Melbourne Victory made it back-to-back wins in the Foxtel Y-League, beating Perth Glory 2-1 at AAMI Park on Friday.
Summary
Birkan Kirdar cancelled out Gabriel Popovic’s penalty in the first half after Victory had the upper-hand during the opening 45 minutes.
William Wilson’s 62nd-minute goal proved to be the winner for Victory, which claimed its second straight win in Conference A.
Victory enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges and Joshua Varga curled an effort just wide from 20 yards in the 13th minute.
However, Perth took the lead against the run of play, Popovic converting from the penalty spot to make it 1-0.
Victory equalised just after the half-hour mark through Kirdar following a nice team move.
Kirdar, 17, drilled an effort into the bottom corner from just inside the area after receiving a pass from Wilson.
Victory had more of the play to finish the first half, but the teams went into the break level.
After an open start to the second half, Victory went ahead through Wilson.
Victory’s attack did well to win possession high up the pitch before the midfielder was teed up to place into the bottom corner.
Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio headed a Jack Morton cross wide for Victory in the 79th minute and while Perth threatened late on, the host held on for a deserved win.
Head coach Gareth Naven’s post-match thoughts
“I’m really happy for the boys in regards to some simple things about working hard in the first half, repeating that in the second half and obviously there are things we want to do better defensively which, we’re pressing really good at certain moments and we’re trying to do it more often. In attack, we obviously want to hurt teams on the counter, which at times we did, and obviously we want to be smoother when we’re in possession and at times we were.
“We want to be more consistent in that approach and deliver that week in, week out, and I think it’s easier said than done. That’s challenging for youth players, but what I was pleased about is that they repeated hard work, they had good mentality, they had a really steely determination to stay in the fight, stay in the game, so it’s nice that they can start to establish belief in themselves so for that they should be happy, but the problem with that is that they need to repeat it again and that’s got to be a good problem.”
Result
Foxtel Y-League 2019/20 Round 3
Melbourne Victory 2 (Birkan Kirdar 32′, William Wilson 62′)
Perth Glory 1 (Gabriel Popovic 19′ pen)
Melbourne Victory: Matthew Sutton (gk) (c); So Nishikawa, Matthew Bozinovski, Aaron Anderson, Dalibor Markovic; Jay Barnett, William Wilson (Jack Morton 70′); Lleyton Brooks (Nishan Velupillay 59′), Joshua Varga (Jack Palazzolo 81′), Birkan Kirdar; Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio.
