Arnieball: Why it's an absolute disaster

Australia suffered a humiliating 1-0 loss to Bahrain on Thursday in World Cup qualifying. Only one man is to blame - Graham Arnold.
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[@John-ro3sh]

Ange got hounded out and abused for a lot less than this despite winning an Asian Cup. Arnie's mates in the media will never go after him, he's been in the job for 6 years and we still don't have a pattern of play let alone an identity and I would argue that he has a much better squad given most of our players are in Europe these days. Remember Arnie's forte is not his man management or tactics, it's how he controls the media narrative around the national team and his tactics cause anyone else would've been under strong criticism he failed in 2 Asian Cups plays the worst football this national team has ever seen and yet the media's gone quiet on him cause he's one of the boys.

[@Pvtepingpong]

I find it baffling how much our media gasses up our national team when weve regressed so far since 06

[@robbiebalboa]

Paramount’s media have the most basic analysis and are too gutless to have people critiquing the flaws of his game. Don’t get started on Murdoch media. Don’t even know what the offside rule is.

[@mitchellrua4068]

Our media are football illiterate lol

[@John-ro3sh]

The media has not continuously gassed our team since 2006, the media got rid of 3 coaches. Two of them rightly so but they hounded Ange out when Arnie wanted the job and that's why the media is gassing up our team and coach because Arnold has great relationships through his mates with not only the footballing media but the Press hub which is mainly Sydney dominated. Ange got abuse by the news outlet and football media back in 2017 and 2018 for a lot less than this but Arnold will forever be protected cause the Sydney press hub is an active propaganda machine pushing their agenda whether it's sports or politics. Welcome to the real Australia where news outlets cannot be trusted and will forever look after their mates or their so called boys clubs.

[@paulh6067]

Hey, Brad 👋 You've made some really valid points in this video regarding Graham Arnold 📹 👌 Hats off to you speaking your mind 👏 Many passionate Aussie football ⚽️ fans would agree with you here.

[@fcsundays]

This aged perfectly after last night too

[@joshbithell2449]

His World Cup is one of the biggest papering over the cracks in football history, Arnold is not the right manager and from his second Asian Cup I could see he would fail in Asia his 3rd Asian Cup we got knocked out by his tactical decisions and subs alone

[@chrispsackett]

To respond to the right-back segment, all of our regular right backs are either in the A-League (Arnie not picking them, as aren't playing regularly) or Injured. He addressed this in his post-game.

[@justjames1348]

We play well against better teams. Teams on our level or below we sit off. We don't command the ball. That's why.

[@blinkusfishus2052]

He should have stepped down after 2022 WC and sailed off into the sunset, and some cushy club job, forever a hero. I'm not having a go at the individual players, but Arnold's insistence of picking Yengi/Duke - the tall/strong/etc cliche he's obsessed with, absolutely destroys our attack. No, Asian teams like Bahrain aren't threatened by lobbing crosses into packed boxes. Feels like the strikers are even measured differently. Adam Taggart basically has to smash in about 20 goals a season to even get on the bench. Yengi's barely scored that many goals his entire career - he's Arnies no.1 now. just to be clear not having a go at Yengi - I just think Arnold looks at his height and strength and not his goalscoring record. There's lots of problems with the team, but the striker thing kills me.

[@ArachKing]

I don’t understand why my reply agreeing w/you isn’t showing, but I’ll try again: One’d think that being given kudos by L’EQUIPE🇫🇷 Magazine for 🇦🇺’s Qatar campaign would’ve incentivised Arnie to give coaching in Europe again a real go, bc frankly that’s what most anyone in that situation would’ve set out to do..but he didn’t🤔

[@chrishello10]

Arnold is a symptom. 99.9% (settling with 100% actually) of the comments that I've read are imo overly-focused on the symptom. But the root cause is FA's addiction to WC revenue that incentivises the selection of managers who can first qualify the Socceroos to the WC and secondly, qualify the Socceroos to the WC. A reason that explains why Ange resigned, Arnold signed and had his contract extended. The sooner FA can come out of that mindset, be brave with a forward thinking plan to elevate the Socceroos in the long-run and be prepared to take potential short term hits. I don't think enough people are addressing this because let's say if Arnold gets sacked. Then what? We will complain about the next manager after the next 4 year cycle but with an alternating set of complaints.

[@Loose89]

Look, while FA's issues are deep and wide, just taking a sole focus on Arnold's performances, selections and tactical decisions and the criticisms are valid. FA needs an overhaul, as does the A-League, there needs to be a requirements in place so clubs are forced to give young players a chance for example. Unfortunately, it is not going to change any time soon.

[@ListenToPumpkinMusic]

Good point in relation to the Australian football media landscape lacking outspoken critics who want Australian football to aspire to be more than it currently is (Foster, Murray, Warren, etc). You mentioned Foster's criticism of Postecoglu, but another memorable moment of his that comes to mind are the comments after Australia put in an absolutely pathetic performance against Germany in the 2010 World Cup. As Foster said then, "it's not the loss, it's the manner; and it's the manner of the approach; and it's the meek manner of the approach". We just don't have these kind of strong voices in our football media today. And that's not necessarily a criticism of those who are working in the field, because in some ways they are being silenced by both their lack of job security and the response of Arnold and FA to any criticism. Both those parties have developed this culture where criticism of the national team is somehow seen as an unpatriotic act, like we're supposed to just blindly happy clap through all the poor performances and never ask for more than a World Cup qualification.

[@ArachKing]

Case in point, this LosGangstaJ character who quite likely is a burner-account of Arnie’s💡

[@zioreturnsgaming]

worst loss i think of in current memory ie me being alive is the 2-0 loss to kuwait in 2007 afc cup qaulifers bahrain is not as bad but pretty bad

[@b.k.s.sthcoast]

We somehow staggered into the World Cup and our last three games in the World Cup made Arnold look good. I never believed that was due to Arnold but the players lifted after a poor opening game. Against Bahrain we never really looked like scoring.

[@chrispsackett]

I feel like Arnie could have picked Nisbet and Balard, a pair of midfielders who have experience in Asia and winning in Asia.

[@adambubba1982]

I think you are being a bit disrespectful. We just weren’t creative enough. Arnie in the gun. All the players too. Well played Bahrain

[@SamScholfield-nc7sr]

Bahrain were a bloody disgrace as anybody who watched could attest. It was disgusting. The ref did nothing. Arnie would've been fuming

[@Skulduggery_P]

If it were a one off performance, sure, perhaps hard criticism. It's been an ongoing issue for a long time, we're doing OK as a national team most of the time, I think it's obvious we aren't actually pushing the barrier to go further though

[@ewokhunter4036]

Lies detected: nil

[@VelvetRiot-hz5mp]

FIFA is partly to blame. They allow criminal faking when we have an obligation to make the sport entertaining. We should have disbanded FIFA when we had the chance.

[@ArachKing]

Arnieball is the polar-opposite of ‘entertaining’. Bottom line, teams worth their salt don’t b1tch&whine about the opposition’s playacting - they put ‘em to the sword on the scoreboard💡

[@LosGangstaJ]

To say the performances since the WC have been “dogshite” is a tad absurd. You mean beating Ecuador 2-1? Multiple 5-0 wins and a 7-0 win against Asian opponents? Narrowly losing 1-0 to England while pushing them all the way and dominating in patches? Being seconds away from dumping Korea out of the Asian cup and making the final until our defender has an individual brain explosion? There’s clearly another agenda at play for you because the reality is we aren’t 2010 Spain, we’re a mediocre Socceroos side and we’re doing pretty bloody well with what we have. World Cup 2022 was legendary. Bahrain performance piss poor but if you think he’s getting dumped over that you must have amnesia.

[@ArachKing]

@@LosGangstaJ Your excuses for last night’s insipidness are?

[@LosGangstaJ]

Sorry to disappoint you but there’s just no reason to sack Arnie at this point. Had our best ever World Cup finish with arguably our worst WC team, should’ve beaten Korea and made Asian Cup final if not for Lewis Miller’s horror show. The thing people like you seem to forget is, the Socceroos haven’t been strong for years. There is absolutely no doubt Arnie changed this team for the better in his tenure. Bringing in a random European coach would very likely be met with regression. One loss against Bahrain doesn’t change that, it’s a long campaign. Are you from Melbourne by any chance? Otherwise, not seeing your logic for the Arnie hate

[@ArachKing]

Get off the internet Arnie💡

[@ALeagueCouchCritics]

Could be Robbie Slater

[@ArachKing]

@@ALeagueCouchCritics Lowkey more likely😆

[@LosGangstaJ]

You think a European manager would yield better results? Delusional

[@ArachKing]

@@LosGangstaJ Fcvk off and go take your meds, bro💡👋🏼