Central Coast 4, Melbour….ZzZzZzZzZzZz

By: Marcus | November 10th, 2009

We came into this match winning 6 out of the past 7 matches and hoping to improve on the 3-0 defeat we suffered out the hands of Central Coast at home in round 1. This match showed the form doesn’t count for anything in this league as the out of form Mariner’s did one better than there win at the start of the year.

Central Rise, Melbourne Fall

Melbourne Victory: 0
Central Coast Mariners: 4 (Kwasnik 15, Simon 75, Heffernan 80, Mrdja 84)
Crowd: 18,531 at Etihad Stadium

Melbourne started the match with a 3-4-3 with Surat Sukha returning from injury but left on the bench. This was the same formation that was used in our last defeat out the hands of Sydney and the formation held the same consequences.

It only took the Mariner’s 15 minutes to figure out Melbourne and get on the score sheet, the boys were playing far to narrow. Central Coast started from the back and pushed towards the left wing which was vacant due to the formation. Broxham pulled back and attempted to clear the danger but only made it worse, his miss kick wasn’t cleared by the Melbourne defence and eventually it found its way to Nicky Travis who was allowed to to much space and managed to get a shot away. The shot was parried by Moss but fell to Kwasnik who made no mistakes and made it 1-0.

Melbourne hit he target twice, unfortunately it wasn’t the goal. Melbourne were awarded a free kick in defence and Muscat tried to get the ball moving quick, he belted the ball and it hit the ref from point blank range. Later in the half Hernandez attempted to kick the ball, unfortunately for John Hutchinson Carlos got him fair and square in the ball, OUCH. (funny how Carlos also went down injured)

In the second half Sutee had a golden opportunity to make scores level as the ball fell to him at the back of a scrap inside the box, but his poor first touch cost him the goal as CCM custodian Vukovic reacted quickly to quell the danger.

From the 75th minute onwards was horrific for all Victory fans as a shambolic backline and some dreadful keeping saw Melbourne turn a 1-0 deficit to our worst defeat in our history, as the Mariner’s helped themselves to the goals.

On 75 minutes Matt Simon rose at the far post and nodded the corner goal wards. Moss was flat footed as per usual and CCM went 2-0 up.

5 minutes later Heffernan’s low drive went under Moss to make it 3-0, and on on 84 minutes Mrdja ended the rout with another goal from a corner.

It was a dreadful match. Central Coast stuck to there game plan extremely well and deserved all 3 points, should not have scored 4 goals though. For Melbourne in my mind this match highlighted that we must play with a back four, and Kemp and Surat must be the wing backs. Whenever Muscat, Leijer and Vargas all play we seem very lucky to get a point let alone 3, one of them has to be benched, I think it should be Vargas as Muscat and Leijer are both very solid and are good passers. Archie is also driving me insane, I mean he plays like he think his Messi and it doesn’t work, he’s a shadow of his former self and is far to inconsistent. This result cannot be ignored as it is our worst defeat in our history.
Merrick got rewarded with a 2 year contract before this match, now he has to show why he got it.