Arthur Diles is demanding improvement in every moment from his Melbourne Victory players.
The Men’s First Team continue their 2025/26 Izusu UTE A-League season by travelling to Newcastle Jets in Round 2 of the competition on Friday, October 24, kick-off 7.35pm AEDT.
Victory opened with a stalemate against reigning Premiers Auckland FC, and are looking to use this as a building block toward a first three-point return, whilst the Jets will be wanting a reaction after suffering an F3 Derby defeat to the Central Coast Mariners last Sunday.
Speaking during his pre-match press conference, Diles stressed the requirement for continued development before assessing this weekend’s opposition.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. We worry about us and focus on ourselves. We’re at the beginning of our journey, and we want to improve week to week, day to day, and Friday night’s going to be another opportunity for us to improve as a squad and put in a really good performance and give ourselves the best chance to get a result away from home.
“There’s a slight change in terms of their style because there’s a new coach. But they’re a team that last year got a lot of time to expose a lot of young players to elite football, which they’ll be a lot better off for this year. They were a good side last year as well, and they kept improving as the season went on, and they picked up a few really good players in the off-season as well.”
Diles also served up a health check on his squad following their Round 1 outing at AAMI Park.
“There were some tight bodies after the match, that’s for sure, but they’ve all recovered really well.
“Louis (D’Arrigo) is a no, (Josh) Rawlins is back because he was suspended, so we’ll look forward to having Joshy back, and Roddy (Miranda) is touch-and-go. We’ll make a decision tomorrow after training and give him every opportunity to be fit for selection, but at the same time, we’re not taking anyone there who’s not 100%.
“Nishan (Velupillay) and Reno (Piscopo), they’re not close at the moment. Franco Lino, he’s not close at the moment either. So on that front, not much has really changed. Luka Kolic is still a number of weeks as well.”
View a complete Injury Report list for our Men’s team by clicking here.
Watch Diles’ full press conference below.
