New signings Elvis Kamsoba and Anthony Lesiotis featured as Melbourne Victory suffered a 3-2 loss to City in the Foxtel Y-League on Saturday.
Summary
Kamsoba set up Jack Palazzolo’s opener before scoring as Victory took a 2-0 lead at Epping Stadium.
The 22-year-old was lively, particularly in the first half, playing up front, but Victory fell after a Stefan Colakovski strike, Luke Goulding own goal and Gianluca Iannucci effort.
Lesiotis, who was also signed earlier this week, produced a strong performance in a holding midfield role.
Victory had to absorb some early pressure before taking the lead in the 15th minute.
Birkan Kirdar slid in Kamsoba, whose cross to the back post found Palazzolo to head in the opener.
Victory enjoyed a period of dominance as Kamsoba played in Nicholas Hatzigeorgiou, whose effort was tipped over by Ahmad Taleb.
And Victory would double its lead in the 25th minute, Kamsoba winning possession before finishing clinically into the bottom corner in a one-on-one with Taleb.
The host had a couple of other chances with Palazzolo unable to pick out Kamsoba, who was later denied by some last-ditch defending.
City responded, with Victory goalkeeper Matthew Sutton making a brilliant save to tip out a Lucas Portelli free-kick.
However, the visitor pulled one back before the break, Colakovski finishing in a one-on-one with Sutton after getting on the end of a long pass.
City drew level in fortunate circumstances early in the second half as Goulding’s pass from just inside his own half went to the left of Sutton and into the back of the net.
Hatzigeorgiou curled a 25-yard free-kick just over shortly after, before Iannucci struck from distance to give City the lead.
Victory pushed late – Kamsoba fired a tough chance over – but was unable to find an equaliser.
Head coach Gareth Naven’s post-match thoughts
“I thought our general possession was a lot better than last game against Brisbane. That’s quite an easy statement to say, but there was definitely a lot of improvement in that area in getting on the ball and obviously trying to stay on the ball when we had possession and using it in a way where we could create some goals and we started off really well, going 2-0 up. The match changes and they get back in the game. I thought we were really affective towards the last 20-25 minutes where we tried to chase down the game and come back from losing 3-2. In regards to our performance, in how we do things and what we need to do in certain possession, when we don’t have the ball, in transition, the players are getting an understand of what’s required in regards to what type of performance you need to get some rewards for yourself. I think it was a significant improvement for the players and we just need to do more of those good things more often, not less often, so moving into the next game against Brisbane, we’ll look at the things we did well and improve those things and make sure we do it more often.
“As you can tell, Elvis is a more mature player in all aspects of his game – physically, technically, tactically understood what was asked of him – and gave our group a lift I thought, a player who impacted and influenced the game for the whole of the 90 minutes. And Anthony just joined us and I think considering it was his first game, I thought he did well for us to get on the ball and break up play – similar to what his behaviours are used to being as a defensive midfielder. He added value to our group and I noticed within the group they trusted him very quickly and very early in engaging with him and welcoming him.”
Result
Foxtel Y-League 2018/19 Round 8
Melbourne Victory 2 (Jack Palazzolo 15′, Elvis Kamsoba 25′)
City 3 (Stefan Colakovski 37′, Luke Goulding 46′ og, Gianluca Iannucci 64′)
Victory: Matthew Sutton (gk); Luke Goulding, Benjamin Carrigan (c), Aaron Anderson, So Nishikawa; Anthony Lesiotis; Birkan Kirdar, Stefan Ristic (Aydin Mustedanagic 65′), Nicholas Hatzigeorgiou; Jack Palazzolo (Yazid Said 72′), Elvis Kamsoba.
