Good afternoon Victory fans. For some weird reason it feels like forever since my last post. This week has kind of dragged on, but never mind because live football is upon us once again. We take on Perth Glory at home tomorrow in a match where we really need to start bringing things together.

There’s been a lot of talk this season about how the team just needs to gell for things to start improving. Matthew Kemp reiterated those sentiments this week:

We’re not panicking about it, but it doesn’t feel as if we’re gelling as much as we’d like.

I don’t know why to be honest. By this point of the season, we’d like it to be a bit more free flowing, but we’ll keep working hard and hopefully it’s going to come.

Hopefully. That pretty much sums it up doesn’t it? We’re hoping that the players finally gell. We’re hoping that this new system eventually works. We’re hoping that Durakovic knows what he’s doing. To be honest, I don’t think he does.

For that reason I’m not even going to try and predict the line-up this week as its been different every game, but the squad is as follows:

Fabio, Petar Franjic, Leigh Broxham, Matthew Kemp, Solorzano, Archie Thompson, Marco Rojas, Rodrigo Vargas, Diogo Ferreira, Billy Celeski, Tom Pondeljak, Carlos Hernandez, Jimmy Jeggo, Danny Allsopp, Isaka Cernak , Lawrence Thomas, Ante Covic, Adrian Leijer.

Harry Kewell has been left out after picking up an injury while on international duty. No surprises there really. The Club simply won’t risk him at this point in the season, which is for the best. Matthew Foschini is also out of course, serving the second week of his suspension but Ante Covic comes straight back into the side following his one match ban. Young Lawrence Thomas has done well in Ante’s absence but I think the veteran will return to the starting line-up.

Diogo Ferreira has also been included but with three players to be omitted he could miss out. It will most likely come down to how he has recovered from his muscle strain which kept him out of the team last week. The same goes for Isaka Cernak. If he’s fit though I’d definitely include him. Grant Brebner on the other hand is still recovering from his injury but should return in a week or two. As for Carlos Hernandez, he only arrived back in Melbourne on Friday after representing Costa Rica so there are doubts over whether he will play tomorrow. He did return injury free though so my guess is he’ll at least make the bench.

I don’t know how to feel ahead of this game. Watching the Victory has been quite painful this season and I’ve given up trying to predict what might happen. Despite the depressing nature of the situation, Mehmet Durakovic remains positive ahead of taking on Perth:

 They had a great start to the season with three games for three wins so it won’t be easy.

I watched their game last week against Sydney FC and I thought they played really well, especially in the second half when they created a lot of chances.

They are a well structured team, so it should be a really good game. But hopefully we can have our tactics right and get the three points at home.

There’s that word again. In true Durakovic style, hopefully we can get three points tomorrow in order to get our season back on track. We have a good run of home games coming up over the Christmas period before a huge month of football in January. Excuses just won’t cut it anymore. Its time to step up.