MVFC Blog

After what’s been a disappointing and worrying pre-season performance by the Melbourne Victory, fans have finally been treated to some good news.

This Saturday’s away game against the Wellington Phoenix will be played at Olympic Park.

The New Zealand side requested that the match be played elsewhere. Rather bizarrely, Wellington will still be the “home” side.

It’s great news for Victory fans, who can look forward to the return of Archie Thompson, as well as the likely debut of Leandro Love, the club’s new Brazilian striker. We can only hope that the injection of these two into the squad will help turn around recent form, which has seen Danny Allsopp struggle as the sole striker.

The lack of striking options is the main concern for the Victory. We’re requiring a lot of Thompson and Allsopp, but should we? What if either has a poor spell? Allsopp’s goal-scoring drought in the first season proved how disastrous that could be. What about when Archie is called up for Socceroos commitments? As we’ve seen during the pre-season, Melbourne looks rather impotent in attack when it’s just Danny up there. Partnering him with Adrian Caceres or Kaz Patafta is quite simply no adequate replacement for being able to couple him with a dedicated striker.

Will Leandro do the trick? Merrick has touted him as a “back up striker”, which hardly breeds confidence. Do we really need a back-up striker? Or do we need a real contendor: someone who could potentially overthrow Allsopp or (dare I say it?) Thompson in the pecking order?