Brett Holman, your time is up

So often I’m just dying to say something controversial on a topical subject, but have to keep my powder dry till the next deadline. This week was a killer in that respect. I’ve just been gagging to spray some vitriol on the issue of Brett Holman and now the day has come.

I’m sorry to do this but it’s long overdue. Nothing personal, either. I’m sure he’s a top bloke and all and he busts his lungs for the national cause. But in my view his charmed run as a Socceroo has to come to an end. It's gone on way too long.

I’m sure I speak for a lot of Australian football fans. We believe in the concept of the fair go. It’s part of what being an Aussie is all about. Every man and woman deserves a chance and even a second chance.

But the fact of the matter is Holman has simply had more than his fair share and in so doing kept out one of the greatest talents of our generation – Nicky Carle – out of the national football team. It would be amusing if it weren’t so goddamn tragic.

The last time Holman played a decent game of football was in his third international, back in China in March 2007, when I praised him in one of my HTO columns.

Since Verbeek joined the Socceroos in late December 2007, Holman has, by my quick calculations, played a total of 723 minutes of football for the national team. Nicky Carle, man-of-the-match against Nigeria in November 2007, arguably the most gifted attacking midfielder we have at our disposal outside of Bresciano, Kewell and Cahill, has played about ten.

Ten minutes!

Holman played just over a dozen matches for AZ Alkmaar in the Eredevisie last season. Carle played over 40 for Crystal Palace in the Championship. How do these numbers compute? They don’t.

They might, of course, if Holman demonstrated some indefinable magic on the field for Australia but by and large all he has demonstrated, and he did once again on Wednesday night, is that he is not cut out for this level of football.

As many people remarked to me on Thursday, Carle did more in the ten or so minutes he was thrown on at the death than Holman did all game. And they might be right, considering the Socceroos’ second goal indirectly came from a play initiated by Carle.

The Crystal Palace man looked steady, assured on the ball, tracked back as required and positionally seemed to not put a foot wrong in the cameo he was allowed. And if he can do that in ten minutes you’ve got to give the guy some credit.

Holman, by contrast, seems to be labouring under the impression that if he simply runs at everything helter-skelter with no thought for structure or strategy then his place in the team is assured (and on the evidence of the confidence he enjoys from Pim Verbeek, Graham Arnold and Henk Duut, he appears to be correct).

But isn’t this precisely what Australian football was trying to move away from with the appointment of Guus Hiddink in 2005? The triumphalism of effort as a substitute for skill? I don’t need to extol the virtues of Carle as a skilful player – my views are well known and long held. It might even be counterproductive for his cause for me to raise them again.

But there was a chorus of calls for Carle to start on Wednesday night – from Mark Bosnich, Robbie Slater and many, many others – and they obviously see the same things in Carle I do: a player with the rare ability to do something exciting and special. He abundantly offers Australia something Holman does not.

The Holman horrors reel was a long one on Wednesday night, highlighted by a massively overpurchased pass to a flying Harry Kewell that ended up somewhere in the Parramatta River and a curious encounter by a corner post in the Socceroos half where, trying to filch the ball from his Bahraini foe and not having much joy, he inexplicably pushed the poor bloke over the line and so turned over possession and the opportunity his side had been assiduously building.

A couple of isolated errors from any player is tolerable, but Holman manages to do it time and time again. It's park football stuff. As my good friend the Darlinghurst barista and football diehard Pino Paonessa quipped: “Holman is to football what a clown is to a crying child. Horrible!”

In fact the only thing international quality about Holman on Wednesday night was his Legolas-style haircut, which is so ostentatious as to be tolerable on someone such as Leo Messi, who has the god-given talent to have whatever haircut he likes. But on Holman it just appears terribly ill advised.

The News Limited press this week has been accusing Verbeek of “petulance and disdain for Australian culture”.

I disagree with that assessment but on the matter of Holman vs Carle I do believe has been awfully stubborn.

There are two ways this issue can be tackled by the Australian football press. One, we can say nothing and hope, pray, that Verbeek selects Carle for the game against Japan in Melbourne next week.

Two, we can say what everyone is thinking and wants to see happen: that Carle be given a full game, his first since November 2007, to show what he is capable of and so bring some pressure on Verbeek through sheer clamour.

I would normally advocate the first option, simply because I have come to know what Verbeek’s personality is like.

He doesn’t like to be pushed into a corner. He’s the boss and that’s that. But enough is enough, Pim. We’ve waited too long and not been rewarded for our patience.

There is a groundswell of dissatisfaction with the way the Socceroos are playing and some very real concerns being expressed, quite valid too, about how we might fare in South Africa should we stay doggedly fixed to this no-frills course.

It’s time for a change. With nothing at stake, give Carle a real chance to shine, not some token ten minutes. You might just unearth the X-factor we're going to need in 2010.