Archie Thompson may be an admirer of Brisbane Roar this season, but the Melbourne striker won’t entertain comparisons between Ange Postecoglou’s current side and Victory’s dominant campaigns of 2006/07 and 2008/09.
Thompson has added some extra spice into Friday night’s much-anticipated clash between Melbourne and top-placed Brisbane at AAMI Park by suggesting that any claims of Brisbane’s current greatness are premature until the Roar actually lift some silverware.
“They haven-t actually won anything yet. We-ve won two championships and two minor premierships. Until they actually win something, they can-t say they are at a Melbourne Victory level,” Thompson said.
The striker, who scored his 50th Hyundai A-League goal against Wellington on Saturday, believes Victory still have the quality to defeat the runaway league leaders, but need to find consistency.
“It-s important this week we put on a good performance at home against a Brisbane side which is absolutely flying at the moment. I must admit, I enjoy watching their football.” he said.
“They are winning games by four or five goals each week.”
“That’s from not playing bad football. Obviously they are playing really well. Ange has got them playing some lovely stuff.”
“With the football they are playing, they are definitely the best team out there at the moment. We’ve being playing football like that, but in patches. They’ve been doing it for 90 minutes, I think once we start doing that and we have been the last couple of matches, we can compete with that.”
“We’re looking forward to it, because we want to compete against the best and they-ve been the best all year.”
“What a way to do it, where they are now and at home on Friday, hopefully we get the support out there as we need the win too.”
Thompson, who is four matches into his comeback from knee surgery, admits his side desperately need to find some momentum after having gone 17 matches into the season without winning back to back matches.
“Every game until the end of the season is important for us now. We are fighting for the top six, and at the moment, it-s quite congested down there and it’s disappointing the last couple of weeks because we-ve put ourselves in positions to win a match and a few minutes from the end let ourselves down,” Thompson, who is yet to play in a winning team this season, said.
“We haven-t put a couple of wins together all season. It-s been disappointing. Especially the last two weeks, when we-ve been playing some good football, put ourselves in a position to win and with silly goals at the end, we-ve let ourselves down.”
Melbourne are set to get back full back Matthew Kemp for the first time this campaign in Friday night’s match and with Adrian Leijer suspended, will most likely return to a back four, with Thai international Surat Sukha also set to be included.
