Victory looking to build as Matildas duo returns and Holly Mac is back at City

Victory coach Jeff Hopkins is confident Matildas duo Emily Gielnik and Alex Chidiac can slot back without the unit missing a beat as Phoenix visit Bundoora, while Holly McNamara is back for City.

After putting in what he views as his side’s “most complete” performance of the season in last Sunday’s win over Perth, Melbourne Victory coach Jeff Hopkins is confident that Matildas duo Emily Gielnik and Alex Chidiac can slot back in without the unit missing a beat.

Taking advantage of Brisbane’s loss to Wellington, Victory vaulted into second on the A-League Women table after crossing the Nullarbor and downing the Glory last Sunday, taking all three points thanks to a 92nd-minute winner from Alanna Murphy.

Despite being without the league’s leading scorer in Gielnik and their main creative force in Chidiac, Victory held Glory to 0.7 expected goals (xG), per FbRef, their equal-lowest total on the season. Simultaneously, they recorded 1.7 xG themselves, a shade under their best figure of 1.8 in 2024-25.

And Hopkins is confident that Victory won’t miss a beat when their international duo return for a meeting with the Phoenix this Friday at the Home of the Matildas.

“Pretty sure [Glory was] our most complete performance so far this season,” he said. “We didn't finish things off as well as we could have done or should have done in the final third. But everything we talked about before the game… I thought we started the game really well. We were composed. We played the way we wanted to try and play this season.

“ We left it late and obviously it looks like the game was probably a bit tighter than it really was, but I thought we definitely deserved to win the game.

“ [Gielnik and Chidiac] have come back full, full of confidence, and probably nice and fresh as well; we've obviously come back off a journey to Perth [Gielnik and Chidiac played in Geelong on Saturday].

“[The Perth performance was] something we've been working on; [working on] a few things over the last maybe three or four weeks, and Emily and Chids have been a big, big part of that. The players that came in last week fitted into that really smoothly. I don't think we tried to do anything differently without those two players, which we wouldn't have done if they had been in there.

“It’s about just refining and defining a few things, rather than changing things because we've got two different, two new players potentially coming back into the side.”

19-year-old attacker Ella O’Grady came into the side for Gielnik against the Glory and Hopkins made a particular point of praising her impact and potential, as well as noting that the start had been a bigger deal than he realised at the time.

“She's been superb off the bench this year,” Hopkins said. “She's brought us energy, she's brought us pace, and a lot of quality.

“ didn't realise it was her first starting game for us last week, which I have apologized to her for. She told me that after the game – sometimes you forget how young these players are and how inexperienced they are.

“I want to say congratulations to her and well done to her because she's turning into a great little player and a very important player for us.

“She can go all the way. The way that she's affected games off the bench so far, she just needs to keep building on that. She's got a great attitude, she works really hard in training, and she listens. She wants to get better. Her ceiling could be as far as she wants to take herself.”

After starting their campaign with back-to-back-to-back losses, Paul Temple’s side has begun to hit their straps in recent weeks with wins over Adelaide United and Brisbane Roar.

After escaping New Zealand with a 2-2 draw earlier in the season, Victory raced to a 4-0 halftime lead over the Phoenix before eventually winning 5-3 the last time the two met in Bundoora and Hopkins is expecting another intense clash this weekend.

“I'm expecting a big challenge,” said Hopkins. “They're a good footballing side, a very good footballing side. They do things a little bit differently to a number of other teams in the league. They press really well and they've got a number of good individuals on the side.

“We're always prepared for a real scrap with them. And we know that they'll be well prepared. They'll do their homework on us as well. We've had a bit of time, not to work on the field, but we've done a fair bit off the field. What I'd like to see is that we can bring last week's performance into the game and start to improve and refine a few of the areas that we weren't quite good enough last week.”

Aside from long-term injuries, Victory will have a full-strength squad to choose from on Friday, with two of the former – Lia Privitelli (ankle) and Paige Zois (knee) – said by Hopkins to be targeting a return to full training during the Christmas/New Year period.

Across town, City are set to welcome back Holly McNamara for the first time in 13 months in their meeting with Canberra United this Sunday, with the Matildas attacker named in Michael Matricciani’s squad after getting through a trial fixture against one of the club’s youth teams last week.

The attacker, 21, re-aggravated an ACL injury in her right knee that she first suffered as a 15-year-old in a win over Newcastle last November, just days after she’d earned a re-call to the national setup with an eye on adding to her three caps before the Paris Olympics.

The dynamo has also previously ruptured the ACL in her left knee in February 2022 and was cut down by a foot stress fracture as a 17-year-old.

"I think the physios at Melbourne City are getting pretty sick of me begging and asking [to return]," she told Network Ten a fortnight ago.

"But I've got to be smart this time.

"You get to that end-stage [of rehab] and you think you're fine, you think you're invincible and you might not be.

“For me, it's just getting back into it, getting that confidence.

“Obviously getting hit is a big thing when you come back from ACLs. I've told my teammates 'Please, just hit me at training' - you just need to get used to it again.

"If you get a few fouls, you get a few fouls in training. But it prepares you and I'm looking forward to that side of it."

Header Image: Melbourne Victory