All Whites vs Thailand | Wed 19 Nov | 12.30am | SS2

Or Killi.  He is/was more clinical then all of those who played today (uk time).  Think back to the 4-3 Italy game when we all realised the AWs could actually play in '09.

I've not brought into his talk.  Some of the selections for this tour baffled me and has cost us (where was James etc) and why bother take Musa, Edge and Sail if they got no playing time.  Musa should have been given a run today at the very least.

So glad this is the first AW game I missed watching in about 7/8 years.

Was Vincent worth throwing on or was did he earn another soft AW cap?

Did not watch the match but sounds like a poor result.

Thailand probably a tough nut to crack at home (hard enough lying on a beach and getting up to get another beer, let alone playing football). That said , still a match we should get something from. Sounds like we created a number of chances.

You're missing the entire point Marto. This squad is preparing for 2018, Smeltz and Killen aren't going to be there. The young players will learn from this.

I haven't watched the game (yet). But have a couple of questions for those that have...

Was this just a 'bad day at the office' from a group of capable players or are there some obvious technical and tactical deficiencies in this squad in your opinion ?

When things were not working, was there any evidence of in game coaching from Hudson ? e.g. did the substitutions appear to address tactical issues, or did they seem to be pre-planned ?

If the overall performance was that poor from NZ how did it compare to other recent performances e.g. vs Mexico in Mexico ?

He came on with about 25mins to go IIRC. He did ok actually, made some good runs. But it was just so shit as a whole, he was pretty much as ineffectual as everyone else.

Because 7 days in camp gives the coaching staff a chance to look over them? You don't just learn stuff from games.

After the first twenty I thought it was inevitable that we would put three or four past them, they were that shit. Turns out we lacked composure and struggled to keep out shape. Well young team, etc.

Looking at that I'd say Payne and Boxall for two aren't up to international standard and probably never will be.

Tim Payne is 20 years old.

So it turns out we're a bit shit at football. Who knew.

Hudson needs to get this squad playing week in week out in the ASB for the next two years. Then they might gel.

You mean like Wanderers?

Either they are not the bunnies we all thought they were, or we are not as good as we think.

The shortest rebirth in history.

Just as an interesting aside - in EURO qualifying over the weekend, Faroe Islands beat Greece in Greece, Liechtenstein beat Moldova in Moldova, and San Marino got their first ever point in EURO qualifying against Estonia. And we lose to Thailand.

Ye Gods.

I'm wondering if we have really changed that much? Hudson preaches a European style of football but kicking the ball around idly between your defenders in your own third before long balling it up the field is hardly Barcelona.

The only other tactic used was run up the sides and cross into the box - did Hudson find Ricki's playbook when cleaning up his office?

But then everyone says that Hudson is a methodical and technical coach, so I hope he is just running experiments with the squad to get a better understanding of what he is dealing with.

Sack Hudson.

Argh so much fucking angst here and on facebook calling for Hudson to be out and that were shit. A draw with China is a really good result with such a young squad considering it was only Hudson's second game in charge and we were missing some key players. I actually picked that we would draw with China and lose to Thailand. Despite their ranking Thailand can be a very good team at times. We looked really good in the first 20 minutes and were absolutely dominating them but  our downfall was we failed to take our chances early and (18yo Wynne) let them score then we had a goal disallowed. If those things didn't happen it would have been a completely different story. 

I for one have been impressed by Hudson and this young squad passion and understand that we might not win all our friendlies since we are preparing for a tournament in october 2015 not a tournament in 4 days time like Thailand.

(Btw we lost to Thailand 3-1 with Ricki in charge in 2009 and qualified for the world Cup 6 months later.)

One thing we did learn is that 'The 80th Birthday Stadium' is quite possibly the most awesome name for a stadium.

Average age of last night's starting XI was 22 yo. Each with an average of 14 caps.

Absolutely, and we're discovering that (a) there's a big step up between the A-League and even weak international football and (b) there's a pretty much insurmountable step between ASBP and international football.

While we're picking guys who aren't in pro football we're going to be a bad team.  That's not writing those guys off, it's just pointing out the obvious probably

10 of the starting lineup have pro contracts. The 11th (Wynne) was a late call up. So if Doyle wasn't injured, that would be all 11.

I think we have to give Hudson to the world cup qualifiers. He is re-building us from the ground up and needs to confidence that he has a mandate and the support to do that. We've seen what Australia is like now with the previous regime only papering over the issues and not building for the future.

I still think he's the best choice for the All Whites (and I was dubious when he was signed) - he has shown he is happy to shake things up and make the hard calls which is what we need.

I'm confident that his ambitions coupled with his self belief will give us the best chance of qualifying, and leave us with a re-generated squad. To me this isn't about just the world cup, its about setting up the senior team for success for the next couple of world cup campaigns.

That is the probably that Hudson is trying to address. Although his scope is pretty narrow. We just don't have enough players in pro environments not to do it.

Guess the point I'm trying to make, is that bad results happen. And are more likely to happen with young/inexperienced sides.  It's not the end of the world as long as the coach and players have learnt something from it.

At least we are getting regular fixtures to try get everyone up to speed..

The team is also getting experience playing in Asia, which could help a lot in qualifying. With that in mind I hope we see some friendlies in the Middle East in the future

I guess one question I ask, is there anyone not playing that would be from last nights team? Obviously Moss and Reid are the first two names but Wood, Rojas, Thomas, Kosta, McGlinchey, Smith..... I guess that is 8 players. 

For me both fullbacks and the 2nd midfielder alongside McGlinchey are up for grabs. Wynne will get picked again in a squad but I guess there is Doyle and Hogg (once he stops fucking about) to consider on one side and Fenton on the other. Does Hudson look at Roux again? He was ok attacking against Mexico but stole Marco's role in that game. He has not really impressed defensively in an AW shirt and looking less and less like a defender for CCM as well. Tuiloma does not exactly fill me with confidence either cause James plays the same way as him and does it better.

This. I am angry that we lost because I thought it was a very good chance to chalk a first win for this group of players and get their/the publics confidence up a bit - but in saying that, this was more of a training run than anything else. 

If Reid is back then Boxall is another option for RB.

That is for the AWs. My concern from the above point is, how is he (Boxall) going to be positioned for the Nix if he is not a great CB (he was touted as one not so long ago).

A lot of people were really happy with how Boxall played at CB against South Africa,so I think it's premature to write him off just yet. There seems to be a tendency with people looking at AWs games to think a player is only as good as his last performance. Someone has a good game and they're our saviour, someone has a poor one and they should be dropped for good. That's an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Consistency in an international player is a massive asset of course, but a lot of our squad blow hot and cold. Partly that might be because of travel and the changing environment with new coaching staff and tactics. Hopefully if we play plenty of games and Hudson sticks with the same approach at least some of that will be mitigated. Otherwise we jsut have to hope they're fired up and on form for the games that matter.

That kinda ties in with what Mainland was saying and does prove his point. If he is hot and cold, he can't be touted as the next big thing..

Your point is valid though Conan.

In the past we just had no friendlies to develop any angst, now we see how much work has to be done.

We needed a bit more attitude from that squad I reckon. Moss, Dura and Reid, and it would've been a completely different result. These 3 get fired up and bark out orders all night. We missed that.

I like Boxall but imo he is not really International quality. Unfortunately for me his personal skill level isn't high enough but in saying that I would put quite a few of the NZ players in that category. Even Chris Wood had quite a few times where he couldn't control the ball with his first touch, in fact one of those was a goal scoring opportunity. As far as Vincent goes, I wouldn't bother with him again! He hasn't progressed what so ever. I will be interested to see how he goes in Thailand, although I don't think the Thai league is anything great. Tim Payne just runs around chasing the ball but I can't say I've ever thought much of him as a player, as he's always done this. 

I think Ryan Thomas is definitely International quality. He has great skills and very good vision - some of his passes were superb. Marco Rojas and MacGlinchey are probably up there as well. With Marco however, he really needs to get playing time with his loan team.

Saying "international quality" doesn't really clarify anything though. By definition, if you play international football you're international quality. In terms of the sort of quality we want/need for the AWs, if you take WC qualification as a benchmark then we need a team which is capable of progressing over 2 legs against middling Asian opposition. We did it against Bahrain and if we had played Jordan last time instead of Mexico then we possibly could have done it then. Could we do it now? Probably not. But with this squad in a few years after playing together more and Hudson fine tuning his approach we should be a possibility again.

By International Quality, I guess I'm meaning, quality whereby they could hold their own against most International Players. But in saying that I agree with your comment CT.