Victory fire three past Mariners to keep heat on Sydney FC

Melbourne Victory are ready to ensure Sydney FC don’t get a comfortable run home in the title race.

Melbourne Victory striker Besart Berisha celebrates a goal against Central Coast Mariners in Gosford.

It’s game on.

As much as Kevin Muscat might want to play things down, there’s no hiding from the fact Melbourne Victory are ready to ensure the race for the Premiers Plate is far from over after accounting for Central Coast Mariners 3-0 at in Gosford yesterday.

The Victorians were not at their best, but they were still self-assured and clinical as a brace from Besart Berisha in his 150th game in the A-League and a cracking goal from James Troisi gave them the three points and moved Victory to within eight points of leaders Sydney FC.

With seven rounds left in the regular season, the stage is set for a titanic battle between the two biggest clubs in the A-League.

Sydney have a tough road to travel in the next few weeks with a game away against Melbourne City next week before a blockbuster against Victory at home, which could pull the Melbourne side within two points of the Sky Blues if results go their way.

Sydney’s first loss of the season in the derby against Western Sydney on Saturday night was all the incentive second-placed Victory needed and they took the chance with both hands yesterday.

With the immensely talented Troisi calling the shots, the visitors looked a class above the Mariners for most of the match.

The attacking midfielder was in wonderful form and will give Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou much food for thought when he sits down to pick his squad for two World Cup qualifiers next month.

For the Mariners, who went into the game full of confidence off the back of three wins in succession, the loss is a huge blow to their hopes of making the finals. They have now fallen five points behind sixth-placed Western Sydney and face a tough draw with six of their last seven games against sides now in the top six.

To their credit, Central Coast tried their hearts out yesterday. They caused a few problems for the Victory defence but just didn’t have the cutting edge in attack.  Muscat again refused to buy into whether his team could catch the Sky Blues. “My thoughts aren’t changing. What I am going to say isn’t going to change,” Muscat said. “I am not going to look up.

“While it’s mathematically possible we will keep going, aiming to take maximum points from the remaining games and if that’s enough to overtake Sydney, great.

“But there is no point worrying about what they are doing because I can’t affect that side of things as much as I would love to.”

Muscat also sounded a warning about Troisi, suggesting he will only get better in the final stages of the season.

“I’ll be telling Ange Postecoglou that he has been training poorly and his attitude has been terrible,” he quipped, knowing he is likely to lose his playmaker to the Socceroos.

“”But — seriously — he has been superb and I’ll be happy for him if he is picked. But I still think we haven’t seen the best of him. He will only get better.”

Mariners coach Paul Okon was philosophical about the result.

“They really came at us in the first 15 minutes and I expected that after their not-so-great performance against Newcastle,” Okon said. “They came here smelling blood and goals.

“We did well to survive early and came back into it but their goal hurt us.”

Victory came out of the blocks fast, intent on stamping their authority on the game.

Central Coast did well to survive the early onslaught and managed to get themselves back into the game, but they found themselves behind after 25 minutes.