ALNMU Review: Victory hand Wanderers a wake up call Melbourne Victory 4 - 1 Western Sydney Wanderers Attendance: 30,083 Another highly anticipated season was brewing ahead of this clash, but what could not be foreseen was the manner in which Victory would play. Other than holding Wanderers scoreless, Victory fans could not have asked for a better result to open the 10th season of the A-League. For Victory, the result meant they had achieved their first win in the opening round, for the first time since the 2006/07 season. Not only that, but Victory notched up the largest winning margin and most amount of goals in an opening round match. To further rub salt into the wound of Wanderers, Victory inflicted them with their largest defeat and first time for conceding four goals in a match - extremely un-wanderer like. Victory came out intended on hitting the round running hard, and thats exactly what they did. New recruits Matthieu Delpierre and Besart Berisha got off the mark early in their club debuts, scoring in emphatic fashion to send the Victory fans into a frenzy.Within the space of 19 minutes, Victory were up two nil and Wanderers master coach, Tony Popovic, appeared clueless as to what his side could do to turn the match around. The momentum continued as the twinkling toes of Kosta Barbarouses proved decisive in creating the chance for Leigh Broxham to strike home what would be only his third goal in 156 appearances for the club and putting Victory up three nil. As first half drew to a close, the all-round A-League veteran, Mark Bridge, pounced on a mistake made by Matthieu Delpierre. As the Centre back rushed out to head the ball away, a passage opened for Bridge to waltz straight on through and with ease score past Nathan Coe. Whats a first half without its controversy though? Leading one nil, a wayward challenge for Matthieu Delpierre brought down Brendon Santalab in the box. A clear penalty in the eyes of most, but not the ones that counted. Quite possibly a match changer. For Victory, this appeared to be their only hiccup of the night, as they went on to score another in the second half through none other than Archie Thompson. Wanderers were able to wrestle back some momentum throughout the second half, but that was no thanks to two half time substitutions made by Popovic to take off Appiah-Kubi for Trifiro and La Rocca for Victor Saba and ultimately it wouldnt be enough to stop Victory from finishing four, one, winners. Whilst its easy to get carried away for both sets of fans, a kind reminder that it is only round one is necessary and both coaches seemed more than aware this was only the start. For Kevin Muscat and his men, the performance was one that should send a wake up call to all teams, that unless youre prepared to play for the Premiership you had better be prepared for many more performances like tonight. For Tony Popovic and his team, theyll realise that for a team that prides itself on performance, that a result like this is unacceptable. With the Asian Champions League final around the corner, the boys from Western Sydney will need to remain focused and switch on for it could prove the difference between a long season or enjoyable one. ~ Cameron
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 22:08:10 +0000