Sticking to guns road for Victory

ONLY once before has Melbourne Victory lost the opening two games of a season.

That was in 2012 when the Ange Postecoglou-coached side broke its duck in Round 3 against Adelaide United.

Victory will be hoping history repeats itself against the Reds at Adelaide Oval tonight as it seeks to avoid going 0-3 for the first time.

Victory boss Kevin Muscat is unashamedly convinced his side’s performances against Sydney FC and Melbourne City deserved greater reward.

So how does Muscat hope to improve on an attacking display last week that he said delivered plenty of balls into the penalty box for little scoreboard success? Attack some more. “I’m not stressing any more or any less than other weeks,” Muscat said.

“Last week was the highest return of balls into the box into goalscoring areas that we’ve had in a long time.

“There were a number of times where they were forced to defend desperately, an inch here or there and it could have been so different.

“We want to increase the quality of those balls into the box and try to get more bodies into the box as well. We will persist.”

Victory must replace central defender James Donachie, who tore his quad off the bone against City and had surgery on Wednesday.

Muscat confirmed Thomas Deng would come in but was cagey on positioning, with both he and Leigh Broxham capable of playing centrally or on the left.

“Understanding how Adelaide play, you’re going to have to defend a lot of balls placed over the top of the back four, so whether he (Deng) starts at left back or centre back, we’ll decide (today),” Muscat said.