Red card reaction

After Mitch Austin received his second yellow for delaying the restart of play in the 25th minute, Victory underwent several changes in shape over the rest of the match in an effort to find the best way to respond. In the first half, they defended in a 1-4-4-1 shape, with Leroy George pressing ahead of two banks of four. These two banks of four formed perhaps the most disorganised and unbalanced defensive block seen so far this season, struggling to adapt their man orientation to a change in shape. This disorganisation led directly to Oriol Riera’s opener, with Llorente finding Cejudo in acres of space between the Victory lines, with an inadequate reaction eventually resulting with the ball in the back of the net via Riera’s head.Melbourne’s failure to deal with Llorente caused imbalance within the system, allowing too much space between the lines.

This goal also came from clever combination play down Western Sydney’s left side of which we have seen plenty already this season. In the Sydney Derby, Josh Risdon and Cejudo engaged in a variety of wing combinations, resulting in the creation of many opportunities and the exposure of a weakness in Sydney FC’s defensive scheme. In this match however, Llorente made an overlapping run with Cejudo appearing on the inside, which ended up creating space between the lines as the Victory midfield failed to track the movement of the winger.Western Sydney’s near-identical movement against Sydney FC earlier this season.

There was a significant change in the way Victory defended in the second half, with a diamond shape being taken up in midfield as shown below. This allowed for continuity in relation to Victory being able to effectively execute their zonally-based man orientations – an element that defending in two banks of four was not found particularly conducive to.Melbourne Victory’s diamond midfield without possession, with key responsibilities indicated.

The diamond placed extreme demands on all players, with George routinely having to drop to cover one of the holding midfielders of Western Sydney, freeing up the two Victory central midfielders to press the oncoming fullbacks should they move forward to support the attack. The holding midfielder was tasked with marking Mark Bridge tightly, with the fullbacks taking responsibility for tracking the movement of the Wanderers’ wingers. When Oriol Riera dropped off the forward line, one of the Melbourne centre-backs would follow him to undo any advantage that his movement would have created. This was probably the best tactical response Kevin Muscat has made all season, and could be seen as the sole reason why Victory got a point from this match despite being a man down for over an hour. Any chances that Western Sydney did create in the second half were generally in wide areas, and were able to be dealt with fairly easily by the Victory defence.

Conclusion

Melbourne Victory got their equaliser from a set-piece to snatch a hard-earned point from Western Sydney, who already appear to have slightly changed their approach under new manager Josep Gombau. Going down to ten men proved difficult for the Victory, but coach Kevin Muscat made a tremendous adjustment at half-time which resulted in a tough second half for the visitors.

Nathan Muir is an Australian coach and tactical analyst. You can contact him on Facebook @NathanMuirFootball or on Twitter @NathanKMuir.