With a third of the season almost done, I thought I’d pop in to share my thoughts on how the mighty Victory are faring this year.

The Equilibrium Shattered: Danny Allsopp leaves, Billy Celeski injured

Melbourne came into this season with a stable squad, with just one new face. For a side that normally signs at least 3 or 4 a season, this was quite remarkable. Keeping a stable lineup has its advantages of course, but it can also make a team predictable. Whether that was part of the reason for Melbourne’s sluggish start to the season, I’m not sure. What’s clear is that Kevin Muscat’s injury earlier this season, Danny Allsopp’s departure and the season-ending injury to Billy Celeski has shattered that stability and forced the club to turn to the players market.

So far, the signings have paid off. Bringing back Adrian Leijer was a brilliant and timely coup. The purchase of Robbie Kruse had me buzzing for days, though last weekend was the most we’ve seen of the youngster so far — and even then he seemed to be struggling with the dust quite a bit. Mate Dugandzic impressed against the Gold Coast with a remarkably self-assured performance. With Costa Rican international Marvin Angulo set to join the club this week, and Thai international Sutee Suksomkit also due to arrive soon, Ernie Merrick looks to have plenty of talent at his disposal. Finding a structure that works cohesively will be his biggest challenge in the coming weeks.

The Return of Kevin Muscat

It has surprised me how much Kevin Muscat’s return has impacted the team. I for one thought Muscat had a poor season last year and expected him to hang up the boots, but it was painfully clear in his absence how leaderless and frail Melbourne looked. Granted, we’d also just lost Allsopp and Celeski, so everything was a bit topsy-turvy anyway, but Muscat’s return played no small part in our wins against Adelaide and Gold Coast. How we cope when he does decide to retire is going to be a very big challenge.

Carlos Hernández: Our greatest import ever?

Do you think he’s the best player we’ve ever had? If it came down to it, who would you rather field: Carlos Hernández or Fred?

With the way Hernández is playing right now, I think he’s the best player we’ve ever seen in Victory colours. Four goals in eight matches, every one of them a beauty. If he gets through this season un-injured, I have no doubt that we’ll finish in the top 3.

A shade over 15,000 came out to watch 90 minutes of the dullest football I’ve ever seen at the Dome. It all went wrong about three minutes in when Billy Celeski went down and stayed down. No Celeski. No Hernandez. The only bright spark for me was Matthew Kemp, who was in fine form after a couple weeks away. And Archie’s goal was nice.

But beyond that, this was a night to forget about.

In case you missed the game, catch the video highlights on YouTube.

Blog reader Kevin wrote to me this afternoon with a few interesting points:

• I don’t think that Brebner has it in him anymore. He was too defensive and Victory only really got going when he was replaced with Celeski.
• I hate to say this but Archie either needs time on the bench or play him down the wings. Every time he got the ball he either played with it too long or too short. He didn’t know what to do with it. There was that point in the game where he could have scored with no defenders around him but instead of shooting he dribbled it, which allowed defenders to descend on him. The only time that he looked dangerous was when he was playing on the right wing and causing headaches deep in the opposition defence. When he attacked the goal directly he bumbled it every time, he almost cost Melbourne the game.
• And the last thing to comment on as a devoted Victory fan is the numbers of people to the first 2 games of the season. Very disappointing. It still shows how much more work the A League need to do to get the message out there as long as AFL are going to pull fans away during their season. I even spoke to some football people on the morning of the day and ask them if they were going to the game that night. Their response was “what game?” Still, 5 years ago if I had said that we would get 19,000 people to a football game in Melbourne during the AFL season everyone would have laughed at me.

I would add to Kevin’s message a few observations of my own:

• Kemp in centre of defence. It was a tale of two halves for Kempy. He made a few critical mistakes in the first half, while in the second he made some very important — and brave — tackles. As I said to my mate Dave, he was definitely channeling a bit of Old Kev in that second half, what with the agro attitude and firm tackles.
• Celeski. Rumour has it Billy’s been injured, hence the bench time this season. But, along with Carlos Hernández, I thought he was the key factor in bringing Melbourne back from a two-goal deficit. If he’s fit enough, we need him on there for a full 90 minutes.
• Surah Sukha. In his thirteen minutes off the bench, he didn’t set a foot wrong. Very solid on the ball. I think we’ll see plenty more of him this season.

What did you think of last night’s draw? Who impressed? Who sucked?

Anyway, as those of you who are parents will know, having a kid is quite an absorbing activity. My time has grown somewhat limited, and MVFC Blog is taking a bit of a backseat at the moment.

That said, I plan to post short match previews and reviews every week, with an emphasis on generating discussion. My opinion is about as valid as the next person’s, so I’d love to see conversation thrive on the blog this season.

I’m also active on Twitter, where I post the latest Victory news under the guise of Victorytwit. I’d love to connect with you on there, so please do say g’day.

And lastly: Go Melbourne! Let’s see some goals tonight!

Anyway, the shoes. I hand-picked this lovely pair of indoor soccer boots, courtesy of the kind folk over at SoccerPro. I’m usually a black and white type of guy, but, following in the footsteps of Archie, I opted for the attention grabbing green Nike Soccer Shoes.

Besides their dazzling appearance, what do these shoes have to say for themselves? They’re a snug, comfortable fit, for one thing. They’ve also got great grip, which is critical in a fast-paced game like indoor soccer. The other key aspect of any good soccer shoe is the extent to which it helps your ball control. I’ve played in regular runners before and found them to be hopeless. But these Nikes fit the bill, with the flat, kangaroo leather top allowing for superb touch.

My only quibble with them was the laces, which are a tad too short. But they seem to stretch with use, so this is becoming less of an issue. All in all, I can definitely recommend these shoes to any of you indoor players.

It was far from pretty. A red card for Adelaide United’s Cristiano in the 10th minute drew my cheers – until I got home and saw how bad a decision that was. Matthew Breeze, in one foul swoop, not only gave Adelaide cause to blame their loss on a refereeing failure, but also robbed Victory fans of the satisfaction of having won fair and square. Granted, I’m not sure the scoreline would have been much different if Adelaide had had 11 men all night; but that’s mere conjecture.

Adelaide started strongly, but the red card saw them retreat into their own half. The rest of the second half played out like this: Melbourne gets the ball, attacks, fumbles it/is intercepted, Adelaide boots the ball up the field, straight back to a Melbourne player. To their credit, Adelaide sowed up the holes that gaped so profoundly against Melbourne two weeks ago; Jonas Salley played a critical role in marking Carlos Hernández, who was rarely allowed room to move more than a few steps.

Adelaide came out attacking in the second half. And they would have had a goal if it hadn’t been for a brilliant save by Michael Theoklitos. Minutes later, a freshly substituted Evan Berger backheeled the ball to Tom Pondeljak, who unleashed a brilliant strike from outside the penalty area, catching Eugene Galekovic off-guard and bringing the crowd to life.

At this point, with Melbourne a goal up and Adelaide a man down, it looked like an impossible task for the visitors. But a few minutes later, Melbourne with a free kick, a cafuffle broke out in the penalty area. Players shoved each other, and Eugene Galekovic ran all the way to the half way line to give Carlos Hernández a shove. Surely a red card offence. But no. Breeze gives a red to Danny Allsopp. From the replay I’ve seen, this appears to have been in another poor decision. All in all, Breeze gave two red cards that probably shouldn’t have been given, and failed to give the one that should have been (for Galekovic). Not a great night for Australia’s alleged number 1 referee…

With Melbourne reduced to 10 men, Adelaide were given a fresh breath of hope. But the side that hadn’t scored against Melbourne in their previous three games was again unable to do so. In front of 53,273 , Matthew Breeze blew the full time whistle, announcing the new A-League Champions: Melbourne Victory.

Melbourne faltered at times during season 4 of the A-League – especially against teams propping up the ladder. For the latter half of the season, this became the pattern: solid wins against top of the table sides, disappointing losses against struggling sides.

Other factors may have played a part, but I think part of the reason why Melbourne lost the ‘easy’ games and won the ‘hard’ ones comes down to complacency.

All year, Melbourne has had the edge over Adelaide United. But Adelaide has always been considered a tough opponent, a side to be wary of. After the demolition two weeks ago, you’d be forgiven for thinking of Adelaide as an easy beat.

But underdogs can spring big surprises. Confidence won’t hurt Melbourne tomorrow night, but it cannot afford to be complacent.

I didn’t get a chance to watch the Adelaide vs Queensland game last week, but from what I’ve heard it was a stubbornly defensive Adelaide United that managed to bury the Roar. The reintroduction of Jonas Salley to the side seems to have had the desired effect, shoring up the midfield. But will it be enough?

Once again, Ernie Merrick has a full squad to pick from. The Victory have had two weeks to rest and prepare. They’re fit. They’re ready. And as long as they don’t grow complacent, I believe they’re going to be lifting the trophy tomorrow night.

I thought I’d take the occasion to compile a bunch of interesting/meaningless statistics.

• Only one team has ever reached the Grand Final after finishing outside the top 2. That was Central Coast Mariners in season one of the A-League.
• No team finishing outside the top 2 has ever won the Grand Final.
• Adelaide United has qualified for the Asian Champions League three times in four years.
• Two out of three times, the team with the home ground advantage in the Grand Final has won. The one time this wasn’t the case was last year, when the Mariners “hosted” Newcastle in Sydney.
• No team has ever won the Pre-season Cup, topped the ladder and won the Grand Final in the same season.
• Melbourne Victory is the only team to ever win the Pre-season Cup and then top the ladder.
• Only one current Melbourne Victory player has scored in a Grand Final (Archie Thompson x 5)
• Only one current Adelaide United player has scored in a Grand Final (Kristian Sarkies x 1, when he played for Melbourne against Adelaide)
• Since the start of season 4, Adelaide and Melbourne have played each other 5 times. The score is 11-2 in Melbourne’s favour.
• Of the eight goals ever scored in a Grand Final, Melbourne scored six. Archie Thompson scored five.

After Vidmar’s hissy-fit, it’s hard to see how Adelaide are going to regroup for their semi-final against the Queensland Roar, who put the Central Coast Mariners away 4-1 on aggregate.

But, to think back to Saturday night. The biggest question mark before the game was what part Carlos Hernández would play. I’d anticipated a second-half appearance from the Costa Rican, but Ernie Merrick had different plans. Within ten minutes it paid dividends, Hernández threading a ball through to Archie Thompson to set up the first goal. Fifteen minutes later, Carlos got his own chance and fired it into the roof of the Adelaide goal. 2-0, 30 minutes gone, game over.

Hernández then set up two more, first for Danny Allsopp, then for Tom Pondeljak in the second half (what a fine volley from Tommy P that was). After years of being compared to his predecessor, Fred, Hernández pulled off a display on Saturday night that was on par with Fred’s Grand Final performance. Ernie Merrick, Gary Cole, et al.: Please do everything within your power to retain Carlos.

This was no one-man show, of course. Archie, Allsopp and Pondeljak all had great games going forward, while Roddy Vargas in his new hair-cut kept the backline solid. Kevin Muscat has given two outstanding performances in the finals this year. Michael Theoklitos had little to do for most of the 90 minutes but pulled off two phenomenal saves to keep a clean sheet.

In case you missed the game, or to relive the glory, you can watch it on YouTube here.

If statistics are anything to go by, things aren’t looking good for Adelaide United. They haven’t beaten Melbourne since the Pre-Season Cup. Melbourne has won all of its last 6 games at home. And Adelaide has a 2 goal deficit to make up for; meaning, in short, that it must score at least three times at the Telstra Dome to book a home Grand Final.

Stranger things have happened. Tom Pondeljak this week talked about the Mariners’ come-back last year against the Newcastle Jets, who had won the first game 2-0. Tommy P and the rest of the Mariners dug in and pulled off a 3-0 win to book themselves a spot in the Grand Final (not a home Grand Final of course, because the FFA determined that neither Gosford nor Newcastle were worthy of hosting such an auspicious occasion).

But the Mariners pulled off that feat at home. Adelaide need to do it in front of forty thousand expectant Victory fans.

For Merrick, the task is simple. Keep doing what we’re doing. Take the game to Adelaide. If we produce the kind of football we produced last week, we’ll be right.

Carlos Hernández played for the Costa Rican national team yesterday and is expected to arrive back in Melbourne sometime today. If I were Merrick, I’d keep him on the bench. Wait till Adelaide start getting desperate and committing more men forward, then bring Carlos on to kill them off. That’s how it plays out in my head in any case.

Meanwhile, the Mariners are in the same predicament as Adelaide (though Adelaide gets a second chance if they stuff up). Queensland need only to hold the Central Coast at bay and protect their 2-0 lead, and they’ll have themselves a semifinal berth against the loser of Melbourne vs Adelaide.