GRAHAM Arnold has completed his first training camp as the new coach of the Socceroos, and says that it couldn’t have gone any better.

Arnold took a group of 30 players to Turkey for a week-long camp with the intention of getting to know them before their first game together in November.

The FFA sat down with the former Sydney FC boss following the completion of the camp in Antalya.

“I think we all had a fantastic week, it was about connection to the players, it was obviously the first time I’ve been here with a lot of the players for a long time,” said Arnold.

“The whole purpose of the camp was not to have a game after a World Cup, the mental and physical stress of the World Cup takes it out of the players individually, and at club land it’s quite sufficient too.

“So It was more about getting the players into camp, getting to know them, them getting to know us, introducing new staff to the players and vice versa, and overall I think we ticked every box.

“It was great for me and the coaching staff to get to work up close with all the players and even player that was at the World Cup.

“The fresh faces that we brought in did exceptionally well, they added a lot of energy to the training sessions and lot of enthusiasm in and around the place and they had a fantastic week.

“I do believe we have a great connection with the staff, they’re great at jobs they do individually but for them to connect with the players is great.

“I felt a real good conmncection with the players.

“I felt a really good connection to the older players, the senior players.

“So overall I couldn’t be happier with the way everything went this week.”

Prior to the camp, Arnold openly admitted that the time in Turkey would be used for players to become familiar with the new coaching staff.

“We’re here to help the players, not only myself in a football sense but also Andrew Clark and Phil Coles on the physical side of things.”

“If they’re not getting what’s required in club land then we’re able to sit down with them and show them the way they want to do things and show them the style we want to play.

“At the end of the day, they’ve gone home with some great knowledge but also the contact details they need so when they need us all they have to do is contact us and we’ll help them.”

Arnold is set to travel to Europe to meet with the coaches of some of the Socceroos, with the intention of forming a good relationship with the players’ parent clubs.

“One way to make life easier for the players and ourselves is by making a connection with the clubs in Europe who own the players,” he said.

“We get the player from 3 to 10 days at a time so if we can make that work well then the relationship will make the players even better.

“I’m off to Scotland this week to meet Brendan Rodgers and Celtic and then go to Hearts and Hibs with Neil Lennon and boys.

“Then I’ll shoot off to the south part of England.

“Then I’ll go over to Holland and do abit of Germany and Belgium, we’ll be checking up on our injured players too.”

Arnold believes the camp has put his new-look Socceroos side in good stead for their upcoming games in November.

They’ll play South Korea first at Suncorp Stadium before travelling down to Sydney to play Lebanon in what will be Tim Cahill’s last ever appearance for Australia.

“We’ve worked hard this week on adding layers to what the strengths were of the Socceroos at the World Cup,” said Arnold.

“We had small meeting and players bought into what we needed them to do.

“We asked them what they felt where the improvement can be and they answered those questions.

“We worked extremely hard on our rotations and our attacking intent and yesterday we had our 4x15 minute games and we were scoring goals for fun.

“It’d be great to put that into practise against an opposition.

“We’re looking forward to putting our new style into a game situation.”