Two tournaments, two disasters. After the Socceroos' failure at the Asian Cup, Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy dropped Graham Arnold as coach of the senior national team and gave him control of the under-23s Olyroos side as a consolation prize. And now that team has failed to achieve the stated goal of a medal in Beijing.

Let's be clear up front: this has nothing to do with Graham as a person. My job is to ensure the issues regarding our national teams are discussed rigorously in the interests of the game.

That's my responsibility both as a football pundit and a former Socceroo.

But what is constantly written in the media about Arnold focuses on how hard he tries, how hard he works, how he has battled away in the face of great odds. But these writers miss the point entirely, because his record is indefensible.

Arnold appears to be a beneficiary of a sustained public relations campaign. However, the incredibly negative public reaction to the Olyroos' performances shows that the fans of the game are demanding accountability.

Bloggers, columnists and fans writing on football forums have all questioned both the Olyroos squad selection and how they played during the Games in Beijing.

Australia's most expensive preparation for an Olympics campaign came to nought and the coach who was given complete autonomy failed. This time there can be no Asian Cup-style excuses about the staff, the heat, the selections.

This time, Arnold took his own staff, his own squad, coached his own way, and we all had to stomach the results.

Tellingly, though, what he couldn't take were the three over-age players he wanted. Arnold said he approached 15 Socceroos to play for the Olyroos, but most were unavailable because they were moving clubs or due to personal reasons. Perhaps the senior boys saw another Asian Cup disaster on the horizon.

If you read recent comments in this paper about how Harry Kewell won't return Arnold's calls, it's worth wondering what Harry could have done up front in a team well coached by the likes of Socceroos boss

Pim Verbeek or national technical director and Arnold's predecessor as Olyroos coach, Rob Baan.

Nathan Burns, James Holland and Bruce Djite should never have been omitted from Games squad. And all the talk of a results-based campaign has been exposed as folly. The irony is that these players were likely candidates to have brought results.

Sadly, the pattern seen at the Asian Cup was repeated. When was the only time the Olyroos even tried to play football? In the last match, of course. When the old "nothing to lose", "backs to the wall" mentality was revived, the players proved they could perform.

The first two games, against Serbia and Argentina, were a repeat of the Socceroos' performances against Oman and Iraq in the Asian Cup last year.

The decision to pick players who could run in the heat was an abject failure: if you chase shadows in your first two games, no amount of science will save you in the third.

There an upside, however. Burns, now playing in Greece with AEK Athens, and Djite, now in Turkey with Genclerbirligi, won't be scarred by the experience and will use their rejection as motivation to succeed. And goalkeeper Adam Federici and Matthew Spiranovic were superb in an Olyroos defence under siege.

Two tournaments, two failures with inept, battling football. Even the FIFA reports of the Games called Australia "uninspiring". It's time to rediscover our inspiration.