Team selections of the Victory

Although coaches know more about football then the typical fan, they don't always make the right decisions. As Melbourne Victory's starting 11 was named on the big screen at Etihad stadium last Saturday night, as the talk from Victory's training during the week had suggested Ernie Merrick had named Matthew Kemp the right back to play at center back and Nick Ward the attacking midfielder to play at right back. After the seeing the Victory's team lineup to face the Brisbane Roar a lot of Melbourne fans were fearing this was another case of a coach making the wrong decision in this case in regards to team selection. By half time Melbourne's fans fears had come to fruition with the score 3-1 in the Brisbane Roar's favour.

With all three of Brisbane's goals coming from Melbourne's right hand side of defence most of the blame had to be attributed to Ernie Merrick's team selections of starting Kemp and Ward out of position. Another factor which you would of thought prevented Kemp being played used in the middle of defence, is that Melbourne play with a narrow midfield and rely on their full backs to provide the width. Since Kemp come to the club he has been the best full back at providing width for the Victory. In the first half Ward did an admirable job of providing the width but didn't appear to know how to prevent his flank from being exposed when ever he pushed up. When in the second half Ward was subbed off and Kemp was moved to his usual right back position Melbourne played much better and didn't concede another goal. Although to be fair Billy Celeski coming off the bench for Melbourne and Brisbane being forced to substitute Danny Tiatto off just before half time also contributed to Melbourne's better second half showing and Brisbane's inability to influence the game as much as in the second half as they had in the first.

The match against Brisbane wasn't the first time this season that the Melbourne fans believed Ernie Merrick had made a mistake in team selection. In the first match of the season against the Central Coast also at Etihad stadium Ernie picked two defensive midfielders in Grant Brebner and Leigh Broxham, especially against the Central Coast who appeared to be one of weaker teams for the 09/10 season and were known for their defensive game especially when playing away from home. After 15 minutes of the match Melbourne were two goals down and having two defensive midfielders on the pitch didn't help in the Victory's push for a goal to get back in the game.

So after two rounds of the season Melbourne Victory has already been hampered by two cases of poor team selection by it's coach. Hopefully this won't be the case for the North Queensland Fury match this week and the signs during the week have been positive in this regard. Early in the week the talk from training was that Ernie Merrick had realised it was best to play actual centre backs in the centre back position and that centre back Steven Pace was being prepared for the Fury match. Then yesterday the news got even better regarding the Victory and centre backs when it was announced center back Adrian Leijer had rejoined the club after spending the last two seasons in Fulhams reserves. This move will permanently solve Melbourne's center backs problems for this season. Finally Celeski is now able to start matches and this should see either Broxam or Brebner or even both starting matches on the bench from now on.