The Lost And The Furious

After spending the last couple of days stuffing myself full of various Christmas fare, fighting my way through massive crowds at a number of shopping centres and spending a little too much time and money at a certain brand of hardware store, I thought it would be an opportune time to cap of what has been a rather enjoyable footballing year with a Melbourne Victory win against North Queensland Fury.

However, it wasn't to be as Fury spoilt my festive spirit with one of the ugliest 1-0 victories that you will ever see, a kind of ugliness that even the Mariners would not lower themselves to. And before you all accuse me of sour grapes, my accusation of ugliness is not solely aimed at Fury but also at my beloved Victory. One could very well say that they were the uglier of the two teams as I mused to myself how does a team lose to one that has Beau Busch in the starting XI.

Originally, I wasn't planning to dwell on what was an extremely disappointing performance. In fact I had a completely different subject matter in mind, a kind of end of year reminiscence about the year gone by, where I talk about all my highlights for the year gone by and a big Melbourne Victory love-in occurs on the forums. You know the kind. Maybe I'll save it for next week when there is not much else to talk about. 

However, the game did get me reminiscing as it reminded me a lot of performances against Perth in recent seasons. You know the ones, play well for about half an hour (usually split between the two halves); disappearing for the remainder; resorting to constantly pumping long balls into the box and eventually going behind to a semi-spectacular effort on goal. Oh yeah I almost forgot, having an almost non-existent midfield as well.

The performance also showcased how much we do miss the influence of Carlos Hernandez, as the game certainly needed some of his influence, just to make it a little less ugly and take control of the midfield. As it was, the ball was bouncing around in the centre of the park much as it does in one of my weekly futsal matches, with everyone trying to stick their boot in and the ball really not going anyway.

The match also saw the end of Sutee Suksomskit's nine-week guest stint and although the Thai international did show glimpses of his talent I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing him back in Victory colours any time soon. His efforts over the nine weeks weren't probably helped by the fact that more often than not he was played out of position. He appears to be more of an attacking midfielder than an out and out striker. You would hope his departure would mean more game time for my fellow Victory blogger's favourite, Nathan Elasi.

So in the end, it wasn't the ideal way to finish off the year as we gifted the boring boys in baby blue a three point lead at the top of the table. Hopefully we won't be so generous in the coming year.

I would like this opportunity to thank all my readers for their comments throughout the year and wish you all a safe and happy New Year.