The joy and dispair, optimism and apprehension, of Western's 4-3 win over Victory

Western United's 4-3 win over Melbourne Victory wasn't just a humdinger of a game but one that could become a platform for John Aloisi's young side. For Victory, though, concerns can only deepen.

Western United beat Melbourne Victory 4-3 on Friday evening. Just how they were able to do so, coming back from the death to steal the win, is something that will haunt Victory boss Arthur Diles, whose run of games without a win since he was elevated to interim coach now stands at five. John Aloisi, conversely, will probably want to try to bottle whatever it was that lifted his side to yet another truly remarkable win. Or perhaps the United coach already has begun that process, given this was the second game in seven days his side has scored twice in the dying embers of a match to turn defeat into triumph.

Thrice, Victory took the lead at AAMI Park but on all three occasions they proved unable to hold it; goals from Noah Botić and Hiroshi Ibusuki in the 91st and 94th minutes turning what was shaping as a 3-2 defeat into a miraculous 4-3 result. Last week, a win over Perth Glory carried both an air of madness but also cruelty, unexpectedly denying the West Australians a desperately needed win at the last with one of the most ridiculous goals in league history from Jordan Lauton. This time around, though, there was almost a sense of inevitably surrounding how they stormed back into the contest as the underdog.

As while Santos may have netted in the 79th minute to restore the lead after Abel Walatee had made it 2-2 ten minutes prior, the second half was all United. Creating a series of chances almost as soon as the second stanza commenced, Aloisi’s young side was as dominant across the second 45 minutes as they had been meek in the first, turning around the game that should have long since been put beyond their grasp and, instead, keeping on scrapping, running, and probing until they got their reward; Aloisi remarked post-game that Botić and Ibusuki had probably begun to run out of gas in the final minutes but, given the way the wind was blowing, he felt he needed to keep them out there to finish the job.

Taking the lead through Brendan Hamill and then restoring it through Bruno Fornaroli after Ibusuki netted his first of the evening, that Victory only went into halftime leading by a single goal would surprise in a vacuum but not if one has been watching this side in recent years. Able to work the ball into threatening areas of the pitch in the opening stanza and into scenarios where a goal could easily have arisen, they had 13 shots to three in the opening half, fashioning five big chances to one and registering 2.15 expected goals (xG) to 0.42 but still left their opponents breathing. Fornaroli’s goal was the first scored from open play by a Victory attacker in over a month and their lack of a killer edge let down a performance that was otherwise one of their better ones – the midfield of Jordi Valadon and Ryan Teague dictating terms.

Nonetheless, it was almost inconceivable that Jason Geria’s final game in a Victory shirt before he moved to Japan would end in anything other than a win at the break. And if there’s one thing that could be said to leave a bitter taste after an exhilarating contest it's that one of the league’s best and most widely respected players has seen his farewell go like this. Diles, for his part, would say that was the most disappointing thing about Friday night.

But the changes that Aloisi sprung at halftime, experiencing more joy in moving the ball into wide areas and searching for their target man, doing an improved job of defending transition, and better closing down the pockets of space that Victory had exploited in the opening half, couldn’t be matched by Diles. Retreating further and further into their shell as time trickled away, the move to take off Zinedine Machach – Victory’s best attacker on the evening and a key figure in keeping United honest in intent – and replace him with another defender in Josh Rawlins backfired, allowing the visitors to truly pin their ears back and look to find their strikers, one of whom, Ibusuki, was dominant.

And as the Japanese striker ran away in celebration of his 94th-minute winner, there was a decided sense that as bad as things had suddenly got for Victory, this could prove a defining result for this United side. The process, in reality, is invariably a long and gradual one but often there are games that offer a narrative, and sometimes mental, marker for sides. They’re the fixtures where a team could be said to ‘arrive’ and announce themselves just as much to themselves as their rivals and for Aloisi’s young side, Friday evening could have been that. This is a young group, its average age less than 25 at kickoff, and it has taken plenty of lumps since they first started being integrated into the first team last season. But thanks to what has been a deliberate process of integration and incorporation of young talent into the setup — as opposed to just throwing youth in because results have turned — it’s now starting to dish out some punishment of its own.

Last week, their win over Perth the week prior was dramatic but it came against an outfit only being prevented from plumbing new depths by Brisbane somehow being worse. Not quite a signature moment. This, though, was a game against their biggest rivals, against a foe packed with talent on a primetime stage, and it ensured that they immediately responded to their midweek loss to Melbourne City by making it five wins in six. The United side of last year doesn’t win this game – we know that because we watched them lose it, shipping injury-time goals to Damien De Silva to fall to defeat last February – but after this result moved them into fourth, level on points with City and Adelaide, and with there being no true standout side in the league this season, mayhaps some of the young players, increasingly growing in confidence, are looking at their veteran teammates to ask, why not us?

On the other side of the coin, however, things are starting to get alarming for Victory. They can point to Reno Piscopo’s disallowed second half goal but to do so would obfuscate that they were soundly beaten in the second half.

Should Sydney and Macarthur win their games this weekend, they will fall outside the top six for the first time all season and, with a trip to face Adelaide United and then a visit from their Big Blue rivals their next two games on tap, the coming fortnight carries the air of a defining one. Winless since it occurred, the club, undoubtedly, has been left high and dry by Patrick Kisnorbo’s shock walkout but, at the same time, it was their decision-makers who opted to take a gamble on the former City legend. And even looking beyond the change in the dugout, this is a squad whose talent shouldn’t be going five games without a win; director of football John Didulica told ESPN it was the best in the league last month.

Thrust into the fire by Kisnorbo’s exit, Diles has been dealt an incredibly difficult hand. But as he acknowledged post-game, to be the Victory coach — even if, as far as the club has communicated, he’s still an interim — is to embrace scrutiny and pressure. Five games without a win for a club that expects silverware will demand a response if Victory is the club it deigns to tell everyone it is. Should their losing run extend to seven after Red and Sky Blue meetings, the pressure will become suffocating not just on the interim, but everyone in a decision-making role. Because while the desolate Australian football media space can’t make the noise it once did, the fans will certainly look to make up for it.