2017/18 Melbourne Victory Thread. We Are The Champions!!!!

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peternorth said:
On muscy, he's the fave son, probably the first a MVFC Legend. I often worry when fave sons are hired as coaches. Look at voss, hird, buckley. Fans are emotionally attached, as are boards I guess.
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BlueBen said:
I'm not a fan of the concept either. I mean, logically, what are the odds that the best coach for the club is one that's been there all along, particularly in a sport like soccer where the whole world plays the game and the options are almost literally endless.

How could anyone truly believe that Kevin Muscat is the best coach for Melbourne Victory? It makes no sense.
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Do you guys listen to the For Vucks Sakes podcast? The guys on there seem to have the inside info that some of the board and a lot of the staff ain't happy with Kev taking on so much responsibility at the club, he is pretty much running the football department like a dictatorship, not a good look.
They've also reported it a few times last season too, nothing was done because we made the Grand Final but the big rumor is that not everyone is happy with Kev at the club. If the poor results continue then possible rumbling will start to occur.
 
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I'm blown away by how negative people here are. Not because it's necessarily unwarranted - I'm still a bit undecided on that - but because I usually swing towards the negative when it comes to my sporting teams. I'm just not there this season though.

I think that going back to the future can be a bit of a poison chalice. Especially in a league as small as ours, I think people get easily bored. So regardless of the fact that guys like Barbarouses and Milligan were pivotal cogs in our last title, I think people just don't want to see them again - they want to see new exciting players, regardless of the fact that Milligan is probably going to be among the best 2-3 players in the league once we get past the WC qualifiers. On top of that, people think that if you're going back to the future, the team should be able to fire away, which is a unrealistic.

Williams and George are both new to the team this season. Milligan and Barba are both returned players. Deng is essentially a new young recruit, cos he doesn't have the age or the playing minutes from his first stint with Victory to be considered more than that. Brox is in a relatively new position. Donarchie was in and out last season.

That's more than half of our team that weren't regular fixtures with the Victory last season, and I think people need to view this team in the context of this season. The fact that Milligan, Barbarouses, Brox and Donarchie have been with the team before doesn't mean you can drop them into a team and they'll automatically be firing from the word go. We need to be more patient with these guys. I know people are looking ahead to the ACL and wanting to bank points now, and I absolutely agree that we haven't had a great start to the season.

But discussing Muscats future is waaaay premature at this stage. Especially when, in addition to the points that I've made above, we didn't have 3 of the players listed above in week 1, and George was a very late addition. (And I haven't really considered Sanchez cos we haven't seen enough of him - and when we did see him, he had to play out of position.)

When you consider all this, you could fairly view the team as having 1 point from 2 games, rather than 3. And that 1 point came in an away rivalry game, with the lost game against a team that has a lot more resources than us which allows them to drop a player like McCormack straight into their team.

No, as a team, we haven't looked great. But Williams and George - 2 of the new signings - have been probably our best 2 players this season. So when Socceroo stars Milligan and Troisi work their way back into A-League form, and when A-League stars like Barbarouses and Berisha again find their touch, we're still going to be among the best 3 teams in the league (possibly the best 4, depending on how the Wanderers pan out.)

I guess I would advocate for more patience. The impatience of fans, to me, is the worst thing about following a big team - people expect that we're going to amazing straight off the bat every season, when it's just not realistic.

If we fail to get the 3 points against CCM, and/or if we don't beat the Wanderers at home on Cup eve, then I'll be more willing to agree with people heading for the panic stations. But 3 weeks in - 2 weeks in with our best players available - I don't believe we're anywhere near panic stations yet.
 
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StevieDewar said:
Yeah thought Blueben was a bit harsh by adding in Williams to his rant
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Williams has indeed been reasonable so far. In isolation it's not a bad pick-up. It's more the fact that we are adding another old-ish player to an already old squad.

darko said:
Who cares. City won 3/4 games to start the season last year and the only reason they didn't go 4-0 was because of Andy Keogh and his hat trick. How did that work out for them?
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Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

They've still won the games and are already eight points in front of us, even with their best player out injured and other handy players also injured/not selected.

We also have a worse team/squad than last season.

It might be early days, but we are already playing catch-up to Sydney (six points) and City (eight), who many see/saw as our man rivals.

giggler99 said:
Do you guys listen to the For Vucks Sakes podcast? The guys on there seem to have the inside info that some of the board and a lot of the staff ain't happy with Kev taking on so much responsibility at the club, he is pretty much running the football department like a dictatorship, not a good look.
They've also reported it a few times last season too, nothing was done because we made the Grand Final but the big rumor is that not everyone is happy with Kev at the club. If the poor results continue then possible rumbling will start to occur.
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I don't listen to it, but that is very concerning (though not overly surprising) if true. Muscat doesn't seem like the type who would react well to being told that he is wrong about something or that his way is not the best way of doing things. Hopefully those in power at the club have the balls to set him straight.

The worst part is that, if what you say is true, he isn't even close to being qualified to be acting in such a way.

If it means having a down season in order to rid ourselves of Muscat and to freshen things up at the club then so be it.
 

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The team will click and they're top 3 quality easy, issue is I have doubts whether they're good enough to do it in a Grand Final. Not to mention lingering doubts about Kev's rigidity with formation and tactics.

He has to find a new trick quick smart. Bes long term suspension would be dire for us, as Kenny has a foot complaint and is still a couple of weeks away.
 
giggler99 said:
Just in!

The independent Match Review Panel (MRP) – consisting of Simon Micallef (Chair), Alan Davidson, and Matthew Breeze– convened today.

It considered an incident involving Besart Berisha (Berisha) of Melbourne Victory which arose in or around the 45th minute of Melbourne Victory’s Hyundai A-League Round 3 match against Adelaide United on Friday, 20 October 2017.

The MRP has determined that, on the basis of the evidence reviewed, Berisha has a case to answer whether he committed the offence of “Unsporting conduct toward a match official” (Offence).

The MRP has issued a Disciplinary Notice to Berisha and referred the incident to the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee for hearing as to whether the Offence has been committed, and if so, what sanction should be imposed.

Details of the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee hearing will be confirmed shortly."
www.a-league.com.au/news/outcome-independent-match-review-panel-round-3-hyundai-a-league

through it wasn't nice what he did the ref did instigate it and it was delt with on the night with a yellow card. FFA making up the rules again!
Pricks! watch the MRP give him six week now!
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He's copped 2 games.
 
Pakenhamsaint said:
He's copped 2 games.
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Correct! I guess it was the best that could be expected in the circumstances. That said, Michael Zappone said he had spoken to a retired ref who had refereed internationally who said they are told not to touch players - as happened here - but to stand back until the conflict resolves, noting what is occurring. The ref had no place touching Bes. The yellow card should have sufficed.

http://bit.ly/2yO7nlb
 
It's hard to have too much sympathy for him, though. He does tread a fine line at times.

Going to be interesting to see how Mr "Plan B is to do Plan A better" sets things up without Berisha there to bail him out.
 
I haven't read too much about it, but I hope we made some jurisdictional arguments before we got into the guts of the case. Zappone said during the coverage the other night that Berisha's yellow was for the referee contact. Regardless of whether or not he deserved the suspension (which he probably did), it reeks of bullshit that what the sideline reporter was told during the game changed this week, thus giving the FFA another crack at disciplining him.

In addition to that - even if the yellow wasn't for the referee contact... then what the *? What was the 4th official doing on Friday night if there wasn't any sanction at all? It's not like he didn't know he'd been touched.

I think that, in the grand scheme of things, 2 matches is the best we could've hoped for. But it's yet another case example to add to the list of FFA/A-League ineptitude. They are yet again making up/changing rules as they go.
 
AM said:
Correct! I guess it was the best that could be expected in the circumstances. That said, Michael Zappone said he had spoken to a retired ref who had refereed internationally who said they are told not to touch players - as happened here - but to stand back until the conflict resolves, noting what is occurring. The ref had no place touching Bes. The yellow card should have sufficed.

http://bit.ly/2yO7nlb
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Sincerely interested to know.
Do you think the yellow for fouling Elsey sufficed or do you think he deserved a yellow for man handling a ref?
Because you do realise the yellow he got was for the foul on Elsey.
If you’re claiming he deserved a yellow for pushing a ref away then he’d be on two in one game and should’ve been sent off.
 
chazwazza said:
Sincerely interested to know.
Do you think the yellow for fouling Elsey sufficed or do you think he deserved a yellow for man handling a ref?
Because you do realise the yellow he got was for the foul on Elsey.
If you’re claiming he deserved a yellow for pushing a ref away then he’d be on two in one game and should’ve been sent off.
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My feeling is that had it not been Bes, with his colourful past, the yellow for his altercation with Elsey and a reprimand would have done the job. The 4th ref had no business man handling Bes which is why he's been dropped this week I'd suggest
 

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I'd much rather see Waring given a go starting up top than having to endure Austin in a starting role. He (Waring) has been in pretty fierce form over the last couple of weeks looking at the goals he's scored and talking to someone who gets to a few of the NYL matches.
 
The mental application is just not there. The goals we concede are woeful, no brilliance or team play required...Just waltz straight through and have a ping.

We offer even less in attack which is an indictment considering the quality we have invested up front.
 
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