Round Eleven Report

What an astonishing week!

Ante Milicic, Sasho Petrovski and Damian Mori all notched up hattricks, after ten rounds with none. The league leaders were trounced at home, with Daniel Beltrame's woeful mistake making a mockery of my previous thoughts about goalkeeping quality in the league. At least the Roar's Tom Willis kept another clean sheet, his fifth in eight games! Meanwhile, the Knights discovered a lively home-based scoring partnership and bid Ronnie Bull farewell back to England, giving them some room under the salary cap come the transfer window. In the absence of Tom Pondeljak, Central Coast relied on the likes of Hutchinson, Brown and Spencer to little effect against a David Carney-inspired Sydney.

Once again refereeing decisions were put under the spotlight, detracting from desirable coverage of player performance, goals, and results. Elite defenders copped the brunt of the whistle blowing, with Muscat, Claeys and Beauchamp all seeing red. Each will be badly missed next week, as will Andrew Packer and Kristian Rees who both earned one-game suspensions following their fourth yellows. In the meantime, Nick Ward escaped unpunished for an elbow to the face of Adam Van Dommele, while teammate Billy Celeski picking up a yellow for bystanding! (Edit - actually, courtesy of a clip of the incident, Ward had nothing to do with it. Celeski received a caution for tripping Van Dommele after a simply unfortunate accident that saw Celeski clip Van Dommele in the head with his extended arm. The referees got everything perfectly right!) Make no mistake, the inquest vis-a-vis refereeing standards is in full swing.

Remarkably, just five points and a half-dozen goals separate the top seven sides. Sydney has not yet looked championship material, yet they share the summit of the ladder with Adelaide, which augers well for the rest of the season. While their form at home has irked some fans, they've actually recorded fewer losses on their home turf than any other club. Furthermore, they are the only team, along with Melbourne, to possess positive goal difference at home, which is quite incredible. Amazingly, every team besides Victory and the Knights have a positive away goals record!

Adelaide has been riding on its close victories for some time (e.g. round six versus the Knights). On road trips, they have escaped with five wins and no draws, while winning just one game at home where they now sustain a negative goal difference. Have the Reds been a tad lucky so far? Is the tide about to turn?

Of the rest, the Jets always look good when they're scoring freely. Their defensive frailties continue to be exposed, however. Glory's form oscillations are entirely unpredictable. Losses at home have hurt and there are question marks surrounding Mori's availability for the rest of the season. Queensland can't quite nudge their way into the top four on a consistent basis. Lack of production is a huge problem, but not for want of trying. Melbourne is in a spot of trouble over the coming weeks, with suspensions and the absence of Archie Thompson likely to exact a heavy toll. Home advantage against Newcastle and the Mariners before an away visit to New Zealand looks fairly comfortable on paper, which of course means nothing. Two of those teams, Central Coast and the Knights, probably have it even tougher. I'm expecting the Mariners to drop at least a couple of games before the December break. Life is just too tough without Pondeljak. Hopefully we'll get to see more of Leo Carle, who would be everyone's pick as a potential talismanic replacement within the squad. For the Knights, things can't get much worse so there should be improvement on the horizon. A long road trip to Glory next week doesn't help, nor does the followup excursion to Adelaide. But if Adshead can beef up the spirit a touch and continue to extract powerful outings from his local talent, who knows? Melbourne's visit to Auckland in late-November might be one to pencil in as a surprise.

Best of Round Eleven:

Player: Ante Milicic (pictured) - hitting top form at last, albeit against the hapless Knights

U-20 Player: Spase Dilevski - top show from the man with the speediest legs this side of Lance Armstrong (unless Kazuyoshi Mirua winds back the clock, that is); Dilevski has gotten so far forward this year that he's collected twice as many offsides as any other defender in the league!

Coach: Miron Bleiberg - executing a victorious homecoming, with a little help from Massimo Murdocca and friends

Match: Melbourne Victory vs Queensland Roar

Referee: Matthew Breeze

Goal: Ante Milicic - his third strike, a wonderful delicate chip around the body and over the keeper after bringing down a high ball just inside the area with the tip of his toes

4-4-2 Team of the Week:

Ante Milicic - Damian Mori
David Carney - Steve Corica - Noel Spencer - Massimo Murdocca
Remo Buess - Adrian Leijer - Karl Dodd - Spase Dilevski
Tom Willis

Subs: Simon Colosimo, Stuart Musialik, Kris Bright, Jason Petkovic