Arthur Diles was wholly satisfied with the business-like performance Melbourne Victory delivered to beat Perth Glory in Round 3 of the Isuzu UTE A-League.
Goals for Keegan Jelacic and Juan Mata did the damage in an attacking sense at HBF Park, with the former netting in successive matches before his Spanish teammate opened his Victory account.
These moments, each supplied by the impressive Matthew Grimaldi, were married with a sound defensive showing, as the Men’s First Team recorded a second clean sheet of the 2025/26 campaign to accompany their first three-point return.
Speaking during his post-match press conference, Diles assessed his side’s display and how they navigated the challenge of facing a Glory outfit led by interim boss Adam Griffiths.
“Very professional performance from us. Very disciplined. We had a job to do, and that was to get the points, and we did that.”
He added: “That always makes it difficult, and puts you in a place of a bit of unknown, because you’re not sure, are they going to make changes, which they ended up doing. They changed their structure and formation, players as well. So you prepare with a little bit of unknown, but in terms of us and our own processes, you know, we’re set up to be able to deal with it.”
Mata, making his full debut for the Club, proved elusive to the clutches of Glory’s players. He floated between the lines expertly and showed all his experience to arrive on time to bag Victory’s decisive second goal.
The 37-year-old earned rave reviews from Paramount+, earning their player of the match prize, and Diles was also very complimentary when quizzed on Mata’s contribution.
“Like I’ve been saying previously, it’s probably ahead of schedule to where I would have anticipated he’d be, after joining us so late.
“To get almost 70 minutes out of him today is a testament to him, how professional he is, how fit he is, and how conditioned he is, and he did a lot of work on himself before joining the group.
“That allowed us to maybe fast-track him into the starting line-up, like we did tonight, and he scores a great goal.”
Watch Diles’ full press conference below.
