Melbourne Victory coach Ernie Merrick says he is unconcerned by the prospect of Adelaide United attempting to stifle his team into submission in Saturday night’s Hyundai A-League Grand Final.
Reds’ coach Aurelio Vidmar joked on Friday that he planned to park ‘a double decker bus’ in front of the Victory goal in the premiership decider in an attempt to stop a Melbourne team that will go into Saturday night’s clash as overwhelming favourites.
Melbourne has not only beaten Adelaide in all five meetings this season – including a 6-0 aggregate demolition in the major semi-final a fortnight ago – but it has won seven of its past eight matches overall, its past seven at home and has scored in its past 14 successive matches.
Merrick said on Friday that no matter what negative tactics Adelaide attempts to come up with on Saturday night, his team would continue its natural attacking game and would not panic even if the early goal failed to materialise.
“I’m sure (Adelaide) will use some of those tactics but we have got to cope with that,” Merrick said.
“There is no way you can get out of being favourites when you have won the past five games against Adelaide, but we have got the players to cope with that weight of expectation and thrive on it and that is what a good team does.”
Merrick said regardless of the state of the match he would encourage his team to keep attacking on Saturday night – even if the Victory does gain the momentum early by scoring first.
“We have always tried to play an attacking brand of football and we have never sat on a one goal lead,” he said, of his team – which also routed Adelaide 6-0 in the 2006/07 grand final at Telstra Dome.
“We will always go for that second and third goal and that is what is entertaining about us and that is also why we won the Premier’s Plate (for finishing on top of the ladder at the end of the regular season) because we finished on the same points and goal difference as Adelaide but we scored more goals (39 to 31) so we are not going to change the way we play (regardless of Adelaide’s tactics).”
Despite going in the hottest grand final favourites in the A-League’s short history, Merrick is refusing to take anything for granted on Saturday night – so much so that will not even dare to contemplate his team becoming the first to win two A-League championships and the first to win three trophies in one season (the pre-season title, Premier’s Plate and the Championship) by winning on Saturday night.
“I can’t speak about that (prospect) because I will never make assumptions about how result is going to go,” he said.
“I won’t talk about what it means if we win this or we do this because we are not taking anything for granted and in no way are we going to be complacent.”
