Central Coast defeat slugglish Melbourne 2-0 | Thebigtip

This weekend's loss taught me two things:

1.       Predicting the outcome of a game can come back to bite you hard, and

2.       Possession means nothing if you can’t capitalise on it

It was a dirty night for the Melbourne Victory, who tonight lost 2-0 away to Central Coast in front of 6,829 fans. Dejected Melbourne captain Kevin Muscat summed up the loss perfectly when labelling his sides effort as being “un-Melbourne Victory like” and the free kicks in which they came from as being “soft”.  It was a game in which Melbourne dominated every major statistic, except for the most important, the scoreboard.

After dominating the opening 20 minutes, Melbourne found themselves behind courtesy of a Rosten Griffiths header in the 21st minute. The goal came from a set piece taken by Michael McGlinchey, who’s perfectly weighted floating cross found Griffiths who nodded it past a tentative looking Michael Petkovic. 1-0 Central Coast.

It should come as no surprise that Melbourne conceded a goal from a set piece as it is a real sore point for the Navy Blues and it is something that opposition teams are quickly figuring out and exploiting to devastating effect. After tonight’s game, of the 9 goals Melbourne have conceded 5 of them have been from set pieces. It’s something that needs to be addressed if Melbourne is to make any impact in the latter stages of the season and, in particular, the Asian Champions League.

Melbourne would have gone into the half time break frustrated by not being able to capitalise on their time in possession, with the Central Coast’s back 4 led by evergreen defender Patrick Zwaanswijk, who at 35 played an instrumental role in keeping Melbourne scoreless.

The second half started with Melbourne again dominating possession, however it wasn’t long until they found themselves behind thanks to a Daniel McBreen header in the 49th minute. McBreen, who’s girlfriend had broken water before the game, scored a diving header beating Petkovic at the near post, from a suburb Matt Simon cross. It has to be said that Melbourne’s defence was a shambles, with Kevin Muscat failing to pick up the free McBreen, who scored his first goal as a Mariner. 2-0 Mariners.

After going 2-0 down it was always going to an uphill battle for Melbourne, and the Mariner’s defensive tactics didn’t help Melbourne’s cause at all, with the Men in Yellow seeming content to just park the proverbial bus. This prompted Ernie Merrick to make a move, and in the 53rd minute Billy Celeski and new recruit Ricardinho came on for Tom Pondeljak and Leigh Broxam.

Ricardinho was making his highly anticipated debut for Melbourne, and after a few nervous touches he got himself into some dangerous positions and in the 70th minute Carlos Hernandez found him in the box with a superb cross but Ricardinho could only head it high and wide. The intent was there however and we can get used to hearing those two names together in future Melbourne fixtures.

It was a dirty night for Melbourne, they were comprehensively beaten on the night and you could just sense that the Mariners were happy to sit back and let Melbourne dominate possession before launching devastating counter attacks. It was frustrating just how much of the ball Melbourne gave away, throughout the night their build up play was great until they reached the Mariners box.

Typical of Melbourne’s play was the unselfishness shown by the attackers. Too many times tonight both Robbie Kruse and Mate Dugandzic had chances to shoot but instead tried to bring their teammates into the game to the detriment of their attacking drive. Melbourne conceded needless fouls and turned the ball over far too many times in their offensive area.

Melbourne’s tactic should have been to target the Mariner’s 18 year old keeper Matthew Ryan, using the air to coax the inexperienced keeper off his line and out of his comfort zone, but instead Melbourne chose to concentrate its attacks from deep inside the midfield. The Mariner’s played them perfectly, cutting off the space and really suffocating the Melbourne forwards, who by late in the game appeared stagnant. Michael Petkovic was almost non-existent in goals, and appeared to have left his kicking game on the Gold Coast.

Kevin Muscat will be dirty with himself after tonight’s display, clearly beaten and exposed for pace, the Melbourne skipper at times appeared rattled by the Mariner’s ferocious attack at the ball, exemplified when Muscat was pushed off the ball by a rampaging Matt Simon. Simon was fantastic tonight and he typified the Mariner’s hard approach at the ball.

The fact of the matter is that when you are not winning games at home then you need to be getting the points on the road and Melbourne just aren’t doing that. Yes it’s only the fifth round but slow starts can be costly. Next weeks home game against the Roar presents Kevin Muscat and his men with an opportunity to get their season back on track and hopefully break their AAMI Park hoodoo.