Victory gathering pace and take Big Blue spoils against Sydney FC

Melbourne Victory have put their slow start to the season behind them.

Victory striker Ola Toivonen celebrates scoring against Sydney FC yesterday. Picture: Getty Images

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that questions were being asked about the defending champions after Melbourne Victory started this season with two losses and were anchored at the bottom of the table.

Fast forward a month and those early weeks are rapidly becoming a distant memory as the A-League favourites continued their surge of good form by ending Sydney FC’s unbeaten run with a 2-1 win in front of a sell-out crowd at Jubilee Oval yesterday.

A first A-League goal for Swedish striker Ola Toivonen and a Keisuke Honda penalty sealed the three points in the Big Blue in front of a crowd of 19,081.

The game had been delicately poised after Sydney’s Adam le Fondre equalised with a controversial first-half penalty, only for Victory to be awarded a spot kick of their own after Sydney defender Jop Van Der Linden’s suffered a brain fade and needlessly fouled Honda in the 70th minute.

The win means Victory leapfrog the Sky Blues into second spot on the table. They are starting to look the goods on the back of three straight wins.

Victory coach Kevin Muscat gave Toivonen his starting debut and the big Swede did not let him down, opening the scoring on 23 minutes though it came against the run of play as Sydney had the better of the opening period without really creating any scoring chances. Victory goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas did not have to make a save.

The visitors did look good in transition and it was from a quick break that they took the lead.

There was some nice work down the left side with Georg Niedermeier combining with Terry Antonis, who then sent James Troisi clear.

Troisi’s intended cross for Kosta Barbarouses was deflected into the path of Toivonen, who calmly steered the ball past goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne to open his A-League account.

Sydney fought their way back into the game and put the visitors under pressure. They broke through for the equaliser on 33 minutes through a highly contentious penalty.

Sydney left back Michael Zullo’s cross into the box found Alex Brosque, who held up the ball before putting it into the path of Paolo Retre.

However Retre hit the turf after an attempted tackle from Antonis and referee Peter Green had no hesitation pointing to the spot. The VAR looked at the decision but, because it was not deemed a clear and obvious error, Green’s decision stood.

Le Fondre’s spot kick was kept out by Thomas, but the ball rolled free and the Englishman, following up like the classy goal poacher he is, slammed home the rebound.

Muscat’s displeasure surfaced a little later in the half when he was issued a yellow card by Green, obviously for something he had said to one of the match officials.

Sydney were in control for most of the second half, though their only chance came just after halftime when Brandon O’Neill whipped in a cross to the far post for Rhyan Grant, whose header was parried away by Thomas.

At the other end, Redmayne had very little to do in goal as Victory struggled to make an impact.

But it was Honda’s spot kick that broke the deadlock. Despite the statistics showing Sydney dominated the game Muscat felt his side performed well: “It was an outstanding performance, we had more shots on goal and I think we deserved the three points.’’