MVFC Blog

Another week, another red card. It seems Melbourne struggles to get through a game without one these days and constantly pays the price.

A small crowd, by Melbourne standards, turned up to see Victory take on Wellington Phoenix at home for the first time. This was no great surprise based on Melbourne’s dismal season so far, but also because of a far greater contest reaching a conclusion at the same time - the federal election.

A good selection of players were available for this match, the most prominent exceptions Milicevic and Piorkowski, both players with long-term injuries and Joe Keenan, who served out his last week of suspension. So, at last Melbourne looked like having what could be described as a near-ideal line-up. Perhaps the greatest surprise was to see Ryall missing out on a squad spot, opting for Evan Berger instead. Interesting to say the least, because as Josh pointed out on his blog, Ryall was flown back with great urgency from his Australian under-20s duties several weeks ago. That said, I thoroughly understand including Vasilevski in the starting line-up, owing to excellent performances in the previous matches. I would however have much preferred to see him contribute in the midfield rather than in defence. His crosses have been the most dangerous component of his game and playing as a right back just doesn’t give him enough opportunity to provide those crosses. While I have great respect for Caceres’ talents, I rate Vasilevski higher. My preference would have been for Vasilevski to play in the midfield, Caceres to be on the bench and Ryall to be in defence. Unfortunately I don’t call the shots.

Melbourne’s performance on Saturday was certainly not one of our best of the season. The opening period seemed tense and uninspired, perhaps the small crowd and strangely empty “southern” end had some psychological effect on the players, or maybe the streak of poor results is taking its toll. And just when Melbourne did seem to be finding its feet, Muscat found both his feet involved in a messy challenge for the ball, resulting in our latest red card drama. Melbourne battled, never really looking particularly threatening, perhaps instead opting to conserve energy for the tiring game ahead. Wellington failed to really take advantage of their extra player, something that I personally largely credit to Archie Thompson, who put in a good performance causing consistent headaches for Wellington’s defence. I remember Hiddink using Archie in much the same way when the Socceroos went down to 10 men, with the particular intent of ensuring the defence would not be allowed to rest easily. That same tactic was put to good use on Saturday and saving a point. His play was of course also instrumental in Melbourne’s opening goal, his deflected shot landing fortuitously at Allsopp’s feet.

Unfortunately Melbourne failed to maintain the lead and eventually conceded painfully to former Victory player Vince Lia. Sad indeed, but to Vince’s credit, it was a well-taken shot.

Looking back on the match though, on the whole it would have to be seen as a poor performance - perhaps luckily for us, the opposition wasn’t as fierce as some of the other teams in the A-league. And even more luckily, after the weekend’s damage was tallied, apparently nothing has changed one bit in our standings - with all other fixtures also ending in draws. We are however fast running out of time to get this campaign back on track and last Saturday has to be seen as a missed opportunity. Thankfully, the league is very tight and even at this late stage, it is still entirely feasible for Melbourne to be in 4th or even 3rd spot by the end of next weekend. The players must however remain positive for there to be any chance of finishing the season strongly. Nervous times ahead.