In a brutal rebuttal of Arnold's man-management and coaching skills, the midfielder, an Olyroo squad member at the Olympics, told an English newspaper that Arnold lacked man-management skills.

"Pre-season is important and the Australian manager told me we were going to have a really strong, hard pre-season but the hardest I worked was when I came back to Leeds for a week," the 22-year-old former Arsenal and Birmingham City man said.

Kilkenny trained in Australia with the team up until mid-July but returned to his English club for around seven days before joining up with the Olyroos ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

"I worked harder in that week than I did for six to eight weeks with Graham Arnold, which is another thing that really annoyed me about him," said Kilkenny.

"My form has been up and down this season, partly because my confidence was knocked a bit when I went away to the Olympics in the summer and didn't play as often as I wanted."

Kilkenny says this showed up Arnold's lack of preparation for the tournament, which saw the Aussies exit from the group stage with just one point and one goal to their name.

He added: "The manager promised me certain things but went against his words.

"Graham Arnold lied to me and I feel he lied to a couple of people within the club. Australia have had a few games lately but I am not concentrating on that.

"I want to get promoted with Leeds, so that is the priority."

Kilkenny was invited to train with Guus Hiddink's Socceroos at the 2006 World Cup and is considered one of our next generation of holding midfielders.

Arnold's snubbing of the local media since the disaster in China has also annoyed many local journalists.

It's been now over three months since the Olyroos exited the Olympics Games. Aside from one post-match press conference, Arnold has not given any explanation for what happened in China.

Arnold has hoped that the campaign, which he was in total control over, is quietly forgotten by the public. Kilkenny hasn't forgotten though.

He said: "I am a big confidence player and hopefully I can get a run of form going because I feel I have been trying to catch up on my fitness since coming back from the Olympics."