Melbourne Victory head coach Kevin Muscat was pleased with his team’s win over Adelaide United, while he praised Matias Sanchez.
A Taylor Regan own goal, Leroy George free-kick and Besart Berisha strike saw Victory return to winning ways with a 3-0 success at AAMI Park on Saturday.
The Reds were reduced to 10 men in the second half after Dzengis Cavusevic was sent off.
Speaking afterwards, Muscat was asked about the display, George and Sanchez, who produced a fine performance in midfield.
on the team’s performance…
“I’m very pleased, very pleased. I thought we started very well. We caused them a hell of a lot of issues in the first half and we were rewarded for that in terms of the amount of opportunities and then ultimately the goals. I thought we performed off a very good platform, performing off a very good platform, good foundations which allowed us to get into their defensive third of the park and with the players we’ve got in that area, we’ll cause problems to any team. I thought it was an outstanding effort considering again, acknowledging the facts that we’d been across to Shanghai and ultimately the result gets analysed more than the actual performance because believe it or not, we played some good stuff over there. We played some really good stuff over there against a very good team with unlimited resources. To perform in that manner tonight, I’m just really proud of the group – J.P (de Marigny), Anth (Crea), Deano (Anastasiadis), the staff and the players, it was an outstanding effort.”
on George’s performance and contract…
“All those discussions will remain private. At this stage, all the discussions will remain private. He’s contributed tonight off the back of superb foundation. I thought Maty Sanchez and Terry (Antonis) and the two central defenders (Rhys Williams and Tommy Deng) controlled the game for us, controlled the tempo, controlled the areas of the park the game was played in. There were quite a few structural changes in our formation so there was some flexibility about the way we played and I thought it worked superbly well.”
on Sanchez’s display…
“This game will be treated in isolation and then we’ll move onto the next one. Terry’s not match fit yet either and Maty’s had a stop-start season. Aided by the red card, when they went down to 10 men, Matias grabbed that game by the scruff of the neck and he controlled everything, when we had the ball and when we didn’t have the ball. His contribution was immense. Not looking too far forward to next week at this point in time, we’ll assess how everything goes in training.”
