After hitting rock bottom last season, Melbourne Victory are ready to make a statement when they face reigning A-League Men champions Melbourne City in their first derby of the season.
Victory’s men crashed to their first wooden spoon in 2020-21, all while watching their fierce rivals complete the premiership-championship double, which included doling out 6-0 and 7-0 defeats in Melbourne derbies.
“We don’t think about those (results) too much. It’s a lot of different staff or even players as well. So there’s not too many that were part of that,” veteran Leigh Broxham said.
“It happened – I was there so I remember it.
“But the boss (Tony Popovic) for us has reiterated how important these games are and from day one once we were back from from Adelaide, how important this is and how big the game will be for players that haven’t played in it.”
Victory have thrived in the early days of the Popovic era, with three wins and a lone one loss.
“It’s been said publicly a lot that we do want to get back to winning ways and there’s been a lot of change on and off the field and in the office as well,” Broxham said.
“At the end of last year, maybe hitting rock bottom was the best thing that could have happened. We didn’t scrape second-bottom or something like that.
“I think the penny dropped a little bit.
“We’ve still gone about things how Melbourne Victory would but maybe just made some little changes here and there.
“It’s definitely on a good trajectory at the moment and the way we’re doing things is really positive.”
City are coming off last week’s over Perth Glory amid a stuttering start to the season and captain Scott Jamieson relished the prospect of a competitive Christmas derby.
“We’ve had a bit of a break in regards to our last game. So super fresh, really healthy and really excited to hopefully get another strong Melbourne derby feel about things,” he said.
“Maybe over the last few years, it’s dropped off a bit for whatever reason.
“But there’s no excuse now with Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory looking like strong teams for everyone to get out and be a part of it.
“You make what you want out of the past results that we’ve had against Melbourne Victory (but they’re a) totally different beast.”
Broxham hoped Socceroo Chris Ikonomidis would return from a thigh injury, while Victory will welcome back midfielder Rai Marchan from a red-card suspension.
But full-back Jason Davidson is suspended after two yellow cards against Adelaide.
