Ange Postecoglou has full 23-man compliment as last of Socceroos arrive in Melbourne

ANGE Postecoglou has for the first time, his full 23-man squad at his disposal, with Mile Jedinak, Chris Herd and Aziz Behich arriving in Melbourne.

Socceroos training at Olympic Park. Training at Olympic Park starts at 11am. Socceroos squad warm up during training. Picture: Stuart Milligan

SOCCEROOS coach Ange Postecoglou had, for the first time on Wednesday, his full 23-man squad at his disposal.

And although late-comers Mile Jedinak, Chris Herd and Aziz Behich walked laps for the most part, it signals the dawning of what could be the most important week of the entire Asian Cup campaign.

The players will have a break from training on New Year’s Day before launching themselves in to a crucial seven-day training block ahead of next Friday’s tournament opener against Kuwait at AAMI Park.

And most encouragingly for Postecoglou is the fact that the squad is seemingly free of the injury concerns that plagued the build-up to June’s World Cup.

Trent Sainsbury appears to be winning his battle to overcome a slight hamstring injury sustained in early December as he, too, joined in full training at Melbourne’s Olympic Park and looked untroubled.

Despite not having played for his Dutch club PEC Zwolle since December 7, Sainsbury is in the running to feature in a central defensive partnership containing any combination of himself, Matthew Spiranovic and Alex Wilkinson.

The Socceroos are conducting their camp at the training facility of AFL club Collingwood and their coach Nathan Buckley and captain Scott Pendlebury were on hand at training on Wednesday morning.

The Socceroos are finally all together in camp in Melbourne.

Buckley in particular was a keen observer for most of training, flanking Postecoglou throughout.

And what he saw, according to forward James Troisi, was a definite lift in intensity from the previous days.

“Today was (intense), but we’ve got a day off tomorrow,” Troisi said.

“I’ve been training for a couple of days, but some of the boys have been for four days in a row.

“Today was a bit of a blow out, we’ll have a rest tomorrow and then we’ll have our full squad.

“So we’ll do some media stuff and then start to analyse (Kuwait) ahead of the first game.

There’ll be a few tough days on the pitch then I think we’ll ease off leading up to the game.”

Originally published as Ange Postecoglou has full 23-man compliment as last of Socceroos arrive in Melbourne