Mooy can play at a higher level, says Socceroos boss Van Marwijk

Aaron Mooy has the ability to play at a bigger Premier League club than Huddersfield Town, according to his national team boss Bert van Marwijk.

The Australia midfielder moved to the Terriers from Manchester City on a permanent basis ahead of the 2017-18 season, appearing in all but two matches in his and the club’s maiden Premier League campaign.

Along with the rest of his team-mates, Mooy impressed in the Socceroos’ narrow 2-1 Group C defeat to France on Saturday and is set to start again versus Denmark in Samara on Thursday.

Van Marwijk is often reluctant to single out players for praise but, when asked about Mooy, the Dutchman offered what qualifies as a glowing endorsement from the veteran tactician.

“Very good player, all the players are important,” Van Marwijk told a media conference.

“I think he’s a very good player and everyone has a good look at him and maybe he can play in England on a higher level.”

We know we have the whole nation behind us going into this next game.’

 Denmark v Socceroos
 Thursday 21 June
 Samara Arena
 10pm AEST, 9:30pm ACST, 8pm AWST
 LIVE on Optus Sport and SBS The World Game pic.twitter.com/1ymbcxbusy

— Socceroos (@Socceroos) 20 June 2018

Australia were somewhat unfortunate to not get anything from their opening meeting with Les Bleus, going down to Aziz Behich’s late own goal, and Van Marwijk believes Denmark’s strong team ethos represents a sterner test than the star-studded squad they met in Kazan four days ago.

“They’re a strong team, they’re number 12 in the world rankings, that says enough,” he said. “They’re physically strong, with very tall players, that’s their weapon.

“We played against France and they had more quality and creativity but I’d say Denmark are more of a team.

“We have to give the same performance as against France, we must improve in things that can make the difference.

“We had a few chances against France and maybe we have to have more chances against Denmark and when you saw Peru versus Denmark, the Peruvians got a lot of chances so that will be very important.”