All Whites v Korea | Tuesday 31st March | 11:50pm | SS1

I am nervous BUT I am willing to let him play his long game plan. I don't really agree with the approach he is making for this game BUT his plan is good in theory I think we need to give him time to work it. A bit like Ernie needed a season to get things working how he liked I think 18 months is the time frame I would put on me personally deciding if I like him or not.

As far as saying he can not control senior players this is clearly speculation but he is a reasonably new coach who has succeeded at the development level looking to step up to the senior level so maybe it is more about him playing his strengths (Developing the youth for next WC) while working on his weaknesses (bringing in and working with the limited seniors that will be available for next WC).

Again I stress patience we are not a top footballing nation (as much as we wish we were and should be) but with a LONG term plan I think we should be able to get there of which I think Hudson is a good start. Now if we could just clear out CF and put some halfway competent people in place we could be a force not to be fudgeed with (We seem to compete really well for our size in other sports we concentrate on aka Rugby, Cricket, Rowing, etc. etc. would be nice to see a proper 10-20 year plan to make football have such a public image)

Complete agree, Rori. We can't expect miracles from a guy who's only been in the job a year and has only had the opportunity to play 4 damn games.

By CF I mean NZF lol Im a winner

Have you listened to his interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuA9GIZnQY)? He lays out why he is picking younger players in that. Basically he just doesn't get that much opportunity to get to work with the senior players (couple days each window if we are lucky), whilst the u20s & u23's he gets tons more training days with their WC/Olympic qualifiers.

Here are the ages of players who started their final Asian Cup qualification game.

28, 33, 23, 23, 29, 32, 29, 25, 23, 22, 25

I suspect the lack of some senior players has more to do with not completely screwing the Phoenix over and while that was fine when everyone else wasn't broken it's left him in a bit of a hole now.

We'll get humped but it's not the end of the world.

I wouldn't read anything about Ben's ability into recent events at Universitatea Cluj.

There's been all sorts of turmoil at Universitatea Cluj the last month with the manager and technical director sacked - and it was the club's Dutch technical director who brought Ben to Cluj (he was his manager earlier in his career in Holland).

The new temporary manager is favouring local players. The club spent big at the beginning of this season recruiting almost a whole new team and brought in four Dutch players in the January transfer window, including van den Broek (along with high-profile former Ajax striker Geoffrey Castillion, striker Sergio Zijler ex-Willem II and Twente, defender Danzell Gravenberch ex-Ajax and NEC).

Now there's a backlash against the foreign player influx not bringing instant success and they're on the outer:

http://www.elfvoetbal.nl/nieuws/401021_van-den-bro...

"Since early February, Van den Broek has played football for Universitatea Cluj in Romania. "The presence of my former coach Alfons Groenendijk (Technical Director at Cluj, ed.) was a big reason behind it. " But last week Groenendijk with manager George Ogararu were sacked. "It came to us as a surprise. We do not read the newspapers here. But during the last two games we got two red cards, including two penalty kicks against us. It really was not down to them. It all went bad. Also because this season with the restructuring of the league, six teams will be relegated. " Universitatea Cluj is now twelve of the eighteen. Not over halfway: Yesterday he stayed on the bench ninety minutes at Concordia Chiajna. "There is now a Romanian manager (Adrian Falub, ed.) He is not selecting us foreign players and favours the Romanian players. During the training I need to prove myself again. I've noticed so far that most teams here play very defensively...the ball doesn't pass halfway much."

That article also explains how Ben came to take out NZ citizenship and become eligible for the All Whites.

His mum used to be in the NZ army in her youth.

All Whites squad

Goalkeepers: Max Crocombe (Oxford Utd), Stefan Marinovic (SpVgg Unterhaching) Defenders: Michael Boxall (Wellington Phoenix), Sam Brotherton (Wanderers SC), Thomas Doyle (Wellington Phoenix), Louis Fenton (Wellington Phoenix), Adam Mitchell (Wanderers SC), Winston Reid (captain, West Ham Utd), Storm Roux (Central Coast Mariners), Themistoklis Tzimopoulos (PAS Giannina), Deklan Wynne (Wanderers SC) Midfielders: Sam Burfoot (Auckland City FC), Moses Dyer (Wanderers SC), Cameron Howieson (Burnley), Clayton Lewis (Wanderers SC) Michael McGlinchey (Wellington Phoenix), Bill Tuiloma (Olympique Marseille), Benjamin van den Broek (FC Universitatea Cluj) Forwards: Tyler Boyd (Wellington Phoenix), Ryan De Vries (Auckland City FC), Marco Rojas (FC Thun), Joel Stevens (Wellington Phoenix) Chris Wood (Ipswich Town)

Looks more like a "NZ A" squad, especially  if you take out Reid (as seems might well happen).

The only experienced internationals will be Wood, McGlinchey and Rojas.

The remaining 19 players have 44 caps between them - and Boxall has the most with 11 and then Howieson with 9 (mostly as a sub for those two guys).

Yikes!

I have heard a few rumblings about Hudson and his reluctance to pick senior pro's but I would not read to much into it. Hudson has clearly articulated his plan, its unambiguous. He clearly wants to deepen the squad, which is fine. He wants the guy who steps in if a senior player is injured, who will already know the teams setup/tactics.

Hudsons plan makes sense and we just have to give him time to allow it to work. It must be tough for senior AW,s who have put their all into the AW's suddenly have to watch the games on TV and see a bunch of kids fill out the squad. In some way it does cheapen the AW shirt by handing out caps like confetti. However there is a bigger picture here.....a longer term picture that hopefully will result in long term benefits for football in NZ.

For too long we have bumbled along without much of a plan. The hope seemed to be that from time to time the stars would all align and we could assemble our Nelsons, Godfathers, Elliots, Smeltz's etc and have a team that could do something on the international stage(circa WC in SA). However this teams composition was more about fate/good luck than management. Where was the player succession plan after the WC in South Africa? We suddenly found that a couple of years after, we had nobody to play DM or fullback.

At least with Hudson we can see where we are going. The current AW team is heavily influenced by the up coming Olympic tournament. Hudson will run this show and he wants to have as much hands on time as he can get with these players. If he can develop half a dozen good players to come through into the next WC qualifiers and then add back in the mix his senior guys then we will be in much better overall shape.

The problem is that in the short term it will be tough. The best eleven players available he can put out  against Korea at home will struggle....big time. Korea are a very very good side and will play a high tempo game with pace and accuracy. We will get well beaten. 

I think we'll need a bigger bus

when do they expect to make an announcement re Reid. Would he travel even in a non playing but mentoring capacity or would this fall outside FIFA regs as he'd be injured and thus require club approval? Surely they have to make a call tomorrow latest to get him over there? 

Guess Reid isn't travelling

PIC: @WinstonReid2 is interviewed at @cafefootballuk during our @LycamobileUK media event. #COYI #WHUFC pic.twitter.com/QyQbJxlczi

— West Ham United FC (@whufc_official) March 25, 2015

So who will be our captain? Wood? WeeMac?

Probably Wood, he was the captain against Thailand when Reid wasn't there

Boxall.

There was a really misleading article during the week with a headline seeming to suggest Boxall would be captain but when you read the article, it just said he was having to step up as part of the "leadership group".

More likely to be Wood I think.

South Korea vs. Uzbekistan at midnight tonight our time:

It's streaming free on "TAB Watch and Bet":

https://www.tab.co.nz/sport/video/

Will be interesting to see what we'll be up against next week.

Maybe streaming here too:

http://livefootballvideo.com/streaming/world/frien...

http://www.hahasport.com/

Hahasport - Thatt sounds like a joke stream haha. Cheers though!

I didn't realise they had that service. Cool. I wonder who the commentators will be? 

Reid out. No surprise.

#shocked

With all of our unavailable players every AWs game its going to get to the point where decent countries arent going to want to play us 

I have been quite critical of Winston in the past but to be fair it looks like he has been out for the past month or so.

They have been saying from the get-go that he would be cutting it very thin, so it's no big surprise that he's not included in the squad.

Exactly - for once this doesn't seem to be one of those mysterious injuries which occurs in the last game for his club before the international break but heals in time for the first game after it.

Gon get dicked

Are people here still happy with the "Sheep to the Slaughter" situation we find ourselves in?

You'll have to sign up by clicking on the top right of the TAB website in order to watch though.

They regularly show football matches - but only ones no one has the rights to in NZ.

A lot of internationals and Argentinian league on this Sunday morning:

Olimpo Bahia Blanca v At. Rafa	Football	07:00	Bet now
Ghana v Senegal	Football	08:45	Bet now
El Salvador v Argentina	Football	09:30	Bet now
Banfield v Huracan	Football	11:10	Bet now
Godoy Cruz v Independiente	Football	12:10	Bet now
San Lorenzo v Lanus	Football	12:10	Bet now
Crucero Del Norte v Temperley	Football	13:00	Bet now
Mexico v Ecuador	Football

and Monday morning:

Fleetwood Town v Preston	Football	02:15	Bet now
Brazil v Chile	Football	03:00	Bet now
Cote d Ivoire v Equatorial Gui	Football	05:00	Bet now
Belgrano Cordoba v Newells Old	Football	08:00	Bet now
Racing Club v San Martin SJ	Football	09:00	Bet now
Boca Juniors v Estudiantes LP	Football	10:15	Bet now
Union Santa Fe v Velez Sarsfie	Football

South Korea were playing with a young squad and looked the better of the two sides in the draw against the Uzbeks.

I'll be happy if we don't lose by more than 3  and in the process keep our shape and look like Hudson's plan is starting to bed in. If we get completely thumped and look like a bunch of scared schoolboys getting dicked by professional footballers, then I won't be so happy.

With Thomas and Kosta out I wonder what formation Hudson will play. With them in I thought a 4-2-3-1 would accomodate Wee Mac, Thomas, Kosta and Rojas. But am not so sure now. We don't have any natural 11 or 7 as Wee Mac and Rojas both play a number 10 role. If Bill and Van de B both play centrally it means one or both or them will need to play as wingers/midfielders. This is where we could be exposed. 

The one thing I get from Hudson is that he doesn't want to change shape too much to accomodate players, rather he wants players to work into his system. 

Hence this selection will be interesting,

Everything about this game will be interesting.

I'll tell you what highlights the situation best for me is that picture of Themy in the NZ Herald article. He looks like a man surrounded by kids. I know Hudson has a clear plan and this match wont be as physical as a qualifier or cup game but while the guys coming in may well understand the systems and be technically ok Hudson also needs to ensure that for our qualifiers in 2016 the guys he is picking now will also be physically and mentally mature enough. He is always talking about players needing to be strong. And history says our most successful teams have been. If you look at our previous u20 and Olympic sides often our players just don't look as athletic or physically mature as the European sides and even the Asian sides (esp West Asia). 

This is where Reid and Tuiloma etc are an exception to our typical product. 

Anyway, hope that Hudson also has programmes in place for these "kids to become men" over the next 15 months...

I disagree with the statement that Rojas is a number 10 - I've always thought his natural position is as a winger

he's playing 10 for his club side 

Ok,  I didn't know that.

Rojas is a better winger I think Barba is better centrally despite him having a good season at RW for MV.

Kosta doesn't play centrally. Has and will always be an out and out winger. He doesn't play well with his back to goal. He has been superb at getting in behind defences this year- would work so well with Wee Mac. Next time! 

Anyone know the odds for this match?

Win Sth K 4/9  NZ 13/2 on Bet365. Similar on all others.

NB Result will be known on April Fool's Day.