FOR 45 minutes there I thought: Here we go again. We’re in Newcastle being absolutely dominated with our defence all at sea and barely getting a shot off in anger. I could almost feel another one of those 4-0 Newcastle thrashings coming on.
After holding their own for a good 15 minutes or so of the first half, Melbourne were completely dominated by the Jets for the remaining 30minutes.
It was almost like a carbon copy of last week's first half against Sydney. The defence were allowing their opponents too much space and Glenn Moss was not inspiring much confidence at all.
To compound the issue any forward forays that were being made petered out into nothing as we failed to any kind of decent ball into the box. In fact, we were extremely lucky that we weren't more than 1-0 down at the half and it didn't bode well for the second half.
Last week I mentioned a fellow Melbourne "fan", and I use that term loosely, who complained about every aspect of Melbourne Victory. One comment that really stuck in my craw was their assertion that Ernie Merrick had never made a tactical substitution that had an impact on a match in the whole of his Victory coaching career. It was a big call and that time I was in no mood to offer any argument to the counter.
You can probably guess that I am one of those people who thinks of a witty retort well after an incident has taken place. Well, all I can say is hope that they were watching this match because I'm pretty sure that the substitution of Ney Fabiano for Mate Dugandzic was of the tactical nature and definitely did have some sort of impact on the outcome of the match. How's that for a comeback?
The substitution also resulted in a change of formation from a 4-4-2 to something like a 3-5-2, a formation that worked to such great affect against Adelaide a number of weeks ago. And it begs the question, if it worked then why hasn't it been used since? Or maybe Merrick was of the opinion that it didn't really matter what formation they put out against Adelaide, we would have still picked up the three points anyway.
The introduction of Dugandzic at the expense of Ney Fabiano also resulted in a much more mobile front third and it really raises the question as to whether the Brazilian is really suited to being a starter. The two times when we have looked at our most dangerous after the departure of Danny Allsopp has been when Ney Fabiano has been absent from the field. Archie Thompson also appears to relish the role of being the sole striker and always looks much more dangerous at the point of the attack.
Grant Brebner, is one player that cops a fair bit of criticism, especially from yours truly, but his efforts both against Newcastle and in the second half of last week's game against Sydney were almost vintage performances. Maybe being made to work for his spot has done him the world of good or maybe the fact that it's because he's finally become one of us. Let's hope it continues.
So now we look forward to next week's clash against Adelaide and here's hoping that we get a full 90 minute performance from the home team to make all those fans out there happy.
