Terrible. Bad Ugly. Good Ugly. These are five words that pretty much sum up Melbourne Victory's last three performances. Be that as it may, good ugly is way better than bad ugly.
After two performances where they were never really in the contest it was always going to be interesting to see how Victory would respond away from home with an opposition CEO threatening a thrashing and key players missing. Whilst they hung on by the skin of their teeth in the first half it was pleasing to see the kind of fighting spirit that was sadly missing in their last two matches.
Disappointing as it was to concede so late in the game (how often have seen that this season) the fact that we came within sixty seconds of a win away from home with the sextet of Thompson, Muscat, Kruse, Leijer, Kemp and Sukha all absent showed that the team is inching its way out of the rut that it somehow had fallen into after four wins in a row. Combine that with the fact that we pretty much ended Sydney's finals aspirations and it wasn't such a bad night.
Key to the improved performance were leadership (something that was significantly absent last week - I'm looking at you Muscat) combined with some youthful exuberance.
In a season that has been far from consistent, the form of Grant Brebner definitely has been. In the absence of both Muscat and Leijer he was rewarded with the captain's armband and again put another key performance in the Victory midfield, showing immense leadership during that difficult first half.
In contrast to Brebner's consistent season, the form of Rodrigo Vargas has been anything but. However, with a leadership role forced on him through the absence of key defenders he put in one of his best performances of the season. One can only hope that it is the necessary fillip for the remainder of the season.
Let's be honest the first half was not a pretty sight from a Melbourne Victory standpoint (or from a Scott Jamieson crossing standpoint) but it was extremely pleasing to see Merrick go to youth for the second half in an attempt to revive the team's performance and they duly delivered. Both Mate Dugandzic and Matthew Foschini put in stellar performances.
Dugandzic, who it seems loves playing against Sydney in Sydney, again injected that much needed pace into the Melbourne front half as he terrorised the lumbering Sydney defence. Many Victory fans are perplexed as to why Matthew Foschini doesn't get more game time than he already has this season and Saturday's performance was definitely a case in point. Much of Sydney's attack came from the flanks in the first half but with Foschini's introduction attacks from his wing were pretty much nullified. It was also a key demonstration of playing players in their natural positions.
Whilst he wasn't introduced at half time, Petar Franjic also marked himself as one for the future with an impressive and assured performance in his debut for the navy blue. Whilst his opportunities for the remainder of the season may be limited you will be definitely be seeing more of him come next season.
Now we look forward to the third and final derby of the season and after severely denting Sydney's finals hope it would be even better to put a significant dent in Heart's finals aspirations. With the possible return of Archie Thompson we could see the old Thompson/Allsopp combination terrorise the Heart defence in front of what I can only hope is a massive crowd - and that we don't see terrible or ugly used again this season to desribe a Victory performance.
