Melbourne Victory ready for derby day

With the already rumored presale of 20,000 tickets for the Melbourne derby this Friday, the blue side of Melbourne could not have wished for a better performance after a comfortable 3-1 victory over the Wellington Phoenix.

The three points will be a welcome relief for coach Mehmet Durakovic who has been under increasing pressure this season following an inconsistent start to the season

“We have been playing good football for a few weeks now, but today we really topped it off” said the Victory boss.

It took the home side only four minutes to open the scoring through a Archie Thompson header after a delightful cross by Billy Celeski, while the home side doubled their lead thanks largely to luck as a Hernandez cross took a huge deflection off former Victory midfielder Vince Lia leaving Tony Warner stranded on the spot.

The onslaught continued only three minutes later as a poor clearance by Sigmund was met by Diogo Ferreira who unleashed a stunning volley from outside the area to all but condemn the visitors to their fifth defeat of the season.

Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert was clearly disappointed with his side’s effort as they were outplayed throughout the ninety minutes .

“We just didn’t look good, we weren’t sharp enough. We clearly got away with it a little bit today as it could have been a lot worse”.

It could have been a lot worse indeed for the traveling side, as Victory squandered numerous opportunities in the second half with Hernandez and Kewell failing to find the net having only Warner to beat, while the latter also had a brilliant play where he made the Wellington defence look like children, dribbling past four before blazing his shot well over the bar.

The only positive to come out of the game for the Phoenix will be Alex Smith’s consolation goal in which he showed brilliant skill to lose his defender, Fabio, before curling a shot past Covic with the outside of his right foot.

A red-card to midfielder Billy Celeski means he will miss the match against the Heart, but apart from that Durakovic will be confident of another three points against the red side of Melbourne despite Thompson limping off late into the game- “ Archie will be fine. He sprained his ankle a little bit but will be ready Friday” stated the Victory boss.

The win nevertheless sets up a fascinating Melbourne derby this Friday, which is most definitely the most-even contested game that we will see between the two. Heart have won five of their last six games while the Victory look like they are finally turning the corner after a horrendous start to the campaign.