Adelaide: Australia midfielder Aaron Mooy insists he is still fighting for his spot with the national team, despite coming off a career-best season in which he helped Huddersfield Town win promotion to the English Premier League.
Mooy described the last few weeks, in which he also got married, as “perfect”, but refuses to take his place in the team for granted ahead of the vital FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 qualifier with Saudi Arabia in Thursday.
The Socceroos sit three points behind the second-placed Saudis in Group B with three games remaining and need a win at Adelaide Oval to maintain any realistic hopes of a top-two finish and automatic qualification to Russia.
“When you come in you’ve got to perform,” the 26-year-old, who was widely regarded as one of the best players in the English Championship this season, said.
“Because there’s lot of good players here and lots of players have had good seasons and successful years. I’m still fighting for my future.”
With speculation swirling that Mooy could be the subject of bids from English Premier League clubs as high as US$20m, the former Melbourne City player maintains that he is ignoring the transfer talk and just concentrating on the match against Saudi Arabia.
“(It) doesn’t really bother me to be fair, it’s irrelevant,” Mooy said. “I’m just focusing on what I’m doing here, trying to help the team and the price tag is not for me to worry about.
“We all know it’s a very important game, one that we need to be on top of our game if we want to get a good result.”
While the midfielder isn’t looking any further ahead than Thursday night, he was more than happy to reminisce about Huddersfield Town’s remarkable achievement, something that surpassed his own expectations.
“It’s an amazing achievement for the club, and for me as well, I am very proud,” he added.
“The last time the club was in the top flight was 45 years ago, so to be part of the team to do that is very special and I’ll always remember that day forever.
“At the start of the season I didn’t really have any expectations because they finished 19th last year, I just wanted to go and try and play as much as I could and enjoy it.
“Just even to make the playoffs would’ve been amazing for them, but we got promoted so it was a fairy tale.”
Turning his attention back to the task ahead, Mooy is aware that Saudi Arabia would be happy with a point in Australia, which would leave them firm favourites to advance to Russia.
“Maybe they’ll sit off a bit more because they don’t really need to win, a draw would be a good result for them away from home,” he noted.
“Whatever way they set up we’ll have a plan to break them down and win the game. It doesn’t matter if you score in the first minute or the last minute, as long as you win.
“The way we play we like to wear the team down by keeping the ball, so it might not happen straight away but eventually the holes will start to appear and that’s what we play for.”
Photos: Lagardère Sports
Source: the-afc.com