Thai players don't count as foreigners over their as Thailand is a "J-League partner nation."

yes and no. i was always into Football, but i never had a domestic team to support before the HAL. what's the relevance? 

I didn't get that zombie comment either?

Just noticed James Meredith is out of contract at Millwall at the end of the season. Played regularly in the Championship the last two seasons so not sure he’ll leave the UK. He’d be a decent solution to our left back problem if we could convince him to come back to Australia though

James is a Melbourne boy.

I did some work at his parents house a few weeks ago and told his mum she needs to put the hard word on him to come home as Victory would be the ideal club for him (and him for us).

If he signs I’m taking full credit (ha, ha!)

Haha and you will be the only good rusty on this forum then!

-PB

Perth and Sydney away over the next 2 weeks. need to get some results if we're gonna snag second place. interesting times. hopefully our bad run with injury is over and we can play at full strength over the coming weeks. 

absolutely pumped by saturdays result. back in the race for second. and i think we'll get it.  

Yeah, absolutely need to hit 2nd place to give us the best chance of ACL next season.

Beat Sydney and I think it's ours, they have a much tougher run home than us. 

Yeah weve got Victory, Wanderers, Glory, Newcastle. Youve got Us, Adelaide, Mariners, City. With the win over perth and an easier run in Id be predicting victory second

Yeah that is a pretty tough run to end the season, especially when you throw in ACL (tough for us both) and that Newcastle game is away.

We've got Wanderers last actually, but yes your point is well taken.

Also, I imagine we'll throw on the kids for the rest of the ACL while Sydney will still try and make it out of the group and have to play their first team in both competitions, so that might factor into things fatigue-wise. 

i think Kev will go his best 11 until we are mathematically out of ACL contention. Not sure why the sydney game this week isn't on friday when you factor in both teams having to play ACL next week. strange scheduling.

I dont see any diference in toughness for the run in

since Melbourne Victory now require just 1 more win to secure at least 1 home final during the 2019 Hyundai A League Finals Series after our 2-0 road win at Perth Glory on Saturday Night at HBF Park.

week 1 home final (if Victory finish 3rd or 4th): Friday May 3rd at AAMI Park or Saturday May 4th at AAMI Park
week 2 home final (if Victory finish top 2): Saturday May 11th at AAMI Park or Sunday May 12th at AAMI Park

our home final for either week 1 of the Hyundai A League Finals Series or week 2 of the Hyundai A League Finals Series will be played at AAMI Park due to Marvel Stadium being unavailable due to AFL fixtures booked on Friday May 3rd, Saturday May 4th, Sunday May 5th, Saturday May 11th, Sunday May 12th, combined with Melbourne Victory's ACL trip to South Korea over in Daegu on Wednesday May 8th.

Also that Football Federation Australia have a huge huge massive problem now with 4 rounds to go if the current A League standings stay as they are 3 v 6 match up would be a Melbourne Derby will be played at AAMI Park instead of Marvel Stadium due to venue availability issues at the Docklands venue.

Obviously i'd rather finish second, but I think a melbourne derby at AAMI Park would be great. 

Oh yeah thats another point in your favour. We've really wanted to do well in ACL so we'll do what we did last year and have very little rotation and probably draw us down a bit in both comps. 

Selling this strip - 2008 ACL I believe from memory. I've sold/gave away about 100s of football shirts recently, just found an old box today with a few in there. 2nd hand but good condition and rarish shirt. DM me if keen. Around 30 smackas for a piece of history and when I say history I mean - kempinho 

Kempinho  . What a lad. Didn't he shave his head to fit in ag Melbourne 🤣🤣

Would buy if i was till living back in Aus. I just like this kit because it's the only one we've had without the V Edit: more importantly it wasn't designed to annoyingly have the league badge in the middle.

A mate has one without the Samsung. I’m trying to swindle that off him. 

Thoughts on Kevin Muscats coaching? Heading for another season where he finishes double digits behind the leaders, is this acceptable? 

Yeah they should sack him. Winning semi final away and then the Grand Final last season was the final straw. 

He may very well do that again. Hell joyce might even win it. Im talking purely on regular season play, is it good enough?

Combine it with an abysmal ACL campaign and yeah, it's not exactly a good look for him tbh. Also can't forget losing to APIA Leichardt in the FFA Cup - a club of Victory's size should NEVER be losing to an NPL team imo.

I'm not willing to pull the trigger yet, but there defs needs to be some home truths at the post season review. We end up becoming like Arsenal in the later Wenger years if we continue to accept not winning the league or getting out of the ACL group stage.

You have to question our recuiting. good visa players, but too injury prone. I think Kev is getting closer to the end of his tenure than the start, but it won't be this season. he needs to test himself elsewhere.

Last year’s grand final win masked his weaknesses as a week to week coach, I suspect the review at the end of this season won’t be as favourable without a toilet seat on the end of it. 

Yeah I hate it when coaches use full trophy cabinets to paper over the cracks. 

A week ago KM out coached Perth. 
All in all KM has shown a lot this season.
Some mistakes have been made (in particular Corey Brown and one too many "older" imports) but for me KM is getting better every year.
He will need to leave at some stage but on performance he is doing a good job.
Not perfect but as good as any other coach in the A league and better than most. You can not win every year in a salary capped league.

So you're happy finishing anywhere between 10-20 points behind the league champion?