Young Melbourne Victory defender Matthew Foschini has delivered a stinging assessment of his side’s performance in the 0-0 draw against Melbourne Heart, describing it as a disgrace and unacceptable.
As if inspired by now retired skipper Kevin Muscat, the man who he inherited the No.2 from, Foschini, who only turned 21 during the week, was frank in his assessment of the lack of progress a highly rated Victory outfit have made so far this season, with just two points and no goals from their first three games.
“This game especially, it’s not acceptable. As a playing group we can’t accept this kind of performance,” he said.
“We are the biggest club in Australia and if we are going to go out there and give that to our fans and supporters. It’s a disgrace to be honest. We have to pick it up and move forward until next week.”
While much of the focus of Victory’s stuttering start to the season has been on their star-studded attack, which has yet to produce a goal despite featuring names such as Archie Thompson, Harry Kewell and Carlos Hernandez, Foschini said every line had to stand up take accountability for where the club finds itself.
“I don’t think you can pin point a certain area where it’s gone wrong. We are just not gelling. We are not working hard enough for each other,” he said.
“Nothing has gone right and we’ve got no-one to blame but ourselves. There’s no good pointing fingers at anyone else, everyone of us need to look at each other in the eye and say it’s not good enough.”
“The sooner we do that, the better it is, or else we are just going to continue on a downward spiral.”
Victory went into the game without captain Adrian Leijer, who has been earmarked as the man to become the spiritual leader of the playing group in the post Muscat era.
But while he was suspended for Saturday night’s match, Foschini doesn’t believe the below par performance has anything to do with a lack of on-field direction.
“It’s not a lack of leadership on the field. There’s 11 leaders on the field, there’s not just one captain. We have all got to lift each other from the youngest player like myself or Petar (Franjic) to the oldest one.”
“We can’t rely on certain people to carry the ship every week. We all have to do our job or we won’t go anywhere.”
Victory have a difficult run of matches coming up with trips away to Wellington and Central Coast split by a home clash against reigning champions Brisbane Roar.
