Victory in Melbourne 

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.

In the last couple of weeks, the word succession has been on the tips of tongues everywhere. I have also jumped on the succession bandwagon as I have chosen it to be the topic of my latest 442 blog post, which you can read here.

It has been a big couple of days for Melbourne Victory with a series of big announcements. First up, we had the news that Michael Theoklitos would not be renewing his contract and would be heading overseas to try his luck.

This news is hardly surprising considering that the Victory had signed New Zealand international ‘keeper, Glen Moss before the end of last season. Theoklitos was one of the foundation players for the Victory and was a key component of the side for the last three seasons.

His stats for the record are: 72 games, 0 goals, 201 saves and 27 clean sheets. We wish him the best of luck with his endeavours overseas and I’m sure I speak for a lot of Victory fans when I say that we will miss chanting “Theo! Theo! Theo!” when a crucial save was made. “Moss! Moss! Moss!” or “Langerak! Langerak! Langerak!” just have the same ring to it.

My Michael Theoklitos highlights are as follows:

Favourite moment: Theoklitos’ crucial save in the dying moments of the 2006/07 semi-final against Adelaide shortly after we had taken the lead; Least favourite moment: Theoklitos’ brain snap that saw him stamp on Sasho Petrovski’s foot during last season; and the funniest moment was when he let Joel Griffiths know exactly how he felt about him by the use of an appropriate hand gesture.

Secondly, Melbourne finally confirmed the worst fears of all opposition supporters by signing captain, Kevin Muscat to a new three year deal. Only what’s different about this deal is that the deal is an one year playing and two year assistant coaching deal. So in many respects, this year will very much a testimonial year for Muscat although I am not sure how it’s going to work if (or should I say when) we progress from the ACL group stages next year.

Personally I think having Muscat involved in the coaching side of things is a good thing and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him take over the reins as Youth Team coach once he finally hangs up his boots. We definitely need Muscat for another year as we transition our defence to future years without him. It was also mentioned that Melbourne were sniffing around a state league player for their last signing. I would hazard a guess at it being some sort of defensive signing.

Finally, the other big news is that Melbourne Victory has finally joined the social networking scene by joining myself officially on twitter and also starting up an official Facebook page. So if you haven’t joined or started following them already - do so now.

Going into tonight’s game against there was always going to be a selection headache between Grant Brebner and Jose Luis Lopez for Ernie Merrick in the defensive midfield position. However, as fate would have it this little problem has been solved in the short term by the news that Brebner has been suspended for four games (two of which are suspended) for his involvement in a betting scandal that also involved Victory captain Kevin Muscat and the Roar’s Craig Moore.

Brebner, a reformed gambling addict (or so it seems) is also likely to receive further sanction from the club regarding his actions and it would surprise me if he sees game time for the rest of the season. The club also should seriously consider giving Kevin Muscat a reprimand of some sort as well for his involvement as well. Its not good way to go into an all important match against a struggling side. And as you would expect, the Melbourne Victory fans forum is going nuts.

Poor form fellas, poor form

Leading up to this match I realised I hadn’t seen Melbourne play Adelaide in Melbourne since the 6-0 whitewash of the 2006/07 Grand Final. For last year’s one and only home match against Adelaide I had to rely on text updates as I had other commitments. Also I realised during the game that I still have an intense dislike of Adelaide United - probably a little unhealthy I know but I was extremely happy when that final whistle had blown and we had won 1-0.

The talking point of the match was obviously the sending off on Ney Fabiano for allegedly spitting at Adelaide’s Robert Cornthwaite. I say allegedly because I was sitting at the opposite end of the ground to the incident plus the replays I have seen are pretty inconclusive. Its not like you see a big lurgy fly from the mouth of Fabiano in the direction of Cornthwaite. Fabiano was pretty fired up over the incident and it may just have been a case of him forgetting that old adage of “say it, don’t spray it”. I also think its a harsh call by John over at A seat at the A-League calling for Melbourne to dump him over the incident. Also I do tend to agree with him on the Cristiano “diving” call.

Friday night also saw the end of an era. It was the end of “Kevin Muscat never missing a penalty” era. Fortunately for him it rebounded nicely and he was able to tap home for the only goal of the game. And I must say what a difference a year makes. This time last year every time Matthew Kemp touched the ball he was greeted with jeers of derision. On Friday night every time he took a corner close to where I was sitting he was applauded and cheered.

Good performance by the team to maintain their style of play whilst being down to ten men. It was reminiscent of that Central Coast game back in our championship season. Lopez, still coming back from international duty was certainly missed in the midfield, but Celeski showed that he is capable of playing a different role in the midfield.

Also good to see we got almost 25,000 people to a game that clashed with an AFL final, that in itself only had 47,000 spectators. First time in our history that a Victory game has gone up against an AFL final and the result was extremely pleasing.

Things are certainly looking good - especially from the top of the table after the completion of the round. Hopefully it continues as we travel north to play the Central Coast Mariners and I hopefully find a decent place to watch the match.

Whilst Kevin Muscat, Rodrigo Vargas and Archie Thompson all are in camp hoping for an international call-up against Qatar next Wednesday night, Melbourne Victory’s very own Carlos Hernandez is already on international duty with Costa Rica. Los Ticos took on a coachless Iran in an empty Azadi Stadium (a stadium I would very much like to visit) and by all accounts the match was a rather drab affair finishing 0-0. For match reports click here and here. It is good to hear that Hernandez’s choice of playing in Australia hasn’t harmed his chances of international selection. Game time in this match and in an upcoming match against Jamaica will keep him match-fit for our upcoming ACL campaign.

It is also interesting to note that fellow AFC heavyweights, Iran, are only to gain the services of their new coach, Javier Clemente, days before their first World Cup qualifier against Syria. Certainly interesting times for Team Melli.

Image “borrowed” from the Tehran Times.