Ange backs strategy to win and keep job

DEFIANT Ange Postecoglou will not ditch his possessionbased philosophy, declaring he had the most to lose should the Socceroos miss out on the FIFA World Cup.

Australia’s 2-0 loss away to Japan last week left its Russia 2018 qualification hopes on a knife-edge, needing to win by a two-goal greater margin than Saudi Arabia, who host Japan five hours later.

Star midfielder Aaron Mooy will return and Tim Cahill could also start in tonight’s crunch match at AAMI Park in Melbourne, which is on the verge of selling out.

Postecoglou will stick with the controversial back three formation he has used since March, declaring he remained confident of qualifying.

“Not really [he hasn’t contemplated qualification failure] but I do know the consequen- ces of qualifying and doing jack s--- because we’ve done that the last two times,’’ he said.

“Qualifying doesn’t give us the silver bullet either, because we’ve done that. I got the job after the last bloke [Holger Osieck] did qualify.

“I only took this job for one reason, that is to try to change the landscape. How successful I’ll be by the end of it, time will tell. But I’m not going to shift from what I started doing.

“In the end if it doesn’t work out, I pay the price anyway. It’s not like I’m not going to take responsibility for it. The players will go on, I’ll be the one that loses my job.

“But I won’t because I know we’ll be successful and I know we’ll be successful in the long run. In the meantime, you batten down the hatches, you cop the usual bullets fired from all angles and you get on with it.

“That’s the journey we’re on and I’ll see it through.’’

Top scorer Tomi Juric should come into the team while defender Trent Sainsbury, who trained alone on Sunday, was a 50-50 prospect.

“I probably won’t make the [first XI] decision until tomorrow,” Postecoglou said.

“The beauty of it is everyone’s recovered well. It gives me a chance to look at the whole squad and put together an XI that I think will get the job done tomorrow. Timmy’s certainly in those thoughts.”