Melbourne Victory head coach Kevin Muscat is turning his attentions to the Hyundai A-League Finals Series after a win over the Western Sydney Wanderers.
Victory wrapped up the regular season by beating the Wanderers 1-0 at ANZ Stadium thanks to Ola Toivonen’s first-half header on Saturday.
It will meet either City or Wellington Phoenix in an Elimination Final at AAMI Park on Friday.
Speaking at a post-match news conference, Muscat discussed his side’s performance and the Elimination Final.
on the performance…
“The circumstances are very difficult, aren’t they? Last game of the (regular) season… I can give you all the facts. The reality is there were bits and pieces where we were half decent, but really, it’s now moving on to next week. We know we’re playing on Friday night so we’ll prepare and plan our schedule for a game on Friday night. We’ll confirm who that opponent is going to be tomorrow and we go into that full steam ahead from now. We just go into a zone and a focus for next Friday night. The less said about tonight the better.”
on Elimination Final against City or Wellington Phoenix…
“There’s not many secrets in the A-League. We’ve played both teams three times. Yes, teams adjust and teams are in different moments if you like. What’s clear to me is us putting all our focus and energy into us, us as a group, us being together. We embrace that. We’ve earnt the right to be at home in this first week, we won the competition from fourth last year, don’t think anybody’s won it from third so that’s what we have to do, that’s what’s ahead of us.”
on City coach Warren Joyce watching…
“(He would’ve learnt) about as much as I learnt last night when I stayed in Melbourne to watch their game. The game is played at a hugely different tempo to what’s going to occur. We have discussions about what do we want to take out of tonight and how do we do that and everything about the game is not the same. Having said that, credit to the playing group, they scored a very good goal, one of the very few highlights in the game, the build-up, the movement, bringing the ball from side to side and then a good ball into the box and a smashing header. We had many more opportunities that we didn’t take, but as I said next week will be totally different.”
on injuries from game…
“Matty Acton took a knock early in a collision, but he managed to finish the game and everybody else seems to be OK.”
