City are catching Victory on and off the park – will the proof be in the pudding this Christmas?

You didn't give one tangible reason why City are supposedly overtaking Victory off the park. You mention crowds, but if you wanna go down that road and actually look at the numbers, the gap has only widened. Victory are having their worst ever campaign and averaging 19k, City are having their best ever campaign and averaging 6k. Rather than focussing on out-growing Victory, something they'll never actually do, they should probably be more concerned with that green and black shadow creeping up behind them.

"But citys home crowds with the amount of money the club has, are a real concern" There has been plenty of commentary around HAL crowds on this website and others and clearly there is no simple answer. If money was the answer then increasing attendances would be straightforward. But it isn't the sole answer. I would say history and culture are key drivers. In Melbourne you get asked what team you follow. It's ingrained in peoples psyche - as ingrained as the passing of the seasons. Football has no equivalent - not yet at least. We all continue building that history/culture just like those that came before us. It takes time and resolve. Anyway, on to the derby this Saturday!

LH, Brattan has been outstanding in that midfield this year, however, if he has family issues & wants to move home, SFC should let him go. MV did the same with Danny Vukovic a few years ago, they let him move closer to his family in Sydney to allow him & his wife to get family help to look after his sick boy. From what I saw from the outside, it worked out well for both Danny & his kid. I hope SFC do the same for Brattan.

Punter, heard a rumor that Brattan wants to come home, family issues of some sort. Do you think Sydney would release him? assuming of course he can find a club near home that wants him.

Further to this it needs to be added: W-League Melbourne Victory are current A-League Premiers and became the first ever W-League team to represent Australia in the inaugural Asian Women's Club Championship NYL MVFC youth beat City 1-3 on Sunday. At NPL level, Melbourne Victory got promotion to the NPL Div 1 in the first year they played NPL Div2. City have never been promoted. In 2020, City & MVFC will play in the same Division 3, so we'll be able to benchmark them properly. u20 (Div2) NPL: Both MVFC & City were Champions on their respective Conferences (West & East) u18 NPL: MVFC were Champions (East); City came 2nd (West) u15 NPL: Both MVFC & City came 2nd in their conferences (West & East respectively) Facilities Other than the actual training pitch, the MVFC gym & sports medicine facilities are considered the best in the A-League.

MC facilities are light years ahead of what MV have. MV train on public land and share facilities with Melbourne Storm and Melbourne Rebels and don't have an acadamey or seem to show much interest in consistently blooding young players at A-League level (they do in the W-League). credit to MC also for the way they treat their W-League team. Since day one they paid the full amount of salary cap, provided more secure long term contracts for players, provided players with world class facilities (especially medical) and have gone out and recruited high quality players. Meanwhile Victory farmed the side out to Football Federation Victoria for years which saw the team play home games in Geelong and have only recently taken over running the team again but haven't shown it a great deal of love - they play home games at 5 different venues this season (they have 6 home games overall). Visit City's website and 3 of the 4 news stories featured on front page are about the W-League side, meanwhile the last article Victory published about the W-League was 5 days ago.

City have a very good squad, I think Cabrera and Luna are two of the best players in the league when they put in an effort they really closed down the oppostion, Noone is a bit older and doesn't track back that much but excellent attacker. The question is why choose Rostyn Griffiths in midfield not mobile enough, Brilliante ands Genraeu could be tremendous but Brilliante is very variable in effort. I dont rate DelBridge but if the midfield tracks back he is not exposed, whereas the previous game no one was tracking back. Whether the opposition parks the bus or not is not as relevant to their performance as to team selection and the effort they put in on the day. If they put the same level of intensity as in the Newcastle match they will beat everyone.

On field City's gap between their best football and their worst must be the widest in the league. Now they've rid themselves of Joyce, they're starting to get some traction.

Agreed. In my opinion all the current woes at Victory boil down to the fact that they have no midfield. A few personnel changes at Victory and they are well and truly back on track.

we tore you to shreds in the cup :silly: lol thought you were lucky against us in the league as well lol. in your opinion being a city fan, what would help with crowds? the city group have such a vast infrastructure but it seems like no one in Melbourne supports the club. victoria has what, close to 5 million people? and theres many different sports to support. But citys home crowds with the amount of money the club has, are a real concern

Which is why some of us use the Premiership trophy as the most important guide to the quality of a team each season. Melbourne Victory have been thereabouts in 2016/17 & 2018/19. Thereabouts means they were far better than the majority of other clubs, but not as good as the best. Those who understand sport would know a Grand Final win doesn't tell us anything about how a team performed over a season.

My contempt for Gallop and Lowy is based on this. They used the HAL as a bargaining chip to retain control and were prepared to put the entire competition through an acid bath to retain control for “the greater good”. Thankfully the new organisation seems more in tune to what all of football needs and they look a whole lot better despite some obvious wobbles. To me it is essential that operational control for next season is taken away from O’Rourke and his Sydney team as soon as possible (next month) and handed to an entity that has a long term interest in the success of the competition - the fact FFA staffers are running the league is crazy. But next season is make or break - it is that critical now.

Could be facilities I suppose? MC are reported as having excellent training facilities - I have no idea about either MC or MV so I’ll leave others to comment.

I think the narrow Grand Final loss and then win the year after allowed the club to kid themselves on the quality of the squad. Chickens came home to roost in the semi final last year, and have continued this year. I don’t think this year’s problems are all Kurz’s fault, but I also don’t think he’s the person to solve them.

I think SFC are well in advance of MV in the last 3 & 1/2 years with both football & running of the club.

This is the problem Waz & let me firstly admit I agree with you. 'This season is now just a case of battening down the hatches and enjoying what bits you can'. I do & have for the last 4 seasons just loved how consistent SFC has been & this playing some of the best football in the A-league, especially this season, but we have been battening down the hatches for 5-6 years now.

The premise: "City catching up on & off the park". Then the writer provides nothing to validate his premise. He draws upon a win a good performance & win a few days ago, whilst ignoring a shocking performance at home & loss the week before that. Leave aside the spurious assertion about a club that has won a total of zero A-League trophies is catching up on-the-park to a club that has won 7 A-League trophies. What's the evidence of catching up off-the-park? Where is City catching MVFC off the park? I'm sure at any respectable tertiary institution, this type of analytical writing would be reviewed with a big red line: FAIL.

CFG have always said City are a long term play and have resisted throwing in big name marquees preferring instead to build a football club that can both produce good young footballers as well as attract and retain suitable A League talent. Their crowds are awful but that doesn’t seem to bother CFG, at least not yet. Nor do I think comparisons with Victory bother CFG - they have the financial clout to swat Victory like a fly if they choose but they choose not to. It’s a slow project and if City are closing the gap on victory it’s by inching their way forward and not until they have a couple of doubles in the bag can they expect anyone to seriously consider they have caught victory up. Besides, the club they need to be catching is not Victory but SFC.

In Muscat last 3 seasons , Mv finished 10,21,and 17’points behind the winners . They lost a third of their games in those 3 seasons , so Kurz didn’t have a very good team to begin with . He might need the off season to rebuild

I disagree. The health of the A League is already well understood and it will be irrelevant if this individual fixture goes well attendance/viewing wise, or if it tanks. If trends of recent season play out between now and May our average attendance will finish somewhere around 9,400. Possibly worse if Victory continue to struggle. What the viewing figures are is only known to Kayo and Telstra right now, so they’re not even debatable sadly. But this one fixture makes no difference - the poor health of the league is understood and there’s now 6 consecutive seasons of decline as evidence - it’s whether anyone with the power to pull the league up understands what is required and can affect change for next season. This season is now just a case of battening down the hatches and enjoying what bits you can