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Socceroos captain Maty Ryan says Graham Arnold's COVID-enforced absences in the past two camps had an impact on Australia's performances.
Socceroos captain Maty Ryan is relishing a mostly settled build-up to the World Cup play-off against the United Arab Emirates after costly disruptions in the past two camps.
Australia has been in camp in Qatar for more than a week ahead of a must-win clash with the Emiratis, with only Tom Rogic's shock withdrawal for personal reasons rocking the boat.
It's a stark contrast to the two camps earlier this year when coach Graham Arnold had to isolate on each occasion due to separate bouts of COVID-19 and the team was dealing with absences due to COVID-19, injury and other reasons.
Australia has won just one of their past seven qualifiers after winning 11 straight earlier in the campaign, missing out on an automatic berth and being forced into the sudden-death play-off route to November's finals.
Ryan says while Arnold's coaching staff did their best to fill-in for the 58-year-old, who also used Zoom to be virtually present during his isolation periods, it definitely had an impact on the team's performance.
"It has an influence, obviously," Ryan told AAP.
"The last two camps Arnie's been isolating with COVID so you haven't had the manager there being able to leave his fingerprints on the team, in terms of the strategy we want heading into the games and all that.
"Obviously you do the best that you can getting those messages of course through his coaching staff and through Zoom and those types of things, but it's a whole different aspect when someone's obviously there in person."
The most recent qualifiers against Japan and Saudi Arabia were also rife with speculation Arnold was about to be sacked as Football Australia feared the prospect of missing out on a World Cup spot.
Ryan says from a players' perspective however, doubts over a coach's future is nothing unique or uncommon.
"If it does (affect you), you're in the wrong business, because as far as I know, it's (always) been a part of the game," Ryan said.
"The last campaign what was different? In the end, it was the reason Ange (Postecoglou) left.
"Obviously you hear of this sort of stuff when you do interviews because people ask you about it but I've distanced myself from sort of public opinion and all that type of stuff.
"We just worry about what's in house and what's going on here ... look at all around the world - Barcelona, Manchester United - they don't win things and they're under the same scrutiny. It's just a part of football.
"We want to do the best that we can and there's no-one more disappointed than us when we fall short of what we want to achieve.
"We're just focused on being here and doing the best that we can and there's not much more we can do."
