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Aston Villa's Mile Jedinak targets Socceroos dominance in Thailand

BANGKOK -- Australia captain Mile Jedinak hopes that brighter prospects at club level with England's Aston Villa will translate into an imposing performance for the Socceroos in Tuesday's AFC World Cup qualifier in Thailand.

The Aussies are second in Group B, two points behind Saudi Arabia, with the Thais bottom after four defeats to begin the third phase of qualifying.

Jedinak's confidence is sky high after two impressive performances in the Championship, with Villa on a five-match unbeaten run. The 32-year-old had made a slow start after his close-season move from Crystal Palace in the Premier League.

"It's nice that I've come from club level on the back of a few positive results," Jedinak told ESPN FC.

"That becomes, to a point, irrelevant when you put on the national team shirt, with a different environment, and different way of doing things.

"But I'd still like to take that bit of confidence, and translate it, and help anyone I can along the way."

Having played in Australia's 2014 AFC World Cup qualifier in Bangkok, Jedinak knows how difficult it can be to break down Thailand at home. Exactly five years ago, the Socceroos needed a 77th minute goal from Brett Holman to pull of an unconvincing 1-0 victory over the Southeast Asian side.

"We've done our homework on them as we always do," Jedinak said. "The coaches have put out a scouting report, showed us how Thailand like to set up, and put that as a backdrop of how we are going to counteract that.

"We've got our plan in place to do that. Hopefully, we can implement that and come up with a positive result."

Forward Mathew Leckie agreed that if the Socceroos were anywhere near their best, they should be able to overcome a side who were thrashed 4-0 by Iraq in their most recent qualifier.

"It's always going to be tough game. Thailand haven't picked up too many points," the FC Inglostadt striker said.

"But they've got some really got some good players, and can be dangerous at times. We've got to be at our best. If we play our game, and we play good on the night, we shouldn't have too many problems."

The boys put the final touches on their preparation for tomorrow's World Cup Qualifier against Thailand. ⚽⚽ #THAvAUS #GoSocceroos

A video posted by Caltex Socceroos (@socceroos) on

Despite being in camp for more than a week, the Socceroos trained at Bangkok's Rajamangala Stadium for the first time on Monday evening. A crowd of more than 60,000 is expected at the same venue that hosted the 2007 AFC Asian Cup game between the sides, won 4-0 by the visitors.

With the Socceroos flying back to their respective clubs on Wednesday morning, Jedinak is expected to miss Aston Villa's Friday night game against Brighton. But Steve Bruce is likely to put him straight back into the lineup after that, ahead of a busy few weeks leading up to the holiday period.

"It's been nice as a group [at Aston Villa] to be picking up the points, but it will feel much sweeter if we can get all three points tomorrow night [against Thailand], and put up a nice performance," he said.