It was exactly the game the Melbourne Victory needed. A solid win with plenty of goals to keep the club at the top of A-League after seven rounds.
Perth Glory were truly lacklustre, all across the pitch. Mitch Langerak was tested just once – and produced a wonderful acrobatic save to keep a clean sheet – while you only have to look at how easily Melbourne picked up its fourth goal to see how flimsy the Perth defence was. Things are not looking good for the bottom feeders.
The win adds great credibility to Merrick’s claim that Melbourne has the depth to cover for injuries and suspensions this year. Perth may have been poor, but it still takes a pretty good team to manage four goals. Even without Carlos Hernandez, our first-choice goalkeeper and one of our first-pick defenders, we looked the goods.
Meanwhile, Adelaide United stuffed up a 3-0 lead over the Central Coast Mariners, finishing the match with a draw. Sydney FC also drew at home, though they were lucky to come from behind in injury time. The Newcastle Jets host Wellington Phoenix tomorrow.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKQJdnPpMj0[/youtube]
4 comments ↓
Perth are clearly not the best opposition. They allowed us acres of space at times and I dont think Brebner han an opponent all night.
On the plus, Brebner and Lopez worked well together playing virtualy side by side. Berger was fantastic with his energy up and down the left (sometimes let down by poor crossing) and Mitch had 2 saves to make and did them superbly. Archie dropping back into midfield looks much more dangerous than when he just hangs around the halfway line waiting for something to happen – good move by him or Ernie – and he did more running than he has ever done.
The starting 11 did show we have some depth with Hernandez and Fabiano to come back and the interpassing in the first half was excellent.
Unfortunately Ward was rubbish when he came on and not one of his passes went to a Melb player – he needs to step up several gears as he was pretty poor at the end of last season as well.
I am not sure what happened last week against Qld when the game plan went haywire but with a few good performance so far this year things are looking very good.
the difference between last week and this week was immense, beginning with the starting 11 all the way to tactics, much better performance.
Bit harsh on Ward who is probably still carrying an injury and not played at all this season
Nick Ward looked out of sorts. Pity the YL doesn’t play beforehand, a half a game would have benefited him no doubt.
I know Perth were not the best opponents, but we have shown we have some depth in the side.
Really, a very poor performance by Perth, but I’ll take it
And how good was Mitch’s save in the second half!? That for me was just about moment of the match.
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