Off the mark

Its nice to be able to finally leap out of your seat and scream in celebration as your team finally puts the goal in the back of the net at their home ground. Something which they hadn't done for over 240 minutes. And last night we got to do it twice as the Melbourne Victory snapped its drawing sequence with a 2-0 win over the Queensland Roar. But with all the joy of winning our first game of the season, there is still some questions that need to be answered.

Our first half was abysmal. We barely created two chances on goal. I thought I was having flashbacks to season one. Our midfield lacked cohesion and lacked any type of creativity. The lack of creativity is my major concern. I don't think we can have Muscat, Broxham and Brebner all playing in the midfield together and for me the one that has to go is Brebner. Last night he looked slow and was often beaten to the ball or stripped of possession all too easily. Its time for Merrick to bite the bullet and play Hernandez in the centre of the midfield and play our game through him. Also I can't believe a talent such as Caceres is left on the bench along with Hernandez. We always look better when he is on the pitch and its no coincidence we scored both our goals after he came on. Our insistence on the long ball out of defence is starting to wear a little thin as we constantly get beaten in the air and the ball comes straight back in. You could see Theoklitos getting frustrated as he often wanted to throw the ball out but no one was giving him any options. Players such as Keenan and Vargas should be giving Theoklitos an option to bring the all out of defence in a much more controlled and reliable manner.

It looks like fellow bloggers Hamish and Jessica are both in for a long season supporting the Roar. For the most part their attacking third of the pitch lacked inspiration with their best chance coming from Craig Moore, whose shot was acrobatically saved on the line by Vargas. The crowd was in fine voice again last night and even the normally reserved gold member section was lending its voice to some of the chants. A real camaraderie is starting to develop between fans in the area where I sit and opinions, jokes thoughts and high fives are shared. I missed most of the lead up play to our second goal as I was laughing at the string of amusing insults in Spanish that were being hurled at the Victory players by an Uruguayan fan sitting in front of us. I don't think I will be repeating them in my next Spanish lesson.

Looking forward we have a couple of tough road trips as we head off to Sydney and then Adelaide to take on our fiercest rivals. Our midfield issues are still to be sorted but things are looking promising with Thompson coming into form and Leandro Love proving to be an excellent acquisition. Once these have been sorted we will start to go from strength to strength. Lets hope so.