Victory in Melbourne 

So it was with little fanfare that Melbourne Victory announced that Ricardo Weslei de Campelo, otherwise known as Ricardinho would be the club’s twenty-third and final signing as well as being the striker we desperately need at the moment.

However, what was surprising about the whole announcement was that the Victory also announced that their new signing would also be their international marquee for the next two seasons. With very little information to be found apart from the odd YouTube clip and a very limited Wikipedia page about our new striker, it is hardly the stuff that inspires the need to be made our international marquee. Whilst not denying it could be a stroke of genius on behalf of Messrs Cole and Merrick, I hardly think that Ricardinho fits the bill as an international marquee. Players such as Fowler, Yorke and Juninho are all worthy of international marquee status, but not our Ricardinho, not yet anyway.

To the player himself, he has been nicknamed ‘King of the Dribble’ and if the above YouTube clip (around the 35 second mark) from his recent stint in the K-League is anything to go by then it seems a fair assessment. He is also seems to be of a similar mould to our other marquee, Archie Thompson and Merrick has definitely shown his hand in the type of striker that he likes. Let’s hope that when Thompson returns from injury that both of them can work in tandem.

Many fans and observers of Melbourne Victory have made the comment that the team needs more of a target man to add a bit of variety. What they forget is that the role target man has never really worked for the Victory, with the inability of both Ney Fabiano and the ill-fated Nik Mrdja to get on the scoresheet and fit into Merrick’s system as prime examples.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Ricardinho finds his feet in the A-League and it looks like Merrick and Co. will be easing him into things as there is talk of him not being available for another two weeks and with him not having kicked a ball in three months it seems a wise thing to do. Here’s hoping he is a success and he causes me to end my self-imposed ban on buying a new Victory shirt.

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.