Melbourne Victory produced their best performance of the season to dispose of Wellington Phoenix 3-2 in front of more than 20,000 fans on Monday night. A double from birthday boy Marco Rojas and a sublime finish from Marcos Flores gave Victory the win, although given a few nervous moments by a superb late Jeremy Brockie brace.

Victory

Went to sleep or changes stall momentum?
I had a crack at Victory’s mentality last week when they capitulated in quick time to the Jets, and although two late goals made the scoreboard closer than it should have been, this wasn’t a case of that. Flores, Finkler and Rojas all made way in the second half and that stopped all Victory momentum. All three players had a big say on the game, taking them off only allowed the Nix a bit of a sniff late on.

Ferreira at right back
This isn’t a position that Diogo Ferriera usually plays, preferably operating as a holding midfielder. He was solid, but wasn’t really tested until late in the piece and it’ll take a while to make a proper judgement on the youngster in the full-back spot. But, it does point to a lack in confidence in the other possible right-back options, such as Matt Foschini who has been caught out of position on so many occasions this season.

Attacking combinations
This was the difference. Flores, Rojas and Thompson repeatedly caught the Phoenix defence square and gave the visitors back four a right old night. Rojas has found his niche under Ange, scoring, near misses and combining with his more senior front men well. Thompson, although having misplaced his scoring boots, creates and sets up rotating wings with Rojas. Flores hasn’t quite hit that form he can really produce, but still has that class to play the ball and combine with his side.

Fast breaks
While one goal came from superb combination play on the edge of the box from Flores and Finkler, two goals came from the quick ball on a break with Flores leading most of it. This allowed Thompson and Rojas to find space and cut in to the box at the right moment for simple finishes, both falling for Rojas. It worked a treat.

Midfield solid
This helped enable the front three to wreak havoc, a midfield of Milligan, Celeski and Finkler were able to play the quick pass to Flores to work to his two fellow frontmen. Finkler, although still adjusting to the physical side of the league, had a great night of the three in particular. There was a clear structure and an ability to hold the ball in midfield in this game; but the real tests come over the season, not one game.

Phoenix

Too much space in midfield
For most of the night, the lines between midfield and defence were too far apart and outnumbered, allowing space for Flores to exploit and allowing Victory the quick transition into attack. You could see that the visitors, through midfielders Manny Muscat and Alex Smith, tried to place the pressure high up to get the quick-ball to the so-far dangerous Huysegems and Ifill, but it failed on the night.

Too square and too high in defence
Now this was rare for the usually disciplined Nix defence, but all three goals came from them either caught too high up without the pace to track Rojas and Thompson or caught too square with no time to stop Flores. It wasn’t just for the goals, but for about 70 minutes of the game as the Nix couldn’t stop the holes being poked by a switched on Victory. It was all-in-all pretty poor from Phoenix, their worst of the season so far.

No shots in the locker
Phoenix had no shortage of attacking power on their teamsheet, with Ifill and Huysegems up front and Fenton and Brockie wide. Ifill has looked short of full fitness to start the season and he’ll be fine the more he plays, Huysegems has looked a find, Fenton looks like he has some real talent and Brockie I’ll talk about later. The biggest issue in this game, however, was the transition between defence and attack was too slow, rendering both Ifill and Huysegems ineffective.

Brockie’s consolation prizes
Phoenix got a sniff of a point through two well hit strikes (one from a free-kick in stoppage time) from the former Jet, who can hit a shot sweetly. He is a handy addition to their attacking ranks, helping to ease the load on Paul Ifill. Like all of his teammates he didn’t quite have an effect on the game until late.

Melbourne nightmares
Despite taking points off Heart with a weakened team last time they were in Melbourne, the Nix have now their lost their past four matches against Victory. Rather than going for that jinx notion, it is more how Victory set up and Phoenix not being at their best that has seen these results.