Melbourne Victory suffered a 3-0 loss to Adelaide United in the Liberty A-League on Saturday.
Summary
Victory, playing a seventh game in 23 days, was punished by a clinical Adelaide at Coopers Stadium, where Fiona Worts scored a hat-trick for the Reds.
The result left Victory, which also saw Casey Dumont injured late on, heading into the final round of the regular season with a finals place yet to be secured.
Victory made a bright start and created a couple of decent openings in the first eight minutes.
Catherine Zimmerman headed a Courtney Nevin cross wide before also putting a Kyra Cooney-Cross set-piece off target.
But Adelaide opened the scoring in the 18th minute through Worts, who finished Chelsie Dawber’s cross after her initial shot was blocked.
Worts made it 2-0, finishing a rebound from inside the area after Victory goalkeeper Dumont had made an excellent save in the 25th minute.
Adelaide added a third directly from kick-off to begin the second half as Worts completed her hat-trick.
Victory continued to fight in the second half, but struggled to create much of note.
And adding further woes for Victory, Dumont came off on a stretcher in the closing stages with a suspected leg injury, with Maja Markovski going into goals.
Player in focus
Introduced in the first half, Harriet Withers looked lively for Victory, delivering several dangerous crosses during her appearance.
Implications
Victory sits fourth with one regular-season game remaining. It cannot finish any higher than fourth or lower than fifth. Perth Glory is two points behind and plays Sydney FC on Sunday.
Result
Liberty A-League 2021/22 Round 13
Adelaide United 3 (Fiona Worts 18’/25’/46′)
Melbourne Victory 0
Adelaide United: Grove (gk); Isabel Hodgson (c), Sharples, McNamara, Emily Hodgson; Holmes, Sasaki (Stanbury 75′); Dawber, Omiya (Tonkin 88′), Worts (Beaumont 88′); Evans (Mullan 65′).
Melbourne Victory: Dumont (gk); Doran, Eliadis, Hendrix, Nevin (Iermano 85′); Zois (Withers 36′), Chidiac, Cooney-Cross; Privitelli (c), Markovski, Zimmerman (Barbieri 61′).
Yellow cards: Holmes 57′, Beaumont 90′
Red cards: Nil
Attendance: TBA
Venue: Coopers Stadium
Next up
Victory will be playing for a place in the Finals Series when it hosts Canberra United at AAMI Park on Friday.
