Kevin Muscat wants Victory to grab spotlight back from Melbourne City

Melbourne Victory are in the unfamiliar position of flying under the radar after City’s FFA Cup win.

Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat at Gosch’s Paddock.

With four wins from their past five games, A-League powerhouse Melbourne Victory are flying. But it’s in the unfamiliar position of being under the radar, as new FFA Cup champions Melbourne City, led by Tim Cahill, steal the spotlight.

Glamour club Victory, the 2014-15 A-League champions, have the chance to climb to second on the ladder when they host Perth at AAMI Park tonight. But Victory coach Kevin Muscat said his team was in unfamiliar territory with little being made of their recent winning run.

“That’s the first time that’s ever been levelled at this football club,” Muscat said when asked if the club was flying under the radar. “We’re comfortable and I’ve maintained our performances have been very good. If we had to sit in review of the season we’d be disappointed in letting some points slip.”

Winger Mitch Austin will miss the match as he battles an ankle injury suffered in Victory’s 2-0 win over Newcastle.

Muscat said he would be sidelined for the next few weeks.

Victory have added four players to an extended squad. Defender Daniel Georgievski and goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas return from injury and Stefan Nigro and Jai Ingham have been promoted. Lucas Spinella has dropped out and two more players are to be omitted.

Victory haven’t beaten Perth in six games since 2014.

The Glory are in fifth place on the back of a 2-0 loss to Central Coast Mariners last week.

Muscat said: “We will treat them with respect as they’ve assembled a very good squad this season and their good is very good.

“We’ve come off the back of a good result and performance last week and we want to improve on that and take the three points.”

Meanwhile, goalkeeper Paul Izzo is set on helping Central Coast claim back-to-back A-League wins for the first time in nearly 1000 days.

The Mariners are saying goodbye to one unwanted statistic at a time under new coach Paul Okon.

Last Thursday’s 2-0 upset of Perth put an end to 36 games without a clean sheet and sealed the club’s first home win since New Year’s Eve.

Having experienced first-hand the disappointment of conceding 70 goals last season, Izzo was relieved to finally give commentators something to talk about other than a leaky defence.

“It’s great to finally get the monkey off the back, but more importantly we won the game which is the bigger picture,” the 21-year-old gloveman said. “It’s a sign of how things are changing. The style we’ve got going on now is completely different. ’’

That triumph lifted Okon’s charges into sixth spot, one ahead of Saturday’s opponents Western Sydney. The challenge now is going one better than their 1-1 draw with Tony Popovic’s side five weeks ago.

Do that and the Mariners will taste successive victories for the first time since April 2014.

Meanwhile, the club have released teenage goalkeeper Tom Heward-Belle from his contract effective immediately so he can concentrate on university study.

AAP