THE NEWCASTLE HERALD
By ROBERT DILLON
ONE way or the other, Joel Griffiths must be feeling disappointed and confused by his treatment from Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek.
Many punters believe the Newcastle Jets striker could hardly have done more in the recent A-League season to convince Verbeek of his quality.
He collected the Golden Boot award for most goals in the competition, was a runaway winner of the Johnny Warren Medal as the standout player and also starred in Newcastle's 1-0 grand final triumph against Central Coast.
Yet after all that, Griffiths has been omitted from Verbeek's squads both the A and B teams for clashes with Singapore and China later this month.
There has been speculation that Newcastle's golden boy is paying his penance for some naive comments he made after Australia's recent 3-0 win against Qatar.
Griffiths spent time in camp with the Socceroos before the Qatar match but was ruled out with a hamstring strain.
Afterwards, he made a candid observation that reportedly ruffled Verbeek's feathers: "A State League team could have beaten Qatar. I didn't think they were too good."
Asked on Thursday to explain Griffiths's omission, Verbeek insisted his squads were chosen purely on form and Griffiths had been considered and would be in future.
"It's not so difficult at this moment I think I have better strikers available," Verbeek said.
"So I prefer to go with Josh Kennedy, [Scott] McDonald, I have Archie Thompson, we have [Mark] Bridge, is doing a great job, [Brett] Holman is doing very well in the Netherlands also. So I have enough attacking players. Bruce Djite is a very promising player also, so I had to make some decisions.
"Joel Griffiths is always on the list, because we have to play 14 games to qualify for the World Cup.
"Regarding his age and his qualities, he is always on the list.
"For this game he is not, but we have still 12 games to go."
That assessment came after Verbeek told The Herald last month that Griffiths needed to "work harder" to succeed in international football.
"Here [in the A-League] he can conserve his energy for scoring goals, because the rest of the team does a lot of defensive work for him," Verbeek said.
"But in international football, that's different. Every player should work harder and do his job in defence.
"That's what he has to improve."
Whatever Verbeek's rationale, Griffiths is entitled to feel hard done by.
The Dutchman's claim that the likes of the enigmatic Bridge and Djite, a first-season A-League rookie, are more worthy of selection simply beggars belief.
Jets fans will also wonder how Griffiths could possibly work any harder, given that he habitually covers more turf during a game than anyone else in a gold shirt.
It does not add up.
If it is indeed true that Verbeek was unimpressed with Griffiths's opinion about Qatar, then he appears to have forgotten his own forthright comments about the A-League standard and Australian football in general.
It is unlikely that Griffiths would need any added motivation before his loan-stint debut for Japanese second-division club Avispa Fukuoka tomorrow.
But the clash with Mito HollyHock could be his first step towards proving that Verbeek got it wrong big time.
Article source http://theherald.yourguide.com.au/news/sport/soccer/punters-puzzled-by-pims-griffiths-snub/1203323.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment