Melbourne’s performance tonight was lacklustre at best. It is clear that Melbourne is struggling to get up to speed this season.
Perth, a team coming off of a miserable 0-0 draw against Newcastle last week should have been an easy win for the champions, but it wasn’t to be. Chances were few and far between in a match that provided little cause for excitement. The premature departure of Joe Keenan left Melbourne struggling for ideas in midfield, seemingly unable to string together decent passes and barely able to reach the strikers. There were occasional promising spells, like when Archie lobbed the ball one way over Colosimo and then back the other way before misplacing his shot on goal. Exciting to watch, but not as exciting as a 1-0 score line. Melbourne seems to be slipping into an over-reliance on individual brilliance to generate results. With players like Thompson and Hernandez in less-than-fit states, Melbourne ends up looking uninspiring at best while the rest of the team attempts to grind out a result.
If anything positive was to be taken out of tonight’s match, it was Grant Brebner’s involvement. His early run towards goal after a Hernandez cross was arguably our best chance at taking the lead. Unfortunately his finish wasn’t up-to-scratch and the shot went wide, but at least it indicated that he was looking for runs at goal, something we rarely (if ever?) saw last year. Then, as he lined himself up for a long range strike in the dying moments of the game, it looked like he might be our saviour, just as he was last year against the Glory. The shot had sufficient power, but slightly lacked in direction. Brebner has been given instructions to get forward more and score some goals. Last year’s tally aside, he does have a history of scoring goals, and tonight he seemed fired up to meet the challenge. Unfortunately for him (and us frustrated Melbourne fans), tonight was not the night.
Tonight was also our first good look at Leandro Love. Yes, we saw him briefly in the pre-season, but considering the short amount of time he’d been in the country and considering he was only on for a very short period, it was not enough to draw any conclusions from. Tonight however, he had a respectable 25 minutes or so to impress the crowd. While he did seem a little over-eager at times, he also provided some good movement on the field and in the box. His energy was a little reminiscent of that other Brazilian, Allesandro, but he seems a little more composed and perhaps more comfortable in his role. He managed to get a hold of a few decent chances in fairly tight spots, only to see the shots blocked by defenders. He may not be of the calibre of Archie Thompson, but he certainly does make a decent substitute when we are up against it. Let’s hope he can start finding the back of the net in upcoming games.
Melbourne is certainly up against it in this season of the A-league. Injuries to Milicevic and possibly Joe Keenan, and fitness concerns for Hernandez and Thompson mean we are not going to be the same cohesive unit that we were last season. Unlike last season though, Merrick does have a depth of talent to draw on with the likes of Adrian Caceres not even making it to the bench tonight.
There’s still plenty of reasons to be upbeat about this season. Let’s just hope these draws don’t become a habit.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 David // Sep 3, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Have to agree that the cohesion is just not t here at the moment, you can’t play a high-tempo attacking game with poor touches. The thing that struck me was how the team seemed to lack any width once Joe Keenan went off. I’ve been really impressed with him so far, great piece of work last week to create the goal against Wellington. Good to see Leandro Love get more game time, and if there are a few injuries maybe some of the other young signings will get the chance to step up. With Central Coast starting the way we did last year we need to start winning soon, was the last win that friendly against Sth Melbourne? On what I’ve seen so far of the matches this season, all the other teams seem to have strengthened, and the fear factor that seemed to intimidate teams coming to Melbourne doesn’t seem as strong this year, last year Perth ‘parked the bus’ but this time round they packed the midfield which is why the width seemed to be our best chance with things not quite gelling yet. Interesting that we have no out and out wingers.
2 Peter // Sep 3, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Yeah, I think the last one was that South Melbourne match. It’s been a while
This week’s match against Adelaide should prove interesting, with quite a few different players likely to get a start.
3 Eric // Sep 3, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Actually, we won against Tianjin Teda in early June. But that was on penalties…
4 David // Sep 3, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Ahhh yes, the Lord Mayor’s Cup wasn’t it? I know it worked for the Socceroos last time but I think penalties are a lottery and no proper game should be decided that way, if it wasn’t for network schedules, we wouldn’t see as much of it. I prefer the golden goal, or they just keep playing, with maybe a player taken off from each team every five minutes, then it’s down to real mental strength, stamina, conditioning etc. even a replay would be better.
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