Victory in Melbourne 

The title pretty much says it all and I’m not just talking about the performance against Adelaide. It also applies to their performance against the Wellington Phoenix on the preceding Wednesday as well. Never have I seen the Victory play such ordinary football in consecutive matches.

And the common denominator in both matches was Melbourne’s inability to get control in the all important midfield battle. This meant the defensive was always under constant pressure and the strikers weren’t getting enough of the ball. The Victory always plays well when they get can serious amount of midfield possession but both Adelaide and Wellington didn’t allow this to happen and when they did get possession it was often coughed up too quickly. Chief amongst the culprits was Billy Celeski, who hasn’t looked the player that he was before his knee construction. Whilst he hasn’t suffered the recurring injuries of both Thompson and Kemp, his form has definitely suffered and it would wise for Merrick to give him a couple of weeks break.

That all being said the Victory have certainly missed the presence of both Kruse and Thompson in attack with the combination of Danny Allsopp and Ricardinho yet to hit its straps as one would expect and maybe we as fans are expecting too much. Let’s hope they can both find some form against Sydney this weekend because another loss could spell disaster with teams like Melbourne Heart, Wellington Phoenix and Newcastle Jets all breathing down our neck for a finals position. What was looking like a comfortable finals finish a couple of matches ago has all of a sudden looked a tad precarious. What is of concern is those losses weren’t valiant losses, they were terrible, ugly losses and that more importantly needs to be rectified.

In my last post I stated that I our two matches over the Christmas/New Year period would surely define our season and went as far as to say that two wins would be perfect and the team duly delivered. Those two wins against both Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners made it four wins in a row and seven games unbeaten for the Victory. With a match tonight against the Wellington Phoenix there is every opportunity to make it five in a row.

With Robbie Kruse being absent for the next month with the Socceroos Asian Cup squad and Archie Thompson still out through injury it will be interesting to see if we contain our recent scoring record. The striking responsibilities now lie with Ricardinho and the returning Danny Allsopp, a combination that has yet to see pitch time together and fans will be hoping that they can gel quickly as the Victory look to maintain their recent momentum. It will be key in the team’s charge to a higher ladder position.

With 2010 coming to an end I have taken the opportunity to undertake my annual review in my latest piece for Australian FourFourTwo, which you can read here. Let’s hope 2011 is a better one for Victory fans than the previous one.

Something extremely rare happened on Saturday night, rare in the fact that up until the final whistle blew, us Victory fans had yet to see a consecutive win so far this season.

Two-thirds into the season and we are finally seeing some consistency in the performances from the team of the blue half of town. Unfortunate as it was to draw against the Roar two weeks ago, the performance has certainly appeared to provide the necessary impetus in the following two matches that give us fans some hope of a decent finals campaign.

However, just as it seems that the “two steps forward, three steps back” nature of our season might have come to an end, injuries to the recently returned Thompson and Kemp might kill off any momentum that may have been building. It has been no coincidence that the consistency that we crave has come when those two have been on the pitch.The return of Kemp has forced Merrick to do away with the somewhat disastrous idea of trying to fit the triumvirate of Muscat, Vargas and Leijer into a back four. With Kemp again forced back to the treatment table, how Merrick reacts will also be paramount. If he returns to the setup at the back that we saw before the return of Kemp, then it is obvious lessons haven’t been learnt.

A number of weeks back, in one of my pieces for Australian FouFourTwo I called for Marvin Angulo to get regular game time in order to see whether he could contribute effectively to the team. Merrick seems to have heeded my advice, with the slight Costa Rican starting the last five matches and finally showing on the pitch what everyone has been raving about on the training ground. His tireless running and his link between the back and front thirds has now made him a certain starter for the remainder of the season. He has impressed so much that he has appeared to have attracted the attention of teams in the MLS.

In all the hubbub surrounding the return of Thompson and the free-scoring ways of Robbie Kruse, many have forgotten that Ricardinho is still around and his return on Saturday night in the context of things it will be crucial how quickly he fits back into the team and can feed off the confidence of those around him.

Our next two encounters against the Jets and the Mariners will surely define the direction in which we will be heading in 2011, particularly when it comes to the month of February. Two wins would be perfect, two draws would be okay, two losses would be disastrous. What it will be though is season defining.

In the lead up to Thursday night’s match against the Central Coast Mariners, Ernie Merrick clearly articulated that a win was what the Victory needed in order to still have any chance of a top two finish. So I guess you can say with some assurance after the 2-2 draw that any slim chance we had of the double chance disappeared out the proverbial window.

Based on the first half performance from the Victory it looked like Merrick’s motivational skills were simply not working. For the most part, the team looked insipid, disinterested and lacklustre. In fact, it looked a lot like the team that rocked up again Perth Glory the week before. Apart from some neat interchanges between Angulo and Thompson there was very little to write home about. Add to that we also copped a goal to a typical Central Coast sucker punch.

The second half came and it appeared to be more of the same until BANG, a cheeky Vargas back heel and sumptuous Carlos Hernandez free kick within three minutes of each other saw the confidence return to both the players and the fans. For a good period of time this was the team we all know and love and were tearing the Mariners to shreds. If it wasn’t for some poor finishing we could have knocked in a few more.

And it was that profligacy in front of goal that would ultimately cost us all three points as corner that shouldn’t have been found it’s way across the goal line and the hearts of many Victory fans were broken. What looked like it good have been a season turning win just turned out to be like many other games this year and in the process put a serious dent in what is left of our confidence.

It was good to see Merrick give Angulo his second start in succession, something that has never happened before and the Costa Rican is showing signs that the extended game time is doing wonders as he put in what I would consider a best on ground performance. For his confidence and that of the team I can only hope that Merrick sees fit to give him an extended run and that he also puts one of his many chances in the back of the net.

I must admit after the game a red mist descended over my eyes and it was probably a good thing that I didn’t have access to twitter let alone this blog in the minutes after the match had concluded. This was mainly to do with the pathetic display of refereeing that Gerard Parsons again displayed. I have already put forward my thoughts on the poor excuse for a referee a while back and that there is no need to repeat it here but I dread the next time he is in charge of a Victory game.

So now with rather an extended break at hand and a little over half the season gone it provides the team with a much needed opportunity to rest tired bodies and minds and make a concerted push for the finals when they return.

It’s not often I get on my soapbox, but with all the kerfuffle surrounding Friday night’s clash against Adelaide United and more specifically “that” tackle by Surat Sukha. Whilst I could have used my usual blog for Australian FourFourTwo to cover this issue I felt that it had it already been done to death and thus saw no need to go over old ground. But a tweet today from SBS analyst, Craig Foster really got under my skin. Foster who has recently started using his twitter account, wrote:

Match review panel v sukha - red card offence. Give automatic 1 match ban. No place for late/high tackle in game

My response for which I received no reply at this stage:

@Craig_Foster Why no comment on Paul Reid’s equally poor tackle on Billy Celeski? Bias because #Leckie is next big thing!

And that is my main beef with this issue. Whilst I will admit that Sukha’s tackle was late and clumsy and may have been worth a red card at worst and at least a yellow card the outrage that it has generated seems a little over the top. We all know Matthew Leckie is a great talent and his absence from the A-League will be sorely missed but has the reaction been a little superfluous because many consider Leckie to be Australian football’s next big things.

As a number fans have pointed out (and not just Melbourne Victory fans) Paul Reid’s cynical challenge on Billy Celeski during the second half for which he received a yellow card has received no attention whatsoever. Nor has a clumsy attempt by the aforementioned Leckie to put his studs into Robbie Kruse’s knee before his own incident. Why have these incidents received no attention? The answer is quite simply the players involved aren’t the current darlings of the Australian football media.

If we are going to highlight dangerous tackles in key moments of games, let’s not focus on what incident because it suits our purposes but let’s bring them all to light no matter who is involved. Because at the end of the day no one wants to see anyone player get hurt whether they be from their own team or from the opposition.

As I alluded to in my previous post, the real test of where the Victory is at a third of the way through the season was going to be the two clashes against Brisbane Roar and Adelaide United. Whilst we didn’t come away with three points against Brisbane, mainly down to the heroics of our former ‘keeper and a slice of luck, there were plenty of positives to come out of Saturday night’s clash in the Queensland capital. These positives were the subject of my latest blog for Australian FourFourTwo, which you can find here.

Now as we look forward to Friday night’s match against Adelaide and our attempt to make it ten wins in a row against the team from South Australia. They are yet to lose a game this season and a tenth win against them would be truly satisfying way to end their unbeaten streak. Let’s hope so.

One of the keys to Sydney FC’s relative success over the Melbourne Victory in their 2009/10 double winning season was their ability to shackle the rampaging Carlos Hernandez like no other team could. In light of that it was rather pleasing to see the Costa Rican provide an assist and also get on the scoresheet  in Saturday’s romp over the still winless champions. Not that Hernandez has been playing that badly up to then anyway.

The confidence boosting win over Sydney FC is difficult to judge mainly because Sydney FC are really that bad. The defence that was so measly in their last campaign was completely porous on Saturday and if it wasn’t for some poor finishing (I’m look at you Ricardinho and Rodrigo Vargas) we could very well have had a repeat of that 5-0 thrashing in Season 1, which coincidentally occurred five years to the day on Saturday.
The real test of where the Victory is really at will come in the next matches against Brisbane and Adelaide. Whilst they may have beaten the Roar 3-0 a number of weeks back, the team from Queensland is playing some of the best football in the competition at the moment. Despite our impressive record at Suncorp Stadium it will be a difficult challenge.

As for Adelaide, I can’t really say that much about them as the only match of theirs I have witnessed was their 0-0 bore draw with Gold Coast United. That aside, their results so far speak for themselves and it will be interesting to see if our winning streak against them can continue.

Whilst one Costa Rican may have grabbed all the headlines on Saturday, it’s the lack of game time for another that forms the subject of my latest effort for Australian FourFourTwo, which you can read here.

One derby down, two to go. One can hope that in the remaining two meetings of the two Melbourne teams that the Victory put in a much more spirited effort than the one we saw on Friday night. Not only were we outplayed for large parts of the contest but that usual Victory fighting spirit was absent. In many ways it was reminiscent of our 3-0 loss to Sydney on home turf last season. For more of my thoughts on the game make sure that you have a look at my latest blog for Australian FourFourTwo.

We may have had to wait an extra week for it, but the excitement is definitely building for the A-League’s first ever intracity derby. With the announcement today that the game has sold out, it is definitely going to be a spectacle to remember. Hopefully it is a match that lives up to the hype and is a pointer to all future encounters for both teams. For more of my thoughts on the derby, take a look at my first ever blog for Soccerlens, a site for which I will be making semi-regular contributions throughout the season.

Whilst it was all well and good that Melbourne kept its fourth clean sheet in a row, what was more concerning that it was the third game in a row in which the team failed to find the back of the net. One key factor in the failure of Carlos Hernandez to find the back of the net so far this season, something that he managed to do thirteen times last season.

Whilst critics and fans alike like to assume it is because he is carrying extra weight in my opinion it down to having to carry the weight of expectation of a season like the last one, especially in the continued absence of Archie Thompson. In my latest blog for Australian FourFourTwo I take those critics and fans to task, especially those who constantly question is weight and fitness.

As for the game itself, it was pretty riveting 0-0 draw. However that being said, I can’t actually remember either of the keepers having to make any crucial saves, especially Michael Petkovic. With the absence of Brebner through injury it was pleasing to see Merrick give Marvin Angulo given a full ninety minutes in which to strut his stuff. And the Costa Rican midfielder didn’t let him down, playing his best game so far for the club. If he gets regular game time, his confidence will grow and hopefully take some of that pressure of his fellow countryman.

On a slightly different note, I have also started contributing to Sam Kelly’s excellent blog about Argentinian football, Hasta El Gol Siempre in his weekly segment entitled Argentine’s Abroad. Whilst the Victory doesn’t contain any Argentinians I will be updating the readers of Hasta El Gol Siempre on the weekly exploits of Adelaide United’s Marcos Flores and Central Coast Mariners’ Patricio Perez.