Armson thriving in breakout season at APIA
APIA Leichhardt has been the dominant team of the 2022/23 National Premier Leagues NSW Men’s campaign.
In the expanded format, APIA currently sits three points clear atop of the table, having lost only two games all season; up until last Sunday, the side who reside at Lambert Park were unbeaten at their home ground in 2023.
The side, under APIA legend Franco Parisi, has built their game off a solid foundation; their defence, in terms of goals conceded, is the joint-second-best in the league, while they’ve kept seven clean sheets this campaign, an average of over one every three matches.
However, it’s been their attacking output that’s truly shined.
They’ve scored 43 goals in the league this season – the most of any side – at an average of 2.4 per game.
At the forefront of their outstanding overall campaign thus far has been attacking midfielder Jack Armson, who has taken his game to new levels under Parisi – a former number 10 himself.
Armson has been involved in 37% of APIA’s goals this season, registering an astonishing nine goals and seven assists in 17 appearances.
He has elevated his game in tandem with the club this year, proving to be the difference maker more often than not for his team throughout the campaign.
“Franco’s given me the confidence and the positional awareness to play in that role, with two defensive midfielders and myself as more of an attacking midfielder,” he said.
“The front three have sort of moved around in the way that we play so I’ve been able to make runs in behind and create things, so it’s been great up until now and I just have to keep scoring.”
Armson’s first campaign at APIA came in the season prior, where they finished in fifth.
APIA have already overtaken their previous season’s win tally and has demonstrated consistently throughout the year that they have the quality to finish on top at the campaign’s end, with Armson’s form a key cog in their success.
“We’ve had a few new additions and that’s added to it,” said Armson on the improvement this year.
“Training night in, night out is very good, the standards are high.
“The past few seasons haven’t been great but I think this year everyone’s all gelling and we believe we can do it, but it’s a long season and we’ve just got to keep moving forward.”
Armson, who arrived from A-League Men side the Newcastle Jets, has illustrated himself to be one of the outstanding players in the competition this season.
He’s demonstrated a sense of two-footedness, an ability to retain the ball in tight spaces and a fantastic range of passing to create chances off attacking transitions with looping passes in behind, stationary attacks with clever, disguised, weighted balls and set pieces with a span of crosses into the area.
But beyond this, he’s shown an outstanding ability to finish chances from a range of positions, stretching from good runs into the box and clinical efforts from outside the 18-yard area, as well as a beautiful chip from near the halfway line against St George City.
It makes sense that Armson is therefore looking to move back into professional football at some point in his career, but he reiterated his happiness at APIA and his desire to win the first league title in a new NPL format.
“I want to get back into the A-League Men at some point, or possibly into Europe or Asia,” he commented.
“All those sorts of things are what we’re working for.
“But at the moment I’m 100% at APIA; there are eight games left and we’re top of the league so I want to finish that well and then whatever happens happens.
“Hopefully, we can finish the season top of the table and then we can move on from there.”
-By Jack George
