Frustration all around as Victory, City settle for scoreless draw

Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory played out a second scoreless draw of the season on Saturday but Tony Popovic made it quite clear post-game only one team should consider themselves unlucky.

For the second time this season, the Melbourne Derby has ended in a scoreless draw; Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory forced to split the points after huffing and puffing but proving unable to blow the other down. Victory boss Tony Popovic, however, is adamant that only one of those two sides should consider themselves unlucky not to take all three points. 

Largely off the back of a strong first half, Victory outshot City 17 to six, with six of their efforts put on target compared to just three of City's. This bore over to an expected goals (xG) advantage of 1.22 to 0.56 -- with more than two-thirds of City's total xG provided by one 81st-minute breakaway effort from Terry Antonis that was saved by Paul Izzo. 

In something of a rarity, Popovic’s side also saw more of the ball than their traditionally gluttonous foes, controlling 54% of possession compared to City’s 46% and having 31 touches in the City box compared to the 11 of their opponents — Ryan Teague superb in the midfield.

However, none of the statistical dominance produced by the side in navy blue was converted into something that could find a way past Jamie Young, with the closest they came to doing so coming when Jason Geria hit the post in the tenth minute and Zinédine Machach had an effort cleared off the line by Curtis Good in the 29th. 

It meant that Victory have now drawn five of their last six matches, with the other result a1-0 loss to Macarthur last week — their first defeat of the season.

“Typical derby. It was a great spectacle,” Popovic said post-game. “Intense, passion, everything you expect from a derby. 

“We've had two, I know it's at AAMI Park, we've had two away derbies now and I thought the players were outstanding today. So a really, really good performance.”

Asked if this meant his side could consider themselves the more unluckier of the two belligerents to not take the three points – City did have two decent chances to snatch it late through Antonis and Léo Natel – the Victory boss was to the point. 

“I think if you watch the game, you wouldn't ask me that, if we were the unlucky side,” he said. 

“I think you know sometimes you play a game and it's evenly balanced. I thought the last derby was evenly balanced. I thought we were very good today.”

Popovic also bristled at questions surrounding matters of risk, expressing annoyance at queries following up an on-field interview in which goalkeeper Paul Izzo suggested to Network 10 that Victory could potentially look to throw caution a bit further to the wind when they got forward. 

“I'd like to know what is risk?” Popovic said. “What does that mean? What does risk mean?

“When we say risk; we dominated the entries in the box, we dominated shots on the goal. We dominated the game. So it was a very good performance.”

For his part, City boss Aurelio Vidmar admitted that his side wasn’t at their best in the contest, needing to be a bit cleaner in possession and not creating as many chances in the final third as they normally do – even if he felt they’d done a good job of restricting Victory up the other end. 

There was also an acknowledgement that several of his players would need time to find fitness and form after various injuries and time off, with Mat Leckie and Marco Tilio starting their first games on Saturday since returning from injury and arriving on loan from Celtic respectively. 

However, given that his side entered into Saturday evening off the back of 4-2 and 5-1 losses against Perth Glory and Brisbane Roar, a clean sheet in a derby wasn’t something he would turn down. 

"Really pleased with our guys for sure, on the back of what happened last week," he said.

"Really pleased with the commitment and the intensity, the way they worked together."

The City boss also affirmed that the central role that Leckie filled in the fixture would likely be his preferred position heading into the rest of the season, with Natel, Tilio, Marin Jakolis, and Andrew Nabbout already bringing depth to the wide areas.