At the halfway mark of the season its nice to be sitting on top of the league after our second win in a row on the road. Much more pleasing was the way the result was achieved and the new attacking mentality of Ernie Merrick, a man not normally known for this attribute. It takes a brave man to send out a team with three strikers on the road, and a much braver coach when you consider two of those three strikers were returning from suspension.
After the Victory weathered the first twenty minutes of intense pressure by the Roar I was fairly confident that we would take out the three points as the Roar looked bereft of ideas in attack. Also our attacking triumvirate was looking extremely dangerous and Ney Fabiano was immense and didn’t look like he had just sat out the last six weeks. Maybe there was also sense of having to prove himself to both the team and the fans after such a long lay off.
Another standout was Billy Celeski whose pinpoint cross lead to the only goal for the game. He was dominant in the fifteen to twenty minutes leading up to the goal and capped it off with that cross. He has really raised his level in the last two weeks when the really needed someone in the midfield to really stamp themselves on the game.
The Victory can go into the mid season break feeling pretty happy with their position on the table considering the number of suspensions that have been accrued on the way. It has been good in recent times that the team has been a lot more disciplined of late and even their yellow card count is down. With this year’s competition being one of the closest, they can’t afford to slip up as they chase the title
Earlier in the day I went and watched the Victory women triumph over Perth Glory 3-0 which sees them sitting third on the ladder with two wins out of three matches, equal on points with both Sydney and Adelaide. This is also the subject of my latest au.fourfourtwo.com blog post, which can be found here.
