Melbourne Victory head coach Kevin Muscat praised his team’s discipline and control after a 4-2 win over Brisbane Roar on Friday.
Victory extended its winning streak to six games after Kosta Barbarouses’ brace, Ola Toivonen’s strike and a Keisuke Honda penalty at Suncorp Stadium.
Toivonen also scored an own goal and Adam Taggart struck a spot-kick for 10-man Roar in an enthralling first half, but Victory was dominant after the break.
Speaking at his post-match news conference, Muscat discussed the game, Corey Brown’s performance and provided updates on centre-backs Thomas Deng and Georg Niedermeier.
on the game…
“So much happened in the first half, it was just action packed. I think from our perspective – that’s what concerns me and it’s the only thing that concerns me – I thought we were really controlled, really controlled about how we went about things, really controlled when the game was fiery, really controlled in our football and played some really good stuff, played some excellent football. From our perspective as well, in the first half I thought set-pieces we encouraged or we were under a little bit of pressure and conceded from two set-pieces, albeit the second one is an own goal, so there’s clearly some areas for us (to work on). The fouls leading up to the free-kicks or the corners, that’s the first part of it, and then defending better, defending as a collective, but all in all I thought it was outstanding. There was some really, really good football, some exciting stuff. That second half I thought we were very controlled and dominated territory and still pressed and really pressed with intensity, limited what was a depleted Brisbane team down to 10 men, limited them to very little in the second half and had enough opportunities to score, but very, very satisfied with the result.”
on half-time message…
“It was just a challenge of maturity, a challenge of maturity and find out where we are as a team. Challenge them to remain disciplined when the subconscious tells you to try something different or move out of position, so it was a good test for us in the second half. We had quite a few chances and limited them to set-pieces.”
on Brown’s performance…
“Outstanding, outstanding. I had a couple of chats with Corey. He’s been steadily building and tonight, to get caught up in an emotion, going back to your old club, sometimes distracts you from what’s important to yourself and the team. He was fairly lucky in that tackle (from Eric Bautheac) that he didn’t get injured, but I thought his performance and his discipline and control was outstanding.”
on Deng coming off…
“On the flight over he was feeling a little bit of stiffness so just took precaution there and an opportunity to get some minutes into Nick Ansell as well so it’s no problem.”
update on Niedermeier’s ankle injury…
“He rolled his ankle last week and he’s worked very hard this week to reduce the swelling, reduce the bruising. He’s got to a point where he’s now weight-bearing and started to run. The physios always try to give me a ball-park time frame but there’s no point because you’re putting limitations on people. He might over the next few days take strides forward that puts him into contention, he might not, so there’s no point me worrying about it just yet.”
