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Pressure is mounting on Melbourne Victory’s star recruit Harry Kewell and rookie coach Mehmet Durakovic only three games into the A-League season.
Winless and goalless this season, Victory stumbled and bumbled their way to a 0-0 draw with Melbourne Heart at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.
Only goalkeeper Ante Covic’s heroics saved the Victory, whose star-studded attack has now gone four and a half hours without scoring a goal and rarely looked likely to against a much more inventive Heart.
And Kewell, excellent in his side’s opening match against Sydney FC, has gone right off the boil.
Again he was ineffective against the Heart following an indifferent performance the previous week against Adelaide United.
But Durakovic has pleaded for patience for both the Victory and Kewell as he attempts to work the Socceroo star into his system.
“Harry’s still not 100 per cent fit, not match fit,” said Durakovic, who has kept Kewell on the field for the entire 90 minutes in all three matches so far.
“He’ll get better and better, and he’ll be the first one to admit that … just give him a couple of games.
“We’ve got a few new players – Harry’s come into the structure – that will take time.”
Durakovic, appointed as fulltime coach after a promising Asian Champions League campaign as caretaker, is struggling to make all his attacking weapons fit in his preferred 4-2-3-1 system.
Both Kewell and Archie Thompson have been deployed as lone strikers with no success, while Danny Allsopp has been left out of the squad after he was tried in that role in the opening match against Sydney FC.
Substitute Jean Carlos Solorzano looked the Victory’s most likely route to goal against the Heart.
Midfielder Carlos Hernandez has twice come off the bench and shown little, while youngster Marco Rojas has perhaps been the best of Victory’s attacking options over the three games.
Durakovic seems reluctant to switch to a two-striker attack, or change the tactics to best fit his weaponry.
Instead, as the Victory struggle with two points from a possible nine to start the season, he is asking for time to make it all work.
“Give us a couple more weeks, let the structure take shape, and we’ll be OK,” Durakovic said.
“This structure is going to take a bit of time, but as soon as we put the ball in the back of the net, we’ll be OK.”
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