Carlos Hernandez is not Fred.
Quite the obvious statement really.
But such was the impression Fred made on the A-League last season that commentators are looking at the Melbourne Victory’s struggle to get its first win of the season and pointing the fingers at Hernandez: “He’s not Fred!”
How insightful.
The Central Coast’s Tony Vidmar pointed at the absence of Fred to explain why Melbourne seems to be a shadow of its former self. Jesse Fink from Half Time Orange agrees that Melbourne without Fred is “a totally different proposition”.
Agreed, to an extent. The Victory are a revamped squad (besides Fred, another 7 players from last year’s squad aren’t around any more); and so far, they really don’t look as good as they did last year.
But I think we are over emphasising Fred’s contribution to last year’s team. And I definitely think that Victory supporters are being too harsh to Carlos Hernandez, who has been wrongly cast into Fred’s shoes.
The bloke behind me at the game last Sunday spent much of the match screaming his scorn for a number of players, especially Hernandez. Deriding the Costa Rican for being “fat” (his words, not mine), I wondered whether this was the characteristic sentiment around Victory supporters. Is Hernandez on a fast-track to becoming the proverbial Melbourne scapegoat (a la Danny Allsopp, season 1)?
Unfortunately, Hernandez seems to be judged on the extent to which he can emulate Fred. But let’s get back to the basics: Hernandez is not Fred. Where Fred would run and run and run, Hernandez takes a decidedly different approach. He’s a classy midfielder with a deft touch. We’ve already seen flashes of his brilliance. Sure, he’s not at top-flight. But neither was Fred at this time of the season last year, as Ernie Merrick is keen to point out.
I was very disappointed to see Fred leave. He was, without a doubt, one of the highlight’s of the Melbourne Victory show in 2006-07.
I don’t expect Hernandez to be the new Fred. But I do look forward to watching him come into his own: in short, to play his game, not Fred’s.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Neil // Sep 20, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I have to agree you with everything you say. We can’t be making comparisons between the two when they are completely different types of players. Hernandez will have more influence if we start playing the ball through him. At the moment we seem to bypassing the midfield and playing a lot of long balls. I think the problem may be role of Brebner - he is in the position that Hernandez should be playing. he should be deeper in the midfield rather than in the hole behind the strikers. I would like to see a midfield that was made up of Broxham, Muscat, Hernandez and Caceres.
2 Peter // Sep 20, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Where Hernandez really has impressed me is with his passing ability. He can fly under the radar for periods of the match and then with one insightful touch tear apart the opposition’s defence. We saw this on Sunday when he lobbed a beautiful ball through to Archie (or was it Allsopp?), which Vukovic unfortunately had well covered. I still think he needs to come into his own in this league, but if Merrick finds the right way to exploit his talent, I have no doubt that he is an excellent member of our squad. Certainly not a player worthy of being a scapegoat!
3 David // Sep 27, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Fred became quite talismanic towards the end of last season but that was partly due to the understanding he’d developed with Archie and Danny. As you say there were several squad changes and I think this has been the reason for the stuttering start rather than “Fred’s gone” being the reason. I hope Carlos gets to play in positions/formations that utilise his undoubted qualities, and that he doesn’t become a scapegoat, but you’ll always get those “I’ve paid my money I can say whatever the f*ck I want” types. You’d think they’d understand that offering a mis-firing player support is more likely to assist their improvement.
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