In what was the match of the round, Adelaide United produced their best performance of the season so far to defeat Victory 4-2. A rare burst which included a brace from Evan Kostopoulos and goals to Marcelo Carrusca and Fabio Ferreira inside half an hour cancelled out goals from Victory’s Andrew Nabbout and Marco Rojas.

Melbourne Victory

Team selection
It was very much, what has become, the stock standard set-up from Ange and co. Only one change would be made to the team that saw off Perth Glory last weekend, with Sam Gallagher lining up at leftback in place of the injured Adama Traore. As we saw from a frenetic first half, that backfired.

Wide open defence
And as much as Billy Celeski battled, there wasn’t much help from midfield partners Jonathan Bru and Guilherme Finkler in that decisive goal spree from the home side. The back four of Diogo Ferreira, Adrian Leijer, Petar Franjic and Gallagher were repeatedly caught out of position by a switched-on Adelaide attacking unit. Leigh Broxham replaced Franjic at the break with Gallagher partnering Leijer, enough to make you wonder whether that is the way Victory should have started.

The missing players
This was definitely the case in the absence of Traore, the only specialist leftback and one that was in form at that. Mark Milligan and Archie Thompson weren’t missed last week their absences can’t be used for an excuse. Kossie remarked about Victory’s missing talent, but Ange wasn’t having any of it. The state of Victory’s squad/depth has me confused; it was enough to beat Perth last weekend.

Capable of scoring, but…
Two on the road usually should get you the win, as it was against Wanderers. Marco Rojas and Andrew Nabbout scored some cracking goals to keep Victory in it. There is no doubt Victory have the firepower to win games, but there are too many doubts on the defence which needs to be sorted. Perhaps testing the waters in the transfer market would serve well.

Overawed and back to earth
Victory seemed to be overawed with the occasion at the Hindmarsh cauldron. All you have to look at is Marcos Flores and the reception he got off and on the pitch (i.e. the early challenges from Dario Vidosic), it looked to get to him. Despite the very decent run, I felt a loss was coming soon for the away team, and it so happened it was a big one to the rivals. A big couple of games against Brisbane followed by the Melbourne derby is coming up and with that comes a big opportunity for redemption.

 

Adelaide United

Did Kossie learn from Round 3?
Against Victory earlier in the season, Adelaide’s attack misfired and barely had a shot. Neither Bruce Djite nor Serg van Dijk made the squad then but Djite did make his way back to start this game with wingers Ferreira and Kostopoulos. Having a focal point, with the creator in Vidosic and classy distributor in Carrusca and holder Osama Malik was the perfect balance and it showed on the big stage.

Saw off the pressure
After the first half, Adelaide let up the pressure up the front, sitting a little deeper possibly as a result of the heat. This backfired early in the second half, with Marco Rojas giving Victory a sniff putting a shot past Paul Izzo. After that, they did more than enough to take the sting out of the game and comfortably hold off their traditional rivals.

Depth - a real threat?
Being able to leave the likes of Jeronimo Neumann, Iain Ramsey, Fabian Barbiero on the bench and Zenon Caravella out of the squad says a lot about just how strong they are. Kosmina hadn’t quite found the right combination, through injuries mainly, even though they’ve been winning they haven’t quite looked fearsome, this changed on Friday. Do they have your attention now?

Goal blitz
Despite being very good to watch, it gave the defence a real break from a Victory attack that came close on several occasions. This also allowed them to see off Victory late on in particular. It all went down in quick time, was great attacking football with all goals finished in similar, spectacular fashion.

Crowds
Now this has got me confused this season. I often associate Adelaide with a packed, loud Hindmarsh and it is one of the great sights in Australian football. So I’m not quite sure exactly why their attendances have been falling and lower than what I usually associate them with? Would love to hear some thoughts in the comments. Hopefully this is a catalyst for them to come back, after all everyone loves a winner.