United have not tasted victory against Melbourne in the A-League since October 2007, The Reds unable to find the back of the net in five of the six defeats.

Despite this recent run of results, this is a new season and Vidmar says past results count for nothing as he prepares for another highly anticipated showdown between the two rivals at Hindmarsh tomorrow night.

"Certainly the stats don't stack our way in terms of the results last year, but this is a new season so we'll just take it as we see it tomorrow," Vidmar said. "We need to win and hopefully that's tomorrow night. We're not going to try anything different, we just need to be playing at our very best to get a result.

"It's a different year. They're going through a bit of a rough patch, we've been up and down as well so I wouldn't read too much into what's happened in the last seven results."

Melbourne's 'rough patch' that Vidmar refers to has Victory with only one win from the opening six rounds, but with an imposing recent record against the Reds, the United boss knows better than to write off last season's champions and is well aware of just how dangerous they can be.

"They're still a very good football side. The first couple of rounds, although they didn't get the results, they played some pretty good stuff but they just didn't get the results, so they're still going to be a very hard opponent, they always are," Vidmar said.

"It's always a big week when it's a game against Melbourne. Obviously we've had a fair few entertaining games, and I would imagine tomorrow would be no exception."

Having lost Paul Reid and Michael Marrone through injury, Vidmar regains central defender Robert Cornthwaite from suspension, while midfielder Kristian Sarkies has also been included in the squad against his former side after a long lay off with a calf injury, the 22 year-old's last A-League appearance coming in last season's semi final first leg, ironically against Melbourne.

United got back on track last week after a narrow 1-0 win over the Central Coast Mariners although they could only muster one goal despite producing a host of chances and some of their best football of the season.

Vidmar hopes his team can start making their chances count against  Victory and send a statement to the rest of the competition.

"It certainly is (a chance to send a statement). We were desperate for a win last week and we're desperate for another win tomorrow night, so if we can play to our potential then I'm confident that we can get the three points," Vidmar said. "It's certainly going to be a tough game because they always are, and there is probably going to be a lot of emotion as there always is against Melbourne, so we're really looking forward to it."

Reds defender Scott Jamieson, who is yet to experience a win against Melbourne in the A-League, believes United will be ready and claims having a vocal home crowd behind the Reds will provide them with that advantage.

"With the fans from last year and again this year, they've been fantastic so I think they've been pretty disappointed we haven't actually beaten them, but sooner rather than later we're going to get one over them.

"The fans have been fantastic this year, so if we can get a full house there is no better stage to do it (break the drought against Melbourne)," said Jamieson.