Melbourne Victory’s 10-game winning run against Adelaide United has come to a stunning end after the Reds scored an emphatic 4-1 triumph at AAMI Park on Sunday.
Melbourne Victory’s 10-game winning run against Adelaide United has come to a stunning end after the Reds scored an emphatic 4-1 triumph at AAMI Park on Sunday.
United’s success was their first over the Victory since October 2007 and not only that, the margin equals the worst-ever defeat suffered by Ernie Merrick’s men.
Victory’s horror afternoon was made even worse by the send-off of captain Kevin Muscat for a second bookable offence on 65 minutes.
Even at that stage, Victory were 2-0 down following goals to Marcos Flores on 12 minutes and Sergio Van Dijk, thanks to a stunning free-kick in the 57th minute.
Substitute Fabian Barbiero scored with his first touch second after Muscat’s departure and Van Dijk’s second put the icing on the cake for the Reds, who found Melbourne’s newest sporting stadium much more to its liking than their graveyard Etihad Stadium.
Mate Dugandzic provided the only bright spot for the home side when he scored a consolation goal with the last kick of the match in stoppage time, one of the few occasions Victory looked threatening in attack.
For the second successive match, Victory lacked fluency and struggled to contain a slick Reds outfit, who at times were simply irrepressible and took a major step towards sealing a top two spot.
There was no better evidence of that than Van Dijk’s piece of magic 12 minutes into the second-half which snuffed the match out of Victory’s grasp with an unstoppable 30-yard free-kick past goalkeeper Michael Petkovic.
Just as he did in Wellington midweek, Petkovic proved one of Victory’s few bright spots, pulling off a couple of quality saves that stopped the margin being even greater.
Midfielder Grant Brebner tried hard, while striker Danny Allsopp will be better for the run after playing the full 90 minutes.
