Mark Milligan believes a lack of cutting edge in attacking areas contributed to the Socceroos shock 2-0 defeat against Jordan in their FIFA World Cup qualifier on Friday morning (AEDT).
Ange Postecoglou’s side started brightly in Amman but were undone by second half goals to Abdel-Fattah and Hamza Al Dardour.
“I thought the majority we controlled the match the way that we wanted to,” Milligan told Fox Sports afterwards.
Socceroos' Jordan curse strikes again
“We were lacking a bit of penetration in the first half, we were getting into good areas it was just those final movements we’re a bit off for us.
“Copping that goal early in the second half opened up the game. We tried to stick to our structure and play the way we want to, it just wasn’t happening tonight.”
The defeat means the Socceroos have now dropped to second in the group behind Jordan at the half-way stage of the group phase.
Asked if he still felt comfortable the side would progress from the group, Milligan said: “I think so.
“We’ve got a lot of games left and we’ve got a lot of games at home left.
“We would have liked to have come here and done a job, which we expected of ourselves but unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight.
“Next camp we’ll have a look at where we went from and we’ll try and get better.”
The Socceroos’ next qualifier is at home against Kyrgyzstan in Canberra next month.
