Winless Victory deserves better, says coach Kevin

KEVIN Muscat says Melbourne Victory’s output has deserved better recognition on the A-League ladder.

But Muscat’s men are going to have to start turning performances into points fast before they encounter more international disruption and an Asian Champions League-inspired fixture clog.

There are still 75 points up for grabs this season.

But Victory has already spurned two of its 14 home games, suffering 1-0 and 2-1 defeats to Sydney FC and Melbourne City.

Not since 2005 has Victory lost two home matches in a row.

And only in 2012-13 has Victory lost its opening two games.

In that season it recovered to finish third. But there are significant hurdles to clear in order to do that again.

The dates for Australia’s World Cup qualifiers against Honduras were confirmed yesterday, with the Socceroos to play in Honduras on November 10 and in Sydney on November 15.

That means Mark Milligan and James Troisi will likely miss round five (Western Sydney, Etihad) because it’s a Monday night game and definitely round six (Brisbane, Etihad).

A round seven trip to Perth, despite being on Sunday, November 19, also will be a tall order given the players’ workload.

Kiwi Kosta Barbarouses is in the same boat given New Zealand has intercontinental play-offs against Peru in the same window.

Then there is the ACL, set to kick off on February 12-14, which compromises Victory’s last eight games.

You won’t hear any complaints from Victory about that because the club is hellbent on succeeding in Asia.

And Football Federation Australia to its credit has given Victory and Sydney as much of a leg up as possible in their late-season schedules.

But Victory wouldn’t want to fall too far behind the pack given all the factors at play.

Which makes Friday night’s blockbuster at Adelaide Oval against Adelaide United so important.

“You want to start well,” Muscat (pictured) said.

“I can certainly say from a performance perspective we’ve not returned anywhere near (the amount of points) what we should have.

“But that’s something we’re going to have to deal with. You can watch the game, you can go through any of the stats and you wouldn’t believe that it was a 2-1 defeat.

“But ultimately the main stat is the one that they were better than us in, and that was the goals scored.”