I often feel that I am neglecting this blog of late, particularly as I tend to concentrate any analysis of the weekend’s game in my blogs for Australian FourFourTwo. Therefore, a midweek game provides me with a rare opportunity to have a look at a game solely for this blog. Unfortunately for me, Wednesday night’s game produced such a dire performance from both teams that if indeed I had to write a blog for Australian FourFourTwo I may well have struggled to string together 500 or so words.
For the second match in a row, we saw a former Melbourne Victory player appear in opposition colours on our home turf. On Sunday we saw Michael Theoklitos return to Melbourne in Brisbane Roar with both ends of AAMI Park chanting his name and giving him a clap before the start of each half. This was interspersed with some good natured booing and the odd “7-1” chant. Contrast that with the reception that Nick Ward received last night, where every touch was greeted with some derision because in many fans’ eyes, Ward had failed to live up to his massive potential whilst in the navy blue.
As for the game itself, as I alluded to in my opening paragraph, was fairly dire with very little for the 11,000 odd people to get enthused about. In fact, it looked like a match between two teams who had only played a game three or four days before. For many Melbourne fans they were hoping that the scintillating form shown on Sunday afternoon would continue over to this game. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be with the whole team looking a little flat against a Wellington team willing to put significant numbers behind the ball.
In what was a fairly lacklustre game there was one action or repeated actions that was constantly getting my goat. That being our distribution out from the back. Time and time again we would see Michael Petkovic kick the ball out from a goal kick or from after collecting the ball only to see it come flying back time as our five foot nothing midfield and striker failed to get their head on the ball.
Whilst some part of the blame can be placed at the feet of Petkovic, some blame must be also attributed to our central defenders. As soon as Petkovic collected the ball they failed to provide themselves as an outlet for distribution. Say what you like about Muscat but more often than not he would make himself available for this option. Constantly seeing the ball fly over their heads was hardly conducive for great attacking play and Ricardinho’s frustration at times was quite obvious as he got beaten time and time again by the Wellington defenders.
This action of coming out of defence has always been an issue for the Victory, probably even from Day One. We have never really had a great header of the ball to target in these cases and against team with big tall defenders we tend to struggle and our fluidity in attack is reduced as a result. It’s definitely something for the coaching staff to look at.
With all that out of the way we look forward to Saturday night where the Victory head north to take on the North Queensland Fury. During the week, Fury coach Franz Straka has stoked the fires questioning Kevin Muscat’s toughness whilst some of his players are kind of happy that Muscat isn’t there to torment them. Hopefully the Victory boys can pick themselves from Wednesday’s disappointing performance and get the three points.
If you do want to read what I wrote after last week’s win over Brisbane, you can do so here.