Victory in Melbourne 

So who would have thought that it would take twenty-one matches for someone to realise the key to Melbourne Victory’s success would be a functional midfield. Who would have thought? How much do they pay these people?

Way back in October not long after the season had started even I could see that the problem with the Victory’s lack of early season success was down to a massive hole in midfield. That hole resulted in a disconnection between the attacking members of the team and those mainly tasked with doing defensive duties. Up until the weekend under Jim Magilton’s reign we had seen that gaping hole still there which resulted in countless long balls hoofed up to our five foot nothing forwards only to be cleared predictably by their opponents. In the derby it resulted in Kristian Sarkies having so much time on the ball that he was actually able to hit a pass to a teammate and not an opposition player. It resulted in some of the most dire football that I have even seen from the Victory, even worse than some of the crap dished up in our first season.1

So disheartened by the derby performance last week I was about to write a diatribe on why Magilton wasn’t the man for the Melbourne Victory job in the long term but time constraints and suitable lack of inspiration and swear words meant that I only wrote about one hundred words before Friday night’s kickoff. In many ways I am glad that I didn’t write that diatribe because Friday night’s performance gave me a glimmer of hope that I thought may have already been killed off. In light of that I will reserve my judgement on the Northern Irishman (or Scotsman if you read Australia’s most popular newspaper as voted by themselves) until the end of season.

So what was actually different from the previous twenty matches that allowed the team to play what appeared to be a functional and vaguely entertaining brand of football with a midfield that actually worked against the Central Coast Mariners. Well after some pretty dire football in the last couple of weeks Magilton actually decided to do something different. Recent loan signing Mark Milligan was moved to the centre of midfield from the centre of defence, a change brought about mostly by the recent signing (to the end of the season I think) of Spanish defender Ubay Luzardo, played his first game in the blue and white on Friday night. Paired with Milligan was Jimmy Jeggo (whose very name conjures up images of millions of swooning Korean girls - don’t google that by the way), who picked up his first ever start. This midfield combination was in stark contrast to the previous combination of Broxham and Brebner as it was more mobile and could actual provide that much need link between defence and attack. In other words it provided some fluidity to the Melbourne midfield. Up ahead from right to left were Marco Rojas, Carlos Hernandez (who made a much needed return to the starting XI) and Harry Kewell. These three played behind Archie Thompson, who reprised his role as the lone striker. Some may have called it a 4-4-1-1 formation but I prefer to call it a 4-2-3-1 formation as illustrated below. But no matter what you call it, the main thing was that it actually worked.

So there you have it a functional midfield which gave us a team that played liked a team and not a collection of individuals and instantly things look a bit better on the pitch. Let’s hope that continues this week against Brisbane Roar and we don’t again resort to old habits.

So there we have it. Jim Magilton’s first game in charge of Melbourne Victory. We may all have been hoping for a first up win but unfortunately Adelaide United didn’t get the message and the match ended 1-1 in what was must be said was a very cliched match of two halves.

For those expecting dramatic changes in his first game would have been sadly disappointed as the starting line-up was pretty much the same the played the weekend before against Newcastle with the only change being the inclusion of Adrian Leijer for Petar Franjic, which was hardly a suprising move. What was interesting was Magilton’s use of the bench with Jean Carlos Solorzano, Diogo Ferreira and the aforementioned Franjic being his substitutes. For someone who is probably used to having a larger bench it was interesting that for his substitutes he went for a striker, midfielder and a defender along with the mandatory goalkeeper. It was a fairly conservative choice and I’m sure we will see a different bench once he gets used to having only a four man bench.

As I alluded to in my opening it was a game of two halves as the Victory shot out of blocks at the start of their game as has been their want of late and save for the efforts of Eugene Galekovic, the woodwork and some poor finishing the home team could well have been more than a goal up come the half time whistle. Kewell continued his recent renaissance out of the left and it was his early match trickery that not only set up the first goal but also created a plethora of other chances that unfortunately weren’t converted. He combined well on in the left hand-side with Fabio, who had his best game for the club although apart from a few blemishes has been pretty consistent throughout the season. It wasn’t all just Kewell in that early match dominance with Hernandez, Thompson and Allsopp all looking dangerous.

However as been the case through most of the season the team couldn’t put a whole match together as Adelaide fought their way back into the match and dominated much of the second half, save for a few chances for the Victory. Whilst the first half was full of free-flowing football the second half was in stark contrast as we resorted to long hopeful balls to the forwards as the connection between defence to midfield and beyond seemed to disappear. After a pleasing first half it was a little disappointing to see the team resort to type in the second half as the opposition stepped up their game and for most of the time looked bereft of ideas.

There is obviously plenty of work for Magilton to do in the coming weeks but his first up effort obviously displeased Australia’s self-proclaimed football oracle No. 1 Barcelona fan, Craig Foster who had probably been saving this piece up all week. This prompted a misguided twitter response from Robbie Slater, who is personal friend of Magilton which in turn prompted this well-written response by Mike Tuckerman on The Roar which pretty much summed up the thoughts of most level-headed football supporters who have a dose of reality unlike the aforementioned Foster and Slater.

It might be drawing a bit of a long straw but tonight marks a new era in the life and times of Melbourne Victory with Northern Ireland’s Jim Magilton taking charge of his first match of the club against Adelaide United. Appointed as an interim manager in the lead up to last week’s match against Newcastle it will certainly a baptism of fire against one of our fiercest rivals in a must win match.

Magilton’s appointment marked the end of the dysfunctional managerial tenure of Mehmet Durakovic that saw the team only win three matches out of fourteen matches. One has to feel a little sorry for Durakovic, who has been a great servant to Australian football, with much blame for his appointment has to put at the feet of Anthony Di Pietro and his fellow board members. They took the easy option after a supposed “worldwide” search for someone to replace Ernie Merrick by appointing the inexperienced Durakovic to a position that in all honesty was too big for this stage of his coaching career. Not helping matters for Durakovic was having Kevin Muscat by his side, who whether it being intentional or not appeared to be undermining the man in charge. Hopefully for Durakovic’s sake he can pick himself up and we’ll see him in a coaching role somewhere else in the A-League.

Magilton has only been appointed as interim manager to the end of the season, with the remaining twelve matches of the regular season being a test as to whether the Northern Irishman is a good fit for the club and vice versa. Coming off their poor decision to appoint Durakovic this move to only appoint his replacement for the remainder of the season at this stage is a good one and we will look forward to see how it pans out and whether our poor season can be turned around. It certainly has fans talking and excited again nonetheless.