Victory vanishes but Muscat untroubled

Kevin Muscat was pleased with Melbourne Victory’s performance in the derby despite conceding a late goal that cost them the win.

Dario Vidosic heads home the equaliser for City in the Melbourne derby. Picture: AAP

His team were two minutes away from being top of the A-League table going into the likely season- defining Christmas period, where the games come thick and fast and championship hopes can be made or broken.

But if you thought Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat would bemoan a lost opportunity after watching his side concede in the second minute of injury time to allow Melbourne City to escape with a 1-1 draw at AAMI Park on Saturday night, then think again.

Ola Toivonen’s 55th-minute goal looked set to vault Victory over Perth Glory at the top of the table. But then Dario Vidosic popped up with a header off a Scott Jamieson cross to dash their hopes in front of 24,000 fans.

Most would consider the result two points lost instead of one gained, but Muscat would have none of it. Nor was he frustrated by the fact they missed a chance to go top of the table.

Instead, he was delighted with a team performance that was made even more creditable by the fact star player Keisuke Honda was missing due to tightness in his back and hamstring.

Muscat was straight to the point when asked if he was upset Victory had squandered the chance to jump ahead of Glory.

“Not at all, it’s not an issue. The result in the end is the outcome,” he said. “It’s everything that happened beforehand that I am interested in. The playing group were tremendous and put in an unbelievable effort.

“We are a team that wants to go and win a football game, not a team that is playing to not lose.

“You can see the enjoyment in the players and see the effort is tremendous.

“I don’t want the players feeling as though we’ve lost the game because we conceded so late because there was a lot to like about our performance. In the first half we were playing some good stuff without really asking questions of (City).

“But in the second half we upped the intensity and amount of passes we played forward and asked more questions and we scored an excellent goal.

“After that, if anything, we had two or three opportunities to score again.

“In the end you concede a goal in the 92nd minute, but that’s life.”

As for Honda, Muscat came in for criticism in some quarters for not being upfront with the media about his situation during his pre-match press conference on Friday morning, but the Victory boss saw no issue.

“He trained most of the week but didn’t come out (to train) yesterday (Friday),” Muscat said. “I sensed on Thursday that he was looking a bit fatigued.

“The final decision was made this afternoon (Saturday). We utilised the time to draw up all the facts and the risks and in the end decided he didn’t play.

“We have seven games in January and that formed part of the facts and understanding where we are going.

“But, I’d rather focus on the players who came in a did a great job, players like Leigh Broxham.”

City counterpart Warren Joyce felt his side not only deserved to draw but could have won the game.

“I know we scored late in the game, but we should have been goals up at half time,” Joyce said. “We gave away a poor goal. It was an area we worked on during the week where we looked at the big fella (Toivonen) and trying to stop crosses going into him.

“But we showed tremendous spirit to get something at the death and we were still trying to win it at the end as well.

“This is great for the morale because it would have been very disappointing if we got nothing out of the game.”