Melbourne Victory moved into second in Conference A in the Foxtel Y-League after a 3-1 Derby win over City on Sunday.
Summary
Goals from Lleyton Brooks, Joshua Varga and Brandon Lauton saw Victory to a third straight win at CB Smith Reserve.
Moudi Najjar had drawn City level during an entertaining start, but Victory responded to move onto nine points from four games.
It made the perfect start by opening the scoring inside two minutes.
Brooks produced a stunning strike from the right, catching out City goalkeeper Joe Gauci with a tremendous effort from the wing.
City equalised just five minutes later as Najjar capitalised on a slip in defence to make it 1-1.
However, Victory restored its lead in the 18th minute through Varga, who put away a Brooks cutback after a nice team move.
Victory goalkeeper Matthew Sutton made a good save to deny Raphael Borges Rodrigues midway through the first half.
It was almost 3-1 before the break, but Gauci kept out Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio’s header from a Brooks cross.
Sutton tipped an Idrus Abdulahi effort over before Victory scored just before the hour-mark.
Brooks was denied by Gauci after a poor City turnover, but Lauton converted from inside the area.
Victory was tested in the final half-hour but held firm defensively to claim three points.
Head coach Gareth Naven’s post-match thoughts
“We started really well by going with an early lead. I thought our players were intense in how we defended, attacked. It was very important that, because we hadn’t played for two weeks, we wanted to pick up obviously off the Adelaide game, playing away from home, we had really good intensity and application and a lot of hard work and the challenge for us is consistency and asking the players what am I giving to make sure that that’s what we need to do.
“We need to keep working hard, we need to develop the ability as a team to consistently do it. I think that’s the challenge for all sporting teams – repeating a performance at a level that will put you at the best chance to get a result that’s going to be favourable to your team. We were dominated at times but we defended really, really well and you’re going to have periods where you’re going to have to defend and we did that really well as a whole team.
“We probably ran out of the legs a little bit towards the end, but I like to think that it’s a test of character, that they definitely formed some consistency in the match today and that was the biggest challenge for us, to get back up and be consistent in how we defend, how attack and who we are as a team. When you come to the match, you see who this team is and that’s important.”
Result
City 1 (Moudi Najjar 7′)
Melbourne Victory 3 (Lleyton Brooks 2′, Joshua Varga 18′, Brandon Lauton 59′)
Melbourne Victory: Matthew Sutton (gk) (c); Zayden Bello, Benjamin Carrigan (Thomas Lambiris 45′), Aaron Anderson, So Nishikawa; Brandon Lauton, Jay Barnett (William Wilson 45′); Lleyton Brooks, Joshua Varga, Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio; Jack Palazzolo (Nishan Velupillay 80′).
