Melbourne Victory returns to Epping Stadium for an NPL2 West clash against Brunswick City on Sunday.
Summary
Victory saw its six-match unbeaten run ended with a 3-0 defeat to a clinical Werribee City in Round 20.
Despite creating the better of the early opportunities, Victory suffered its first loss since May.
Jack Palazzolo, 19, and Nuh Sehavdic, 19, almost opened the scoring before Werribee took its chances.
Victory plays five of its final eight matches of the season at Epping Stadium, beginning with the encounter against Brunswick City.
It is unbeaten in its past four games at the ground, having last tasted defeat in Epping on May 5.
Victory is ninth on the table ahead of the clash with Brunswick, but it is just four points behind its sixth-placed opponent.
The teams last met in March, when Yazid Said and Jack Morton scored for Victory in an entertaining 2-2 draw.
Head coach Gareth Naven’s pre-match thoughts
“Every week, we want to make sure we want to get better, more emphasis on the importance of our structure and how efficient it can make us in our structures when we’re defending, when we’re attacking, being smart with that and sharing more knowledge and communicating on the pitch to help each other be more efficient within the defensive and attacking structures. That will be our major focus this week in regards to, globally, how we attack and how we defend in our structures and being efficient in our positioning to create space for ourselves and obviously create less space for the opposition.”
This week
NPL2 West 2019 Round 21
Melbourne Victory v Brunswick City
Sunday, July 14, 3.00pm AEST
Epping Stadium, Melbourne
U20 NPL2 West 2019 Round 21
Melbourne Victory v Brunswick City
Sunday, July 14, 12.30pm AEST
Epping Stadium, Melbourne
U18 NPL West 2019 Round 19
Melbourne Victory v Ballarat City
Sunday, July 14, 10.45am AEST
Partridge Street Reserve, Melbourne
U15 NPL West 2019 Round 18
Melbourne Victory v Ballarat City
Sunday, July 14, 9.00am AEST
Partridge Street Reserve, Melbourne
Last week
NPL2 West: Werribee City 3 Victory 0
U20 NPL2 West: Werribee City 1 Victory 1 (Wilson 14′)