Victory in Melbourne 

If you have a read of my minute by minute analysis of Sunday’s game against Newcastle Jets you will probably notice the growing despairs in my writing. Following on from Melbourne’s poor performance against the Fury, two weeks before, you would have expected a much improved performance. However, it wasn’t to be as the Jets classier finishing capitalised on some poor defending and our attacking third looked toothless. For all my thoughts on the game, take out a look at my latest 442 blog, titled “What Is UnMelbourne-Like?”.

In other news, the possible return of Danny Allsopp has many fans salivating at a possible reunion with Archie Thompson and driving Melbourne back to the top of the table. Whilst nothing has been confirmed as yet, it remains an exciting prospect as the current Kruse-Thompson partnership really isn’t working and has been exposed in the last couple of rounds. While it is tad disappointing to see Allsopp quitting Al-Rayyan after only twelve minutes, as Michael Cockerill points out:

It’s not that Allsopp has been a disaster in Qatar - he scored six goals in 12 appearances - it’s just business. Al Rayyan have re-signed Oman international Imad Al Hosni on loan after his failed venture in Belgium, and Allsopp has to make way.

I guess we now have to just sit and wait and see what happens next.

Don’t forget that Victory In Melbourne can now be found on Facebook and you can become a fan. It’s only just started and there is not much to look at, but you can check it out here and more importantly become a fan.

Whilst it was disappointing not to take all three points against the boys in baby blue on Saturday night the fact that there wasn’t a repeat of our last encounter was very welcoming as was the maintaining of our three point buffer at the top of the table.

What was really disappointing was the actions of a small minority of Melbourne fans who thought it was cool to be a hool’ and caused some some problems both before and after the game. For my full thoughts on this issue, you can read my latest 442 blog.

As for the game itself, Archie Thompson was immense creating numerous chances for both himself and his team-mates. However, unlike recent games, the goal of Clint Bolton lead a charmed life and the back of the net could not be found. Other standouts on the night were Matthew Kemp, who is in career best form, and Nick Ward who seemed to be everywhere and was providing that all important link between defence and attack. Ward has been a real revelation since returning to the squad and his form will be all important in the lead up to the finals campaign.

Getting the three points against Central Coast on Saturday night was almost sufficient payback for our two home defeats against the Mariners.

The match highlighted that our tactics in our previous two encounters were way off the mark. Straight from the kick off you could see that the Victory wouldn’t be sucked into trying to match the physicality of the Mariners. If it wasn’t for some incorrect calls from the linesman we may very well have hit the lead much earlier than we did.

The three goals were brilliant examples of great team goals and surely Thompson’s role in two of the three surely would have caught the eye of Pim Verbeek, who was watching from the stands.

Another who may have caught his eye and the eye of many others would have been Mitchell Langerak. Since getting his opportunity after Glen Moss was “rested”, Langerak has made the position his own. On Saturday night, he pulled off a number of great saves and we could be seeing Moss spending an extended period on the bench with performances like that.

For more of my thoughts on the game and my gentle swipe at Lawrie McKinna’s tweeting, check out my latest 442 blog.

There is one thing you can say about matches between Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory is that they are never going to end 0-0. They are always full of goals and usually it’s Perth doing the damage, especially on their home turf. So it was good to finally see the Victory take away all three points and break a run of four matches in Perth without a point. Again Carlos Hernandez was the difference, ably supported by Archie Thompson, who probably played his best game of the season. For my thoughts on the game and the fact everyone is concentrating on the “crisis” up north, rather than on the fact that Melbourne and Sydney appear to be slowly taking control of the league, you can read my latest 442 blog.

It’s also that time of the year when I grow some bad facial hair (as you can see above) as part of Movember to help the fight against prostate cancer & men’s depression. Please donate to this worthy cause here.

Welcome to Victory In Melbourne’s first ever minute by minute analysis of a Melbourne Victory match as they take on the Newcastle Jets at Energy Australia Stadium.

Brebner in for Broxham and Pondeljak in for Kruse. Moss (gk), Sukha, Vargas, Muscat (c), Leijer, Kemp, Brebner, Carlos, Ney Fabiano, Pondeljak, Thompson.

Boo-boy Ljubo out for the Jets. Kennedy (gk), Topor-Stanley, Song, Thompson (c), Elrich, Bridges, Kantarovski, Vignarolli, Patafta, Haliti.

4 min: Great save by Moss from former Melbourne old boy, Patafta followed quickly by a yellow card for Thompson for a foul on Hernandez. Ben Williams stamps his authority early on.

7 min: Close call for the Victory as confusion reigns in the penalty box. Fortunately the offside flag was up.

8min: Hernandez has Melbourne’s first shot on goal. Well wide of the mark. Good to hear the Melbourne fans in full voice.

11min: Yellow card for Kemp for a robust challenge on Song.

12min: Brebner gives away a free kick in a dangerous position, fouling Vignarolli. Free kick straight into the wall.

18 min: Mark Bosnich in commentary continues to state the bleeding obvious.

22 min: GOAL! Haliti scores for the Jets. Put through by a brilliant through ball by Elrich. Extremely soft goal. Haliti sure likes to score against the Victory. 1-0 to the Jets.

27 min: Newcastle goal ruled out for offside. Moss caught well out of position. Melbourne defence again looking very shaky. After dominating the early stages, Melbourne now on the back foot.

32 min: Kemp thwarts a promising move for the Victory with a bad first touch.

36 min: Melbourne again lucky to be only 1-0 down as they scramble the ball away for a corner.

42 min: Ljubo spotted in the crowd with a blonde. Very reminiscent of his year at the Victory.

45 min: Now that Ben Kennedy has got himself a contract extension maybe he can afford to get himself a decent haircut.

45+1 min: Yellow card for Brebner for a cynical foul on Vignarolli.

45+2 min: And Ben Williams blows his whistle for the end of the first half. After what was a promising start for the Victory, Newcastle dominated the remainder of the half. Melbourne’s defence has been looking at sixes and sevens for the second week in a row and will need to improve in the second half if Melbourne is to get back into this one as Newcastle look dangerous every time they go into attack. In contrast, Melbourne has rarely threatened the Newcastle defence.

Melbourne make their move. Ney Fabiano off for Mate Dugandzic. Melbourne definitely looking for a more mobile attack to test the Jets defence. Hopefully it has the same effect as it did against Adelaide a few weeks back. Melbourne switching to a 3-5-2 formation.

45 min: Second half underway.

49 min: Thompson shoots over the crossbar after some good lead up play from Dugandzic. First decent attempt for the match.

55 min: Free kick to Melbourne right on the edge of the penalty box. Extremely close to being a penalty. Hernandez’s free kick goes straight into the wall. Things looking a lot more promising for the Victory in the second half.

59 min: Patafta off for Ali Abbas.

62 min: GOALLLLLLLLLLLL! to the Victory. Archie Thompson brilliantly lobs Kennedy after getting onto a great long ball from Hernandez. 1-1.

65 min: Moss pulls off a fantastic save to deny Haliti. Looked like a handball by Bridges there in the earlier play.

66 min: Broxham on for Sukha and almost straight away gives away a penalty for a handball of his own from the resulting corner. Fortunately for the Victory, both the referee and linesman failed to spot it.

72 min: Broxham hits the side netting looking to score from the impossible angle. Just as Melbourne were looking much more assured at the back, Haliti hits the crossbar with header.

74 min: Handbags at ten paces between Bridges and Leijer. Bridges somehow gets the free kick. Abbas goes near post and fails to put Moss under pressure.

78 min: Yellow card for D’Appuzzo for a foul on Brebner.

80 min: GOALLLLLLLLLLLL! Pondeljak gets on the end of a rebound after a long range effort from Hernandez comes crashing back off the crossbar after beating Kennedy to put Melbourne ahead 2-1.

81 min: Moments after scoring, Pondeljak comes off limping to be replaced by Nathan Elasi making his A-League debut. Not his first game for the Victory as he did make some appearances during our first ACL campaign.

84 min: GOALLLLLLLLLLLL! Hernandez makes it three for the Victory after tucking one between the legs of Kennedy. Hernandez has been on fire in this second half being involved in all three Melbourne goals.

90 min: Crowd figure of 6,029. Where have all the Newcastle fans gone? It’s not like their team plays shit football.

90+4 min: And Ben Williams blows the final whistle and Melbourne comes away with a 3-1 victory over their bogey team. Nice way to bounce back from last week’s disappointing loss against Sydney. You would have to say the introduction of Mate Dugandzic for the second half was an inspired substitution from Ernie Merrick. The Victory attack looked much more potent in the second half with his presence. Here’s hoping that Merrick persists with the 3-5-2 formation against Adelaide next week.

Earlier this week I wrote in my latest blog for 442 that the loss of Billy Celeski for the season would have a significant impact on Melbourne’s already stuttering title defence. And now to top it all off in a less than memorable week for the Victory, the worst kept secret was confirmed today that Danny Allsopp has signed for Qatari side, Al-Rayyan Sports Club.

To add to this, FoxSports FC was also reporting strong interest from teams in West Asia for Allsopp’s strike partner, Archie Thompson. Why don’t they just take Ney Fabiano and take all out strike force and be done with it!

In all seriousness, the departure of Allsopp couldn’t come at a worst time for Melbourne. With five points from five rounds and a serious need to get some sort of streak on in order to keep in touch with Gold Coast and Sydney at the top of the table. Also with the transfer window now closed there is no real opportunity for the Victory to sign a striker of Allsopp’s equivalent.

Allsopp’s departure also raises one another serious question – who will the fans now blame when everything is going wrong?

A day after my latest blog about Archie Thompson appeared on the Australian FourFourTwo website, a story along similar lines appears on the Sportal website.

I said:

“This self-made pressure appeared to be playing its part in the first two games of the season as Thompson looked to be trying a little too hard and not pulling his weight in a leadership type of role, especially in the absence of Kevin Muscat. Also evident was his frustration at team-mates, match officials and opposition defenders when things didn’t quite go his way.”

He said:

“I think it was just, personally, I was putting too much pressure on myself, I felt. Instead of going out there and enjoying myself like I usually do, I was caught up in the World Cup hype and everything like that and I forgot about the smile on the face”

Hmmm . . . .

Everyone’s worst fears were confirmed today with the announcement that Kevin Muscat would miss between four and six weeks with a hamstring tear.

However what is more worrying perhaps is the news that Gary Cole confirmed the club is looking at signing another striker, rather than a defender, with the spot left vacant by Jose Luis Lopez’s departure. Hello? We have just lost a key central defender for a number of weeks and we are looking at another striker.

The last time I looked, we have four decent strikers - Archie Thompson, Danny Allsopp, Ney Fabiano and Nathan Elasi - and far as I know all fully fit. In the aforementioned article, Muscat notes that last year he had a similar injury pre-season and returned fully fit and played every game of the season.

However, Muscat is now a year older and has that full season under his belt. Surely it would better for the Victory to sure up it’s backline and not sign another striker of which we appear to have a glut. Are we being a tad deluded to think that we can do with a makeshift central defensive pairing whilst Muscat is out injured.

Matthew Foschini, a Victory Youth League player, has been touted as a possible replacement and personally I would like to see him given a run early on in the season. Merrick has a pretty good record with young defenders with both Adrian Leijer and Sebastian Ryall being success stories in the past. Should be on the bench at the very least.

Last nights game made me angry. I’m not sure whether I was angry  at Archie Thompson for being so stupid for calling Matthew Breeze what he did and being sent off and thus missing the clash next against Sydney (even if it is possibly true - can’t give me a red card Mr Breeze); angry at Matthew Breeze for reacting angrily to Thompson’s comments and giving the red card; angry that we conceded a late goal again after going to ten men; or angry at the way the team played.

To put it simply, the Victory came across a team that responded to a week of heat from their coach. They were more hungry and for long periods of the game dominated all aspects of the match. The absence of Lopez from the Victory enabled the Jets to dominate this area of the pitch and Hernandez struggled without his fellow countryman, being constantly double and triple teamed.

The red card for Thompson, will surely be the talking point of this match. Clearly frustrated by the lack of opportunities provided to him and the fouling when he did get the ball, he snapped when Breeze failed to call a foul. Breeze, who always seems to be at the centre of controversy, had no hesitation in bringing out the fourth red card in five matches for the Victory. Probably a bit harsh in my opinion, a yellow and a talking to would have sufficed.

Merrick has finally admitted that the team does have an issue with discipline. Constant red cards are slowly bringing down what was a promising start to the season and is costing us in important matches, especially the upcoming match in what will be a top of the table clash against Sydney.

On a brighter note, the Melbourne Youth team picked up their first every win in their inaugral season, with Matthew Theodore (who impressed me in his time with the AIS) scoring the only goal. I wonder if Ernie, will bring in Nathan Elasi from the youth team to replace the suspended Thompson.

It was nice to get back on the winner’s list last night with a 4-0 thumping of Perth. But as the title suggests the opposition, to put it simply were quite ordinary. Could you imagine what the scoreline would have been if Melbourne were at full strength with Hernandez and Fabiano available, it could have been quite scary. And to be honest I got a little bored throughout the second half and spent most of it watching and listening to the Northern Terrace (shown above) in action.

The crowd of 18,000 was quite disappointing but the odd kick off (5pm on a Saturday) would have contributed to the number of people not being able to attend along with the prospect of seeing Perth in action. Thankfully we only play them once at home this year. Crowd numbers should be boosted for the next home game, which in all likelihood will be a top of the table clash against Sydney. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend :(.

It was good also to see Danny Allsopp back on the scorer’s sheet with a double, which was also especially good for my A-League Fantasy Football team as he is my captain. It was also amusing to see Archie Thompson efforts to get on the scoresheet were more often than thwarted by his teamates much to his frustration.

Not much else to write about the game in general but after playing every team once its great to be sitting solely on top of the table with things looking promising heading into the international break. Hopefully it can continue for the rest of the season.