Aaron Mooy says he is surprised by calls for a Qantas Socceroos selection in next week’s friendly against South Korea despite his eye-catching domestic form.
Western Sydney Wanderers midfielder Aaron Mooy says he is surprised by calls for his Qantas Socceroos selection in next week’s friendly against South Korea despite his eye-catching domestic form.
Australia boss Holger Osieck will name his squad for the clash in Hwaseong on Wednesday, with Mooy among a number of Australian-based players pushing hard for a shot in the national side.
Mooy has been the Wanderers most consistent player over the opening five rounds of the season, with Osieck a regular at Parramatta Stadium to keep watch on the 22-year-old’s progression.
There have been growing calls for the former St Mirren star to earn a call-up and that chance may come with the German likely to use the match to experiment with his squad ahead of next month’s qualifiers.
“It’s a bit of a shock to hear those things but really good at the same time,” Mooy said.
“I’m doing alright but to (make the squad) would be a little unbelievable.
“It’s not something I’ve really thought about too much because I really just want to focus on doing well for the club.
“All I can do is stick to the game plan for the team and try and help them as much as I can. But if it happens it would be great.”
Asked if it was difficult to keep his feet on the ground with the speculation over his selection Mooy said: “Not at all. If anything it just makes me more focused to keep doing what I’m doing and playing well.
“At the moment the most important thing for me is doing well for Western Sydney and trying to improve all the time.
“Things are going pretty well here but we want to keep it going and win as many games as we can.”
After picking up just one point from their opening three matches, where they went without scoring a single goal, the Wanderers have surged up the table in recent weeks after finding the back of the net and notching up back-to-back wins.
Mooy said there was never too much panic among the Wanderers playing group over their early results and said the improvement has come with every training session.
“Every week you learn more about your teammates and over the last few weeks we’ve bonded better together,” he said.
“We’ve got two good results in the last two weeks and played really well, so hopefully we can keep that going.
“I wouldn’t say there’s that much difference (between our current and early-season form), we’re just taking our chances and that’s why we’ve got the points.”
Defender Nikolai Topor-Stanley added: “Privately we’ve been pretty pleased with our form but we just didn’t get the results we desired in the first few weeks but now that’s changed.
“The first few games we just weren’t ruthless enough to finish our chances.
“We’re doing that now and hopefully we can keep creating chances and have that killer instinct (in front of goal).”
Saturday night’s clash with Newcastle will take on extra significance for most of the Wanderers side as Topor-Stanley, Adam D’Apuzzo, Ante Covic, Mark Bridge, Labinot Haliti and Tarek Elrich all previously spent time at the Jets.
