Arthur Diles has called on his team to show a reaction this weekend against Auckland FC.
Melbourne Victory travel to Auckland on Saturday, April 11, kick-off 3pm AEST, for their penultimate away fixture of the 2025/26 Isuzu UTE A-League season.
The trip to New Zealand follows a narrow 0-1 home defeat to Wellington Phoenix in Round 23 at AAMI Park on Sunday.
That loss put a full stop on Victory’s seven-game unbeaten streak, but having dusted themselves down, the focus is now on starting a new run.
Speaking during his pre-match press conference, Diles identified what needs to be put right on match day.
“In terms of the flatness, I think it was more a case of us not being our usual selves with the ball. We weren’t as fluent with the ball anywhere near as well as we normally are.
“We’re looking forward to a big response from the group.”
On the opposition, he added: “They’ve probably been the most consistent team over two years, they’re at home, and have got some injuries as well.”
Diles, March’s Isuzu UTE A-League Coach of the Month, will be without regulars Juan Mata and Sebastian Esposito for the fixture at Go Media Stadium.
The former suffered a fractured elbow versus the Phoenix before undergoing surgery on Tuesday, whilst Esposito is observing concussion protocol, and the Head Coach delivered an update on the pair.
“We’re pretty confident that he’ll be back in the next couple of weeks.
“He slipped unfortunately, and the outcome of that was a fracture in his elbow, so we got that operated on. He’s come out of that really good – surgery went really well. He’s already up and about, could be as close as 10 to 14 days, and he’s back into the group.
“Probably next week we’ll get a clear indication of if that’s looking like it’ll come to fruition or not.
“At the moment, he’s ticked all his protocol day by day, so there’s been no interruptions or hiccups with that, so I can’t see that one being longer than the usual. We should have him back for the following week.”
Watch Diles’ full press conference below.
