Victory cruise to win over dour Glory

When Melbourne Victory looks back on their 2024-25 season, Sunday evening’s 2-0 win over Perth Glory will likely be remembered as having happened; a win that was more a building block than anything special.

A first-half goal to Zinedine Machach and a second-half strike from Adama Traore ensured Patrick Kisborbo’s side would cruise to their fifth win of the season at AAMI Park, dictating proceedings despite never really looking like they got out of third gear. On another day, this could easily have been a four or a five-goal win. At some point, this might come back to bite them. But once Machach got the first, there was never a feeling that they’d need anything more than that.

Heading into the bye week – Victory is the only side in the top six yet to sit out a round – last season’s grand finalists sit two points back of table-toppers Auckland FC, with their five wins contrasting with just a singular draw and a loss. They possess a goal difference of plus eight, a figure that could be much more if they were able to convert the bounty of goalscoring positions they have created. And when they next take the field in the Christmas Derby on December 21, hosting the fixture for the first time in several years, they have a chance to make a statement that the Kisnorbo era has silverware in its sights.

It all paints a picture that sits starkly contrasted with Sunday’s opposition.

From a scoreboard perspective, at least, Glory could maybe say that the result represented an improvement compared to the last time they came to Melbourne. But given that was an 8-0 defeat to Melbourne City that arguably represented their nadir as a club, this wasn’t exactly a high bar to clear. In a season in which they are only being kept off the foot of the ladder by Brisbane Roar’s annus horribilis, it took David Zdrilic’s side until the 64th minute of the game to produce their first of two shots in the contest and by that point they were already down 2-0.

By full-time, Victory had sent in 25 efforts to those two from Perth and the visitors had been credited with just a single touch inside their opponent’s penalty area. They’d had just 31% of possession and hadn’t done much with what they’d had; rarely able to string together a series of passes that would have begun to give Victory seconds thoughts.

It’s now 17 A-League Men games since Glory last won – a span stretching back ten months – and it never looked like they were a threat to the hosts. Instead, any hope that further progress could be made against one of the title favourites after a draw with Adelaide United last week giving way to the reality of the gulf that exists between them and the league’s best. They are in, as their coach remarked post-game, a “total rebuild”, one that he said will require patience not just from supporters, but himself as well. It looks a mammoth job.

“We played a very good team today and they were clearly better than us,” summed up Zdrilic.

In just the seventh minute, Glory’s defence almost melted away as Machach opened the scoring, the French attacker receiving a pass from Jordi Valadon on the halfway line before moving to drive into a sea of space that opened before him. The 28-year-old is difficult enough to stop at the best of times once he builds up a head of steam but on this occasion, there was no real attempt to slow his momentum until Luis Cangá tepidly stepped up at the top of the box, only for Machach to dart to one side and drive an effort into the bottom corner.

Victory would end the first half with 15 shots and even if they weren’t as ruthless as they could be (again), they still managed to hit the post through Daniel Arzani in the 38th minute, have a Nikos Vergos effort flash teasingly wide of the goal in the 29th minute, and force Lachlan Barr to scramble to keep a Brendan Hamill header off the goalline in stoppage time. Machach could have had a second in the 54th minute when a well-worked move saw Traore send in a cross that he half-volleyed effort that flashed just wide of the post.

“Again, it was good to get an early lead,” said Kisnorbo. “Again, we need to improve in our finishing aspect but it's really good that we were getting in certain areas. Physically we had a very good work rate. Our mindset and mentality to keep going. So overall, I'm quite happy.”

Eventually, a second goal arrived. And it came from a move as devastating as it was simple. Grabbing a pass from Jason Geria that had just escaped its intended target of Arazni in the 59th minute, Vergos turned in the middle of the park and scythed a ball into the path of Traore, who arrived just in front of the on-rushing Cook and fired, first-time into the net.

The reaction from the bench suggested that the move, which had begun with a free kick on the edge of the Victory penalty area, had been lifted straight from the training ground, even if it was probably Arzani pinging the pass when they were practising it on Gosch's Paddock if that was the case.

Steaming in behind before firing past Jack Duncan at the near post, Adam Taggart had the ball in the back of the net in the 71st minute but any thoughts that this could be some kind of silver lining to hang onto were quickly dashed when the flag was raised to show that the striker was well offside. Perhaps the only silver lining for Zdrilic’s unit, although that sounds a bit too strong, maybe an aluminium lining, was that Geria somehow skied an effort from all of a few yards out that should have made it 3-0 in the 90th minute – the defender depositing the ball into the North Terrace from a position where finding the seats was significantly more difficult than the net.

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