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It wasn’t long ago that Melbourne Victory led the A-League with a game in hand. Even though they weren’t quite playing at their best, they threatened to put a gap between themselves and the rest of the competition.
But then along came that shocking pitch against Wellington Phoenix in Auckland, followed by a very well prepared Western Sydney Wanderers side on a much better pitch at Parramatta, and Victory had lost two in a row without scoring a goal in either game.
They have fallen to fourth and suddenly their catch-up game against Perth Glory on the road on Wednesday no longer has the feel of a bonus three points Victory were keeping up their sleeve.
Now, Victory need the points.
If they were to lose to Perth, Victory would be six points behind Wanderers having played the same number of games – 10. And their next game after that is the Melbourne derby against City on Saturday night.
City have won three in a row and scored 14 goals in the process.
Suddenly, Victory look human. That look could easily change over the course of the next few days, if they knock over both Perth and City in typical Victory style, but it doesn’t hurt the A-League to have the dominant team from last season put under the pump in the new campaign.
The last thing the A-League needs at the moment is the champion team from last season to repeat their success in a routine manner. It needs stronger competition than that.
I’m not saying Victory winning the Premier’s Plate and going on from that to win the championship wouldn’t be a good thing, but they need to be made to work for it and it certainly looks like that is going to happen based on the last two rounds.
That pitch in Auckland was the same for both teams, it can obviously be argued, but the fact is it was worse for Victory because no team in the A-League plays more exciting football by keeping the ball on the deck than them. But, still, Wellington had to play their part, which they did.
But what happened against the Wanderers? There were no excuses in terms of the pitch, Victory were beaten fair and square. They had their chances, but didn’t take them. Wanderers had plenty of chances as well and managed to take a couple.
Victory didn’t handle Wanderers well. Western Sydney’s defence played tight on Besart Berisha and made him play with his back to goal more than he would like. But it was in transition that Wanderers were at their best.
They took advantage of the fact that when Victory establish a typical attack they often end up with Berisha, Kosta Barbarouses, Fahid Ben Khalfallah and Gui Finkler all well forward. When the Wanderers got a turnover they moved quickly to use the space left behind.
Often these attacks sped down the wings and then finally inwards. That style of play suited Romeo Castelen and he was the star of the show for Wanderers. This was essentially how Western Sydney coach Tony Popovic got the better of Victory coach Kevin Muscat on the night.
Wanderers aren’t perfect, but there was nothing Victory did that appeared designed to take advantage of a potential weakness in the way the opposition played. Don’t get me wrong, Victory played well in what was a high-quality match, but they weren’t as dynamic as they can be.
There is a long way to go in this competition, so there is plenty of time for Victory to bounce back and win it all, but Wanderers have made it very interesting. Now let’s see if City can make it even more interesting.
Perth are an average side. Even if Victory comfortably beat them the jury would still be out on whether they were back. The derby game against City is the one everyone is waiting for now. It will tell us a lot about both sides.
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