Foursome Victory blow Sydney FC away
Melbourne Victory netted four times against Sydney and if not for the all-seeing eye in the sky, it would have been seven. No wonder Arthur Diles felt it was the best they've ever played under him.
There were two distinct cheers when Santos rocketed his 53rd-minute attempt beyond Harrison Devenish-Meares at AAMI Park on Monday afternoon. The first came when the Brazilian deposited it up where the spiders live, the north terrace rising to lead the chorus as the goalscorer wheeled away up the other end, his shirt already coming off, to celebrate in front of the travelling contingent of Sydney FC fans. The second came a few minutes later, when the Sky Blue kicked off to resume play and confirmed that, this time, VAR intervention wasn’t going to rule the goal out.
Intervention from the all-seeing eye in the sky had thrice denied Victory a go-ahead goal to that point, identifying offsides to deny Santos and Jason Davidson in the opening stanza before then picking out a handball by the latter when he headed home early in the second. Combined with their controversial would-be-winner against Adelaide United the week prior, it meant that Arthur Diles’ side had now had their last four ‘goals’ wiped away for retrospective infractions. You got the feeling that if Davidson’s sarcastic requests for another review had actually been fulfilled, his head might have ended up nestled on Mars.
This time, however, there was nothing to prevent Santos’ goal from standing. Neither was there anything keeping him from his second nine minutes later, nor Keegan Jelacic’s gorgeous 79th-minute bender or Lachlan Jackson’s 82nd-minute header. 4-0. His class irresistible, 37-year-old magician Juan Mata ended the night with three assists, moving to a league-leading seven for the campaign, and could have had even more if not for the disallowed goals he set up.
On another day, the combination of a cavalcade of missed chances and disallowed goals could have easily led to the players losing focus and concentration and promptly shipping a cheap goal. Indeed, Victory seems to play to a fatalistic narrative more than any other team in the A-League Men – see their recent loss to Western Sydney – and it felt like this contest was being primed for Sydney to shithouse their way to a go-ahead goal they would then grimly hold onto for the rest of the 90.
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“In games like that, it can easily go against you and bite you in the backside,” said Diles. “We’ve been on the [receiving end] of that a few times since I’ve been at this club. That’s something that I didn’t want to happen, but you always have that in the back of your mind, because you think you know you’re so dominant, you’re creating so many chances, some of which are disallowed, and the last thing you want is to cop one at the other end.
“That’s a credit to the players for keeping their heads and staying mentally switched on. We spoke before the game about being relentless today from start to finish, and making it really difficult for them, and that’s the most pleasing part that we did that for 90 minutes.”
By the end of the game, the narrative had shifted. Video reviews or disallowed goals weren’t the story, but, instead, one of the best wins Victory has logged in quite some time. The hosts, quite simply, had played a disappointing Sydney off the park almost straight from the opening kickoff. Despite the absence of Roderick Miranda and Jack Duncan, their defence was rarely troubled. Their midfield played up to the sum of its parts and was dominant. Their attack didn’t fall to pieces after going into the halftime break level and instead persevered to open the floodgates.
Victory scored four goals. They could have easily had seven. And despite all that, Devenish-Meares was probably Sydney’s best player. A pretty good day at the office, one that Diles admitted was probably the best since he took over as coach last season.
“It’s hard to remember two dominant halves like that, where you don’t fall off,” he said. “Normally, you can have one outstanding half, and you fall away. Or you don’t start well, and then you have a great second half. But in terms of 90 minutes, that was probably the best one so far, for sure.”
Of course, for just as good a night as this was for Victory, it was a terrible one for the Sky Blues; their fourth-placed ladder position feeling less and less indicative by the week. Ufuk Talay’s side had been similarly disappointing the last time they came to the venue, just a few weeks back against Melbourne City. But whereas the defending champions had bashed their heads against a brick wall repeatedly, their crosstown foes broke right through it.
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Even allowing for the disallowed goal of their own, a double-touch off a corner from Piero Quispe cancelling out Victor Campuzano’s goal to make it 2-1, they never looked like they were capable of beating Victory once they started to feel scoreboard pressure – struggling to string together passes that would do anything to give their rivals pause – ultimately touching the ball in the opposition penalty area just the 15 times compared to the 41 up the other end – struggling to cover Victory’s repeated set piece delivery towards the back post, and getting caught out in transition time and time again.
“What we struggled with today was just the basic fundamentals of being able to control the ball and pass the ball,” Talay said. “Generally, when that happens in a game, it’s one or two players, but I think it was basically the whole squad that struggled with that today.
“We weren’t good at keeping the ball. We weren’t good at executing the game plan. There were times where we could play through the lines and through the pocket -- we did it once or twice in the first half, where we got [Patrick] Wood in behind. Other than that, we just struggled with the basic fundamentals of being able to control the ball and pass the ball.”
Remarkably, Sydney could have gone top of the league had they got the win on Sunday. Instead, they remain in fourth, albeit just six points clear of tenth. And all of a sudden, they’ve won just one of their last five games, with a massive Sydney Derby against a Western Sydney outfit riding a new coach bounce and the addition of new signing Ryan Fraser next week, followed by a clash with table-toppers Auckland. Joe Lolley’s return for the first of those two games should help massively, but clearly, there’s plenty of improvement to be found across the park and the English winger is the only one of their lengthy injury list that will likely be back next week.
“I think this is the third time this season we’ve had an opportunity to go to the top spot, and every time we’ve had that opportunity, we haven’t taken it. Which is quite disappointing,” said the Sydney coach. “We have, besides our backline, and maybe Víctor [Campuzano], we have a relatively young squad; some young players in there.
“It’s not easy playing for Sydney FC. I think the jersey does carry a lot of weight, and they’ve got to live up to that expectation. But the only way they can live up to that weight is by playing more games.”
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