Melbourne Victory head coach Kevin Muscat praised his side’s second-half comeback against Wellington on Sunday afternoon.
A fifth minute strike by Ola Toivonen followed by second half goals to James Troisi and Kosta Barbarouses saw Victory split the points.
Victory remains second on the Hyundai A-League table, three points behind Perth Glory.
On the performance…
“The way we played in the second half was very like us, very like how we want to be and considering how we came in at half time, it was an enormous effort how we played some really good football and earned a very good result. We were relentless in asking questions and putting Wellington under pressure in that second half, we made some tactical changes that I thought really opened the game up for us, so on the night very pleased with the football we played.”
On the tactical changes…
“I wanted to get Terry out on the left hand side so that would push Josh to the right hand side or bring Raul on. It was an opportunity to get more minutes into Raul also. Late on in the game where we go ‘let’s have a crack, let’s have a real go’, we stick another midfielder on, put Terry Antonis at left back effectively playing in midfield and create a numerical advantage again.”
On Wellington Phoenix…
“They’re a good team, we had to earn what we got, in the end there was only going to be one winner. We were pushing forward to score that last goal. If you want to attack the way we attack, you’re going to concede some chances, that’s just par for the course. We have to accept that and we do accept that and that’s just how I want to play. Their dynamics are a little bit different, in the second half there was less of that speed when they make a substitution, but I’m more interested in what we do. I’ll take responsibility for the chances we concede because I want us to be a certain type of team where we get on the front foot, and we’ll analyse the reasons why we weren’t able to do that as much in the first half but there will be clear enough evidence from the second half of why we want to be the team we were in the second half”
