As I have alluded to in a previous blog, during non-football hours I pass myself off as an architect and thus I am often looking for patterns, sequences, symmetry and asymmetry. This often translates to my thinking about football and this weekend provided me with some prime examples. It also helps when you make two visits in the one weekend to the same football stadium.

Saturday night saw me at AAMI Park for the climax to the VPL season as Green Gully and Richmond fought it out in the Grand Final. Unfortunately for me I was witness to the defeat of the team that I watch less than I should as a more experienced side Green Gully defeated Richmond 3-0. However, this disappointment was countered by the fact that on Sunday afternoon I saw Melbourne Victory defeat Brisbane Roar by the same scoreline. One team loses by the same score that the other wins by, now how's that for symmetry. It's just a pity that both teams couldn't have won 3-0.

But taking a closer look at Sunday's match, it in itself was a match full of patterns, sequences, symmetry and asymmetry. First there is the most obvious of examples, in that the match was a definitely a clichéd case of a match of two halves. 

As I stood having my half time beer and discussing the game with a fellow spectator, we both agreed on one thing - the first half was atrocious. It appeared that both teams were more interested in inflicting pain on each other than playing football. It also felt like one of the slowest halves of football as well, every time I looked at the match clock it didn't appeared to have moved.

Melbourne for their part looked extremely stagnant in their first half and there was no link at all between attack and defence. Too often the likes of Hernandez, Dugandzic and Ricardinho were left isolated and thus gave the ball over to the opposition much more often than the parochial crowd would have liked, causing them to vent their frustration as the half drew to a close.

This first half performance was in extreme contrast to what was served up in the second half and it was no coincidence that our much-improved second half performance came after the introduction of Billy Celeski. The link that was missing in the first half was suddenly there and what a difference it made.  And unlike the first half, which seemed to drag, the second half absolutely flew bym giving some truth to the adage that "time flies when you're having fun". It also helps when your newly signed striker scores a cheeky goal that leaves you in stitches.

But back to my topic of discussion and if one takes a look at the formation as I did a few weeks back, one of the reasons for Melbourne's ineffectiveness over recent weeks has been asymmetry in the back four. More often than not last season, in trying to accommodate the trio of Muscat, Vargas and Leijer, Merrick would resort to a back three.

However of recent times he has resorted to back four with Muscat and Vargas playing centrally with Leijer and Sukha playing at right and left back respectively. As much as Leijer is a great defender there is no way in the world that he is a right back.

This formation is extremely lopsided and puts a lot of pressure on Sukha to get forward as he is much more effective in this role. In some ways, the injury to Muscat late in the game could be a blessing in disguise, as Leijer will have to be moved back to a more central position and the restoration of some symmetry to the back four. It might even inspire some confidence in our goalkeeper, who for the most part was unspectacularly solid.

So having been at AAMI Park twice this weekend, I will be again making the trek their again on Wednesday night as Victory take on Phoenix. One can only hope that they can build on that second half performance and that it provides some much needed early season momentum.