Will we see a Victory for Melbourne in Asia?

Thanks for reading. Exactly. Time will tell. I'm optimistic, as all fans should be. But a certain amount of caution should be taken. Can't wait! Yeah the whole stadium debacle is one that's been debated heavily amongst fans for some time. I don't agree with it but we're under contract and that's that. We have to put up with it. Its apparently a better financial deal at the moment too but its a shame that it gets in the way of giving fans a better match day experience. http://www.victoryblog.net/ http://twitter.com/#!/victoryblog

Good read Victoryblog. For me, one of the major disappointments is the location Victory's home games. Staging them at the oversized Etihad Stadium seems bizarre; the club has a magnificent state of the art football stadium vacant. With the ACL crowds lower than the average attendances in the A-League (for Melbourne), the atmosphere at Etihad won’t be too great. I'm assuming it's because of a contractual agreement; however it's really not good enough by the club. As for Victory’s chances in the ACL, who knows at the moment? If the squad can replicate last seasons form and have a full squad to choose from then the Victory is capable of a top 2 finish. Even though Victory’s form in Asia isn’t anything to be proud of, I wouldn’t write the club off. Time will tell, looking forward to it.

@Danny_Mac No, Petkovic is just crap. He's 34 now. His reflexes are so slow. He has cost us goals all on his own multiple times this season. Yes the defense hasn't helped but on many occasions he hasn't made saves that he easily should have. Take a look at Solarzano's goal on Friday night. So soft. He's like an old man - well, he is really. Any decent keeper would have saved that. The thing is though, sometimes he manages to pull off some good saves which tends to mask his bad performances. He save the tough ones but the let's in the soft ones. I'm not one to blame the keeper for everything because the defense has to do it's job too but Petkovic just isn't good enough anymore and he makes more mistakes than he makes good saves. As for Moss he was having a bad season and couldn't get any consistency going. He wasn't helped by the defense but we clearly needed to change. Enter Mitch Langerak and look how good he performs. That then gives confidence to the rest of the team. If you look at all the successful teams the one thing they have in common is a good goalkeeper. You can have the best striker in the league but if your GK is poor you don't stand much chance. If we had of kept Moss in goals it would have threatened our chances. We were conceding too much. Mitch comes in and we make it all the way to the Final. The difference this year is we don't have a back up keeper with the quality of Langerak. I haven't seen much of Seb Mattei but I doubt he's as highly regarded as Mitch was. That said I'd like to see Mattei get a shot at the first team. Give him a go and see how he copes. He can't do much worse than Petkovic. I'm telling you, Petkovic will struggle in Asia. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

Thanks for reading everyone and the feedback is much appreciated too. You all make valid points. I agree that Merrick's usual tactics and style don't usually work well in Asia and that we do lack some pace, especially in midfield but of course as a Victory fan I still hold onto some hope that we can challenge the best. Like I said, I think some squad changes need to be made and that could well happen. We'll just have to wait and see. You would think Merrick would know of his teams strengths & weaknesses by now and how tough playing in Asia is. So I'm expecting us to be much better prepared this time round. The fact that Adelaide can come off a horrible season, bring in a couple of quality players and be competitive in the ACL so quickly proves it can be done. When we're in form I believe we can be a match for any team in Asia. The fact is we've never had a full squad to pick from in the ACL plus had to deal with horrible schedules and tough groups. So you can't judge us entirely on past performances. Again we did finish 2nd in the group on our first campaign and I think 2nd has to be the aim this time. We won't be just sitting back saying "well we were crap the last two times so we won't bother trying this time" Why not have a crack? I agree that our defense is also a problem but I assure you that the goalkeeping is a much greater problem than you would think. When playing without Muscat this season our defense has been much stronger so I think that says something. If we don't replace Petkovic, which we won't, bringing in a big CB to replace Muscat is key. Another central midfielder wouldn't be a bad idea either. I don't really have too much concern up front though. With Archie & Kruse fit plus combined with the likes of Hernandez, Dugandzic & Cernak behind them we can be very dangerous. There is also the possibility of Allsopp returning, but let's not go there for now. I must say though I disagree with the argument that Victory can't play the possession game. While we don't always do it I think we definitely have the ability to, especially in and around the box. We have shown this at times in the past. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

sorry i think you have been very harsh on petkovic, i think that he underestimated the quality of the league (although i think this has been a common thing with returning socceroos, it isn't as much of a step down as the expected), but he has really stepped it up in recent weeks. Also, i think that merrick's loyalty to the players is a bit of a misnomer. I think percived loyalty is actually a mask for a lack of depth. A classic example was last year with Moss. He was given enough time, but roped as soon as his time ran out. He never played for the club again.

I hope we can put it all together this year in Asia. We have the ability (always did) - but we need a few things to go our way in terms of injuries, schedulle etc... Come on Melbourne! I will be there. I hope others are to!

Having Gamba away first up not a bad thing. We will be fully match fit and they will still be in preseason. If we are going to beat them is then. It is definitely achieveable to get out of this group but we will have to be at our best.

No injuries to key players and we can make a good go of it. Would like to see MV recruit Vukovic from Wellington.

On another note if we play well enough toward the end of the season there is a possability that with finals we could be playing 15 games between the 31st december and the 15 march, WTF ...

From a neutral perspective: Victory has no chance in Asia. They have performed poorly in the last two campaigns, and despite winning the odd game I can't recall a game even a half where they dominated. Ernie relies on quick breaks - with Archie and in the past Danny Allsopp the outlets. Okay in the A-League over the years, but hardly okay to control and win a game in Asia. Victory are exposed through their inability to control the football for long periods of time. Gamba and others will make life very hard for Victory. Will Victory be able to say the same, I doubt it. Carlos Hernandez, Grant Brebner, Leigh Boxham, Tom Pondlejak, Roddie Vargas and Kevin Muscat have many attributes. Pace ain't one of them. Ball possession for this group, long-term will not happen. An improving Marvin Angoulu and Robbie Kruse may assist a better performance than recent years but there is nothing to get excited about for Melbourne next year in Asia - other than watching the opposing teams! Fussball is on the money: 1. Naive 2. Hopeless 3. Expect naive and hopeless.....which begs the question is Merrick up to the Asian job. Seems not!

Nice article victoryblog. I have no doubt MVFC have what it takes to succeed in Asia. Let's face it AUFC have succeeded and MVFC have shown they are a much better team than AUFC. It's interesting to note that in both occassions MVFC has been in the ACL the eventual Champions of Asia were in MVFC's Group - Gamba and Seongnam In our 1st attempt at the ACL, MVFC were very naive and should have at least beaten Gamba Osaka at home. We finished 2nd in the Group and would have proceeded to the Knockout Rounds, under the new system, where the top 2 teams qualify. In the 2nd attempt we were pretty hopeless but ACL (no pun intended!) injuries meant we were missing Archie, Billy & Kemp. We also had an away fixture in Tokyo that saw the players flying out at midnight on the night they lost the penalty shootout in the A-League GF. So, to our 3rd attempt. I'm more worried by our defence than our GK.. I reckon Petkovic has done a good job after a shaky start to the season. The problem, for me, is our defenders just don't give him adequate cover and our 2 major weaknesses are: a) set pieces - particularly corners, and, to me, this is inexcuseable and I totally blame Ernie for not organising us better b) we get totally exposed by quick wingers & overlap moves. Hopefully, the return of Kemp will help out on one flank.