Canberra
Kick-off: 7.45pm AEDT
Tickets: Start from $15 Child, $20 Concession, $25 Adult, and $50 Family via Ticketek
Broadcast: 10 Bold, 10 Play and Paramount+