"We have to be honest" -- As Canberra looms, Victory looking to adress wayward radars
Melbourne Victory aren’t taking enough of their chances. And while you’d rather be missing chances than not creating them at all, it’s something coach Jeff Hopkins knows the team can’t shy away from.
Melbourne Victory aren’t taking enough of their chances. To paraphrase Keisuke Honda, it’s a fact. It’s threatening to drag down their season. And while you’d rather be missing chances than not creating them at all, it’s something Jeff Hopkins knows the team can’t shy away from.
Held to a goalless stalemate by Sydney FC last Sunday, Victory will head to Canberra this weekend in the somewhat unfamiliar position of a midtable scrap: sitting sixth on the table as one of an astounding eight teams separated by just two points. Win in the Australian capital, and they could end the weekend as high as second. Lose, and they could return home as far back as eighth.
For a side that put together one of the most dominant campaigns the competition has seen last year – only to be pipped to the premiership by an even more historic campaign of Melbourne City – it inevitably feels like a bit of a comedown. Doubly so when you look at the league’s summit and note that, even with a few stumbles of their own, their crosstown foes sit clear atop it and well placed to claim a third-straight Premiers’ Plate.
And perhaps adding to the sting – or help ease it, depending on if you’re a glass-half-full kind of person – is that things could look very different. While Victory sit a respectable fourth in the league on a goals per game basis, no side in the A-League Women, per FotMob, has created more expected goals (xG), had more shots on target per game, created as many big chances, won more corners, or had touches in the opposition penalty area than Victory -- next best Melbourne City producing 44 fewer than their 323 in the latter stat. Indeed, if the nerds took over and the table were decided by xG, Victory would sit more than a game clear at its top, eight points better off than its actual haul.
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But alas for the boffins, the table isn’t decided on expected metrics. And despite producing 8.8 xG compared to their opponents’ 3.56 during this run, Hopkins’ side will hit the road winless in their last five games. While no side has created the same volume of big chances that they have in 2025-26, no side has missed more, either: their 19 opportunities squandered five more than next ‘best’ Newcastle, and more than double half the team’s in the league’s figure.
On an individual level, only City’s Holly McNamara has created more big chances than Holly Fuprhy – and Alana Jancevski, Rhianna Pollicina, and Sofia Sakalis rank one through three in chances created – but no player in the league has missed more big chances than striker Kennedy White’s nine, while attacker Rachel Lowe is part of a three-way tie for second with four. Brought in to fill the void left by Emily Gielnik in the offseason, White remains equal third in the Golden Boot standings with seven goals and leads the league in xG but, after netting four across her opening two games, has gone somewhat off the boil: striking just three times in her subsequent eleven appearances.
Clearly, Victory is doing most of the things they need to do to win games of football. And this means that there does exist a platform for them to, relatively soonish, start to put teams away properly and rocket up the table. Indeed, there aren’t many that would count themselves surprised if Hopkins’ side finds a way to build up a head of steam in the second half of the campaign, as they have so often done across his decade-long tenure, and romp towards silverware.
But to do that, they need to start scoring. And the coach says they can’t run away from that.
“It’s a real balance,” Hopkins said. “It’s a tough thing. One of the tough things about coaching is that you can jump in there with two feet and kind of ‘say it as is’ and ruin the confidence of your players. But you can’t look away from it either.
“The thing that’s been the real good thing over the last few weeks, that we have kind of looked at everything very, very clinically, and there’s no pointing fingers, but [there is acknowledgement] this is what’s happening, and this is what needs to be better. It’s not just that we haven’t been putting chances away. There are other areas of our game that we haven’t been good enough in, that we’ve had to look at.
“Sometimes it’s pretty hard. That’s why they’re professional athletes. We can’t hide things from them. We have to be honest. They have to know that we’re saying these things and highlighting these things for one reason: that’s to make us better and to get us winning the following week. There’s been no problem there.
“Over the past three or four weeks, as normal, we’ve highlighted a number of things that we need to be better at. That’s how we work: we play, we review, we work on things, and then we go again.”
For Furphy, continuing to bolster her reputation as a future Matilda in what is her first full season of professional football after spending several years in the US collegiate system, it’s something she acknowledged the playing group is actively working on.
“It’s just really converting those chances that we get,” said the attacker. “It’s just that final action, and we’ve just been really trying to focus on that and just that intent to put it away.
“For me, I would say it’s mindset, but as a group, it’s just repetition. It’s practising those intense moments where the ball drops and trying to get those chances away. But other than that, I think mindset is a really big part of it.”
Canberra, for their part, will also be seeking to rebound when they welcome the Wuck to McKellar Park on Saturday. Despite sitting third, their form isn’t all that better than their opponents over the past month, picking up just the one win in their last five games, and they will take the field smarting from back-to-back losses against Wellington and Brisbane.
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Nonetheless, as demonstrated by a memorable ten-day stretch in which they downed Victory, City, and Sydney FC in quick succession, Antoni Jagarinec’s side has what it takes to go toe-to-toe with any side in the A-League Women this season, a campaign in which they currently field the competition’s third-most miserly defence on both a goals per 90 and xG basis.
“What you see is what you get with them,” Hopkins said of Canberra. “They’re a very physical side. They go out, and they try to win games. We know going there is going to be tough. They’re going to come at us, which sometimes might leave them a little bit open. But it’s always a physical game against them.
“If we look at [the 0-0 draw with Sydney], that was the thing for me: we were prepared to roll our sleeves up and get down and get dirty and get physical. I think it’s going to be a similar type of game this week. Obviously, [Canberra] plays a little bit differently [to Sydney]. Don’t play with a back four, play with a three, sometimes a five. We may have to change things around, the way that we go defensively.
“But it’s going to be a really good, entertaining game. Because we’re not going there for a draw, we’re going there to win the game as well. So it’ll be two teams going pretty hard at each other. And a team that deals with the opposition’s front line and the transition moments will come out on top.”
After she fractured her wrist against Adelaide a fortnight ago, Victory will once again be without Pollicina for the trip to the ACT, but could welcome her back for their Shepparton-based fixture with Newcastle the following week. Nicki Flannery will continue to be absent for at least a few more weeks.