Muscat puts heat on players

KEVIN Muscat has demanded Melbourne Victory take responsibility for its “self-inflicted” 4-1 A-League hiding in Newcastle and fix its mental approach to games.

Muscat admitted 10-man Victory was second best against the Jets on Thursday, in what is becoming the story of the heavyweight club’s season bar last Sunday’s breakthrough 2-0 win in Perth.

Mark Milligan faces a nervous wait for the match review panel after being sent off for attempting to headbutt Daniel Georgievski before grabbing his former Victory teammate by the throat. “Such a disappointing night,” Muscat said.

“We started really well, (Kosta Barbarouses) scored a really good goal, and then obviously after that it was nowhere near good enough.

“We’ve got to take responsibility because tonight was compounded by ourselves.

“We didn’t really give ourselves a chance after being so bright and so sharp early on.

“We were nowhere near good enough and it was self-inflicted.”

Muscat said the four-day turnaround and travel from Perth had not helped Victory’s cause, but was loath to use it as an excuse.

Going down to 10 men after 28 minutes also gave his team a “huge mountain to climb”.

Muscat said he had seen the Milligan incident as it happened and had not spoken to his player to hear his explanation.

“From where I was, the referee was pretty quick to pull his card out so whatever he was seeing he was sure of,” he said.

Compounding Milligan’s possible omission for next Sunday’s trip to Wellington is the injury to Rhys Williams.