Melbourne Victory made it back-to-back wins in the Hyundai A-League, beating the Newcastle Jets 4-0 on Sunday.
Summary
Victory was rewarded for a strong performance with three points at AAMI Park, where Robbie Kruse starred.
The forward opened the scoring before having a hand in strikes from Migjen Basha – on his birthday – and Andrew Nabbout, while Matt Millar scored a late own goal.
The result lifted Victory into seventh on the table as it backed up its win in the Christmas Derby.
Victory made a fast start and Kruse almost struck in the seventh minute, but the forward was unable to put away an Elvis Kamsoba cross.
However, he would make no mistake with his second chance just two minutes later.
Kruse ran onto Leigh Broxham’s pass over the top before finishing clinically past Jets goalkeeper Glen Moss for his second goal of the season.
Victory continued to look dangerous, with Jakob Poulsen’s set-pieces causing problems, and Nabbout fired one of the Dane’s crosses over in the 27th minute.
Nabbout threatened again six minutes before half-time, doing brilliantly to bring down Broxham’s pass before shooting wide.
The Jets went close shortly after the interval, with Victory goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas diving to his right to keep out a Dimitri Petratos strike.
At the other end, Nabbout headed a Kruse cross wide in the 57th minute.
But Victory would double its lead through Basha’s first for the club, coming on his 33rd birthday.
Kruse’s effort from distance was parried by Moss and the midfielder was on hand to tuck away the rebound.
Denied by Moss just moments earlier, Nabbout struck after more fine work by Kruse.
Poulsen released Kruse down the right and the forward pulled a pass back to Nabbout, who fired a powerful strike past Moss from inside the area.
Victory would get a fourth late on as Millar put one into his own net after Anthony Lesiotis’ cross from the right, while Josh Hope squandered a late chance to make it 5-0.
Player in focus
Key moment
What they said – Basha
on the result…
“I’m very happy because I think the result is very good for us, we needed this win to come back in the league and we are very happy.”
on back-to-back wins…
“The win against City gave us the power to continue. We had the break to recover a little bit and I can say we didn’t start very well this season, but now I think we are coming back and we keep going like this.”
Result
Hyundai A-League 2019/20 Round 13
Melbourne Victory 4 (Robbie Kruse 9′, Migjen Basha 61′, Andrew Nabbout 64′, Matt Millar 86′ og)
Newcastle Jets 0
Melbourne Victory: Thomas (gk); Lesiotis, Donachie, Broxham (c), Traore; Poulsen, Basha (Barnett 74′); Nabbout (Hope 80′), Dobras (Athiu 62′), Kamsoba; Kruse.
Newcastle Jets: Moss (gk); Millar, Jackson, Topor-Stanley (c), Burns (Koutroumbis 45′); Kantarovski; Hoffman, Ugarkovic, Langlois, Thurgate (Sheppard 62′); Petratos.
Yellow cards: Burns 24′
Red cards: Nil
Attendance: 14,582
Venue: AAMI Park
Next up
Victory makes the trip to Central Coast Stadium to face the Mariners on Sunday, January 12.
