Victory in Melbourne 

The title pretty much says it all and I’m not just talking about the performance against Adelaide. It also applies to their performance against the Wellington Phoenix on the preceding Wednesday as well. Never have I seen the Victory play such ordinary football in consecutive matches.

And the common denominator in both matches was Melbourne’s inability to get control in the all important midfield battle. This meant the defensive was always under constant pressure and the strikers weren’t getting enough of the ball. The Victory always plays well when they get can serious amount of midfield possession but both Adelaide and Wellington didn’t allow this to happen and when they did get possession it was often coughed up too quickly. Chief amongst the culprits was Billy Celeski, who hasn’t looked the player that he was before his knee construction. Whilst he hasn’t suffered the recurring injuries of both Thompson and Kemp, his form has definitely suffered and it would wise for Merrick to give him a couple of weeks break.

That all being said the Victory have certainly missed the presence of both Kruse and Thompson in attack with the combination of Danny Allsopp and Ricardinho yet to hit its straps as one would expect and maybe we as fans are expecting too much. Let’s hope they can both find some form against Sydney this weekend because another loss could spell disaster with teams like Melbourne Heart, Wellington Phoenix and Newcastle Jets all breathing down our neck for a finals position. What was looking like a comfortable finals finish a couple of matches ago has all of a sudden looked a tad precarious. What is of concern is those losses weren’t valiant losses, they were terrible, ugly losses and that more importantly needs to be rectified.

In my last post I stated that I our two matches over the Christmas/New Year period would surely define our season and went as far as to say that two wins would be perfect and the team duly delivered. Those two wins against both Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners made it four wins in a row and seven games unbeaten for the Victory. With a match tonight against the Wellington Phoenix there is every opportunity to make it five in a row.

With Robbie Kruse being absent for the next month with the Socceroos Asian Cup squad and Archie Thompson still out through injury it will be interesting to see if we contain our recent scoring record. The striking responsibilities now lie with Ricardinho and the returning Danny Allsopp, a combination that has yet to see pitch time together and fans will be hoping that they can gel quickly as the Victory look to maintain their recent momentum. It will be key in the team’s charge to a higher ladder position.

With 2010 coming to an end I have taken the opportunity to undertake my annual review in my latest piece for Australian FourFourTwo, which you can read here. Let’s hope 2011 is a better one for Victory fans than the previous one.

Something extremely rare happened on Saturday night, rare in the fact that up until the final whistle blew, us Victory fans had yet to see a consecutive win so far this season.

Two-thirds into the season and we are finally seeing some consistency in the performances from the team of the blue half of town. Unfortunate as it was to draw against the Roar two weeks ago, the performance has certainly appeared to provide the necessary impetus in the following two matches that give us fans some hope of a decent finals campaign.

However, just as it seems that the “two steps forward, three steps back” nature of our season might have come to an end, injuries to the recently returned Thompson and Kemp might kill off any momentum that may have been building. It has been no coincidence that the consistency that we crave has come when those two have been on the pitch.The return of Kemp has forced Merrick to do away with the somewhat disastrous idea of trying to fit the triumvirate of Muscat, Vargas and Leijer into a back four. With Kemp again forced back to the treatment table, how Merrick reacts will also be paramount. If he returns to the setup at the back that we saw before the return of Kemp, then it is obvious lessons haven’t been learnt.

A number of weeks back, in one of my pieces for Australian FouFourTwo I called for Marvin Angulo to get regular game time in order to see whether he could contribute effectively to the team. Merrick seems to have heeded my advice, with the slight Costa Rican starting the last five matches and finally showing on the pitch what everyone has been raving about on the training ground. His tireless running and his link between the back and front thirds has now made him a certain starter for the remainder of the season. He has impressed so much that he has appeared to have attracted the attention of teams in the MLS.

In all the hubbub surrounding the return of Thompson and the free-scoring ways of Robbie Kruse, many have forgotten that Ricardinho is still around and his return on Saturday night in the context of things it will be crucial how quickly he fits back into the team and can feed off the confidence of those around him.

Our next two encounters against the Jets and the Mariners will surely define the direction in which we will be heading in 2011, particularly when it comes to the month of February. Two wins would be perfect, two draws would be okay, two losses would be disastrous. What it will be though is season defining.

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.

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.