The Melbourne Victory Post
Match19 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Melbourne Victory
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Jordi Valadon falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Nobody could get near Nishan Velupillay
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Dec 2026
Melbourne Victory and Central Coast Mariners take a point apiece
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Tempers go at Melbourne Victory
Abdoulaye Sow was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Gavin Watson on the point
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Gavin Watson after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Adama Coulibaly is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The form table has caught Adama Traoré
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Looking ahead21 Dec 2026
Jason Davidson faces his old club
Perth Glory next, and one man in the Melbourne Victory dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
In brief
- The dugout Matthew Grimaldi knocks on the manager's door
- Player ratings Off the bench and decisive: Emre Sağlam
- Squad The shirt belongs to Michael Ruhs now