Melbourne Victory have officially ended Western United’s faint A-League finals hopes in humiliating fashion after recording a 6-1 win over their rivals on Friday night.
The game played behind closed doors due to Melbourne’s COVID lockdown, Victory raced to a 4-1 halftime lead before adding two more through Elvis Kamsoba and Jacob Butterfield in the second.
A first-half penalty from United’s Alessandro Diamanti provided his side’s lone semblance of resistance.
The thrashing represents coach Mark Rudan’s side’s sixth straight loss and completes a stretch that has seen them go from almost finals certainties to being mathematically eliminated with two games to spare. The United boss indicated that a time of introspection at the club was now forthcoming.
“Everyone’s playing for their future, it’s as simple as that,” said Rudan.
“You find a lot about yourself, everyone associated with the club when you go through nights like this.
“It’s a big reset that’s required, that’s for sure.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to assess things and sit down and say ‘Okay, this is where we’re at and this is where we need to be’.
“It’s all about looking towards the future right now.
“I daresay (squad changes are) absolutely important. There are players there that are fighting for their futures. We’ve got to take a good reset and have a good look at where we’re at.”
Securing a first ever win over United, Victory is scheduled to face Melbourne City at Marvel Stadium next Sunday.
Jake Brimmer opened the scoring with a sweetly taken half-volley in the 12th minute of the contest, before Adama Traore’s overlapping run and cross in transition found Rudy Gestede for a second in the 22nd.
(Photo by Jonathan DiMaggio/Getty Images)
A run and cutback from Ben Folami found an open Kamsoba in the 33rd minute before the former swanned into the United area and blasted in at the near post to make it four just three minutes later.
“We were very passive in that first half,” admitted Rudan.
Some all-too-easy combination play between Callum McManaman and Kamsoba after a Diamanti turnover set up their side’s fifth in the 50th minute and Butterfield completed the rout with a surgical top-corner strike in the 82nd minute.
“We’ve been knocking on the door,” said Victory caretaker Steve Kean.
“We’ve been creating plenty as of late and not grabbing them, tonight we did.”
The Rev. Pat Brodnik 2.0
Guest
Give the guy a break; if you went through life being constantly mistaken for Phil Moss, you'd develop a sour disposition yourself????
Blood Dragon
Roar Rookie
4 other teams over 3 different Sports Already play at AAMI, Western should have picked 1 ground a stuck to it even if an Oval until there stadium was built or they folded
Tigertown
Guest
Rudan’s a bully - simple as that. Give his name a quick Google search & you’ll find numerous stories of him abusing match officials. He has an issue with authority, yet he’s content with being sneaky & breaking the rules.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
If they played at football pitches instead of AFL stadiums than it could work. A couppe of thousand fans far away from the ground looks even worses. But otherwise they should hunker down at AAMI until their stadium is up and running. Than we can do the AFL model and have all Melbourne games play out of the one stadium like the MCG :silly:
pete4
Roar Rookie
Western should play all their home games at AAMI Park until their stadium is ready Spreading their home games around Geelong, Ballarat, Launceston etc hasn't helped them
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
I thought Western United showed they had some talented youngsters. I dont know why these youngsters had the defensive intensity of a wet rag even when the ball was in dangerous areas. Diamanti tried harder in defence than some of them, he realised they were in trouble when he did the give away becuase of the players upfield, the suggestion from Archie Thompson that he should have fouled Kamsoba was the solution, great insight, Diamanti did actually stick his leg out but couldn't get near him. Duzel impressed me more than Pasquali with the ball, he showed good control , good passing range, the flipside was without the ball, well Duzel's performance was bizzare, Pasquali was bad enough, but Duzel was on another planet , asleep, casual, day dreaming I dont know what he was doing. They scored 5 of the goals while he was there, though the last had another youngster Milanovic also being a bit casual. Not having Berisha and Durante had a huge flow on effect. Wales up front versus Pieras as a wing back is crazy and then you had Pasquali coming in . I think Wales would do a great job as a wing back and Pieras would have done a lot better than Wales as striker. The absence of Durante was a big factor not because he was better than the others in the back three but Duzel coming into the side. That being said if Duzel was to fix up his defensive game or wake up a bit he looks like he has a lot of potential from deep midfield if he is this good at 19.
Winter A League is Awesome
Guest
Yeah that's a fair point. Plus the recruitment hasnt been the best as Diamanti is super creative but can't do 90 minutes of running on the back of quick turn arounds, Wales didnt quite make it at City as he had an excellent work rate but not a great final touch and Berisha is an old school striker similar to Fornaroli that are great individually in summer but arent great on transitions in winter. I think winter systems of football like Citys 90 minute press have caught out a lot of teams and the recruitment tactics. Last night Victory were strolling into the 6 yard box from half way and finishing. WU stopped running and defending.
Winter A Leagye is Awesome
Guest
Diamanti was walking after 20 minutes. He didnt put any defensive tackles during transitions nor was he anywhere to be seen. Amazing creativity but you need to do the basics as well. When the games are this close together, you need to rotate the older players. Winter exposes all. In summer you can walk around because everyone is walking. Winter is also why a lot of the younger guys are getting game time. Regarding the property developer thing, a lot of clubs are sponsored by property developers. What does Macarthur represent that is so different to WU? Or any club for that matter? We need another stadium in Vic as we cant have every team playing out of AAMI. Plus the season was pretty good up until about 3 weeks ago.
Para+Ten ISUZU Subway support Australian Football
Roar Rookie
Hopefully, now WU can concentrate on building their stadium they promised Australian Football fans. :sick:
Waz
Roar Rookie
Rudan has developed a terrible playing style at WU - cheating, diving, time wasting ... it’s the only team I don’t watch in the A League. Good for football that they are out of it imo.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
You know your season has hit an all-time low when Elvis can put two past you. A disaster of a season in every respect for WU, on and off the field. I feel sorry for Alessandro Diamanti, such a good player (even if he too didn't have the best of games last night), he deserves better than getting stuck with this bunch of anonymous property developers.