"First of all, I would like to congratulate Uzbekistan on the win,” said Polking. “They are a good team and deserved to win this match. This loss is a good lesson because we have a year to fix everything, to get good results.

"At the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, we need to take advantage of everything we have learned from this match to be stronger.”

With their places in the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Finals already confirmed prior to kick-off, Polking made several changes to his side, including giving veteran striker Teerasil Dangda the day off, and identified several areas that need to be worked on. 

"We need to be better at making the transition from defence to attack. We defended well when Uzbekistan were attacking but we were caught out when they hit us on the counter-attack. Regardless of the result, we reached the goal. Thailand will have one of the strongest squads at the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Finals."

Polking made four adjustments in the second half, including taking off Theerathon Bunmathan and Tristan Do as Thailand kept Uzbekistan at bay for the remainder of the 45 minutes.

"The substitution of four players at the start of the second half was necessary because we  didn't perform well enough. I wanted the team to play more aggressively than they did in the first half. 

“We need to regroup and get our objectives realigned ahead of the tournament. We still have time to prepare and we must take advantage of this.”