Rody Vargas admits the pressure is mounting on Melbourne Victory, as the perennial Hyundai A-League powerhouses find themselves mired in mid-table after an indifferent first half of the season.
Used to being the pacesetters, a combination of injury, inconsistency and bad luck have conspired to see Melbourne win just four of their first 16 games and they currently sit sixth, 16 points of top spot, and 13 points off the top two.
Ahead of Saturday’s away clash with Wellington Phoenix, which could see Victory fall out of the top six, Vargas said it is time for everyone at the club to lift their game and find some consistency.
“We’re running out of games. We’ve said all along there’s 20 games left, 18 games left and now really for us, it’s the business end. We need to start stringing a few wins in a row,” he said.
“We’re confident we’ll make finals. That’s what we are aiming for at the moment, hopefully we can string two or three wins in a row.”
The current situation was not helped by the sight of Archie Thompson leaving training early on Tuesday. The striker is expected to be fit for Saturday, but the fact remains that the club have failed to register a win in three games he has played since returning from a knee reconstruction.
Vargas’s assessment of the season so far is blunt.
“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We are a club who always want to be up there, up and about at the top of the table and for us being sixth isn-t good enough,” the defender said.
“I’ve been at the club five years and we like to pride ourselves on winning championships, medals and trophies. We don’t accept anything less than that. For us, it’s imperative that we start getting the wins on the board and start making a real push for finals.”
Vargas believes a return to form could be as simple a change of luck for Melbourne, who have not enjoyed a huge degree of fortune this season, conceding two own goals in their past three games, including a late equaliser against the Mariners last week after a goal line clearance deflected in off keeper Michael Petkovic’s boot.
“In my personal opinion, in a lot of games, there hasn-t been much of a difference between getting a win and losing. There’s been very few games we have been poor. I really think we need a bit of luck. We’ve scored two or three own goals and unfortunately the ball is nit dropping our way,” Vargas said.
“Sometimes that happens that way in sport and I think if we can keep putting in performances like we did against Central Coast (last Thursday) it will eventually turn in our favour.”
