One out two ain't half bad

Before last night's game I was hoping it was going to be a good night. Three points for the Victory and a Labor win in the federal election. As it turned out I only one out of two with the Victory taking only a point in 1-1 draw with Wellington Phoenix. But as a bonus there was the distinct possibility that Little Johnny would also lose his seat. I guess it made up for a rather disappointing night at the football.

Three weeks ago when we went a man down against the Mariners we played some out of our best football of the season. But last night's performance was terrible, some might say abysmal. The contrast between the two games was immense. Whereas against the Mariners we played all our football through Hernandez and Vasilevski, last night at home we decided that our best possibility would be to lob the long ball forward from defence and hope Allsopp and Thompson would be able to run onto it and hit the Phoenix on the counter. This tactic completely bypassed our midfield and took them out of the game. Quite frankly it was the wrong tactic and it gave the advantage to the Phoenix who put us under constant pressure for most of the second half.

Discipline again was the problem last night, with Muscat receiving a straight red for an ordinary two footed challenge on Brown. It was one of the minutes of madness that we were accustomed to seeing in Season 1 and with Muscat's record it wouldn't surprise me if he sat out more than one game. It was the fourth straight red card received by a Victory player this season and it is costing us games. Merrick needs to lay down the law as if this trend continues we will be definitely missing out of finals football.

Onto Merrick, I wish he would stop staying that he is happy with the way the team is playing because after last night's performance it just comes across as total crap. Twenty thousand supporters saw that we played ordinary football, why can't one man on his plastic seat admit that this is the case. At the moment he is not kidding anyone. And please Ernie please play Patafta, you have one of the most technically brilliant young players in this country and you don't even have him on your bench. I'm sitting there with my fellow Prawn Sandwich Crew members with my Patafta Victory shirt on and most times I'm there he isn't even on the bench and I feel a little stupid. He could quite easily fit into the attacking midfielder role in between Hernandez and the front two and quite frankly he is a better option than Love who tends to lose the ball out of bounds more often than not at crucial times. While am at it, with this little rant, where is Ryall? We flew him back business class last week so we could play him against the Roar but hasn't been spotted since. He is a good quality player and we need him in the back half. Take a risk Ernie!

Finally, a word must go to the supporters who under some duress got behind their team although it was odd to hear the north end, south end call going from the third level to the first level and not from north to south. As I said in my previous post, it is a massive overreaction from the Telstra Dome authorities and its time for the Victory admin to pull its head out of the sand.