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The timing is perfect for the Australia Day clash between Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC, given Victory’s sparkling return to form last weekend and the largely negative way in which Sydney’s derby win was received.
Victory finally broke out of their funk with a 4-0 home win over Brisbane Roar. When they are at their best or very close to it, they are still the benchmark team in the A-League.
Sydney beat Western Sydney Wanderers 2-1 at Pirtek Stadium, but were widely criticised for setting up very defensively and trying to win on the counter-attack. In the end, neither of their goals came strictly from general play – one was from a corner and the other followed a free kick.
But the criticism of Sydney seems unfair. They came to a tough place to win with a specific plan and they got out with the three points. It wasn’t a remotely pretty approach, but it was effective.
While Sydney managed to limit clear opportunities for the more likely goalscorers in the Western Sydney side, such as Mark Bridge and Mitch Nichols, it wasn’t as if they shut the Wanderers down as a team. The home side still had enough chances to at least get a draw and probably win. The problem was that most of the better chances fell to players like Romeo Castelen, Dimas and Kearyn Baccus.
Catselen is a marvel with the ball at his feet and taking defenders on out wide, but he is not a good shooter. Too often he either hits wide or straight at the goalkeeper.
The best chance Nichols had was when the referee’s assistant flagged Bridge for offside and Bridge reacted smartly by pulling out of the play. The Sydney defenders stopped as well, but the referee allowed play to continue, and Nichols took his chances one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Yet he was unsuccessful, when he could have passed to Dario Vidosic for an easy goal.
Vidosic has been disappointing in front of goal this season. He did score Western Sydney’s only goal in the derby, but the chance came when the Sydney defence dragged across to their left and he had plenty of time to set up for an admittedly good shot.
If Sydney hope to win the A-League championship they are going to have to find a different way to play against Victory, in the likelihood that they would have to beat them at some stage of the finals series.
Victory were way too good for Sydney in last season’s grand final. It was a physical game early on, but Victory were as capable of sticking that out as Sydney were.
When it settled down to become more of a game of football, Victory started creating genuine chances and their big-game players rose to the occasion, led by the biggest big-game player in the A-League, Besart Berisha. Melbourne won 3-0.
The first time the two teams met this season, Sydney emerged from their shell to be much more proactive, but after leading 1-0 and 2-1 they ended losing 4-2. Sydney had second-half chances which, had they taken them, would have put them in the picture to win, but they couldn’t do it.
So Victory have beaten Sydney in very different types of games each of the last two times they have met.
It is going to be interesting to see how Sydney presents against Melbourne this time, if they are proactive rather than reactive and whether their approach changes according to whatever ups and downs they experience. We know Victory will aim to go forward whenever possible.
Just the same as the Wanderers have got to learn how to turn their edge in general play in their recent games against Sydney into wins, Sydney have got to find a way of beating Victory.
It will be fascinating to see how they go about it this time around.
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