In recent times Melbourne Victory have not been renowned for being quick out of the blocks in their A-League seasons, and early on it looked as though their 2018-19 campaign was going to follow the same pattern.
Defeats against Melbourne City and Perth Glory in the opening encounters meant Victory, for all their much-vaunted firepower and star signings, were bumping along at the bottom of the ladder.
Melbourne Victory’s start to the season has the team feeling good, says Leigh Broxham.Credit:AAP
But the old saying – that form is temporary, class is permanent – holds true for a reason.
And, after three successive wins, Victory are now second on the table with nine points and a goal difference of plus three.
It's a far cry from last season, when Kevin Muscat's men went half a dozen games without a win, and morale around the camp reflects the buzz that the team has been getting from putting together its recent run.
Victory brought up their hat-trick with their win over bitter rivals Sydney last weekend, and, says veteran Leigh Broxham, the feeling at Gosch's Paddock is all upbeat now.
''I guess you don’t need me to tell you that. Three wins in a row and it's easy to feel great. After the few losses I think the morale was still great at the start of the season. It’s amazing what one win, let alone three wins, can do for morale in football.''
Still, nothing is being taken for granted. New players and a tactical rethink mean that there is still plenty of work to be done and Muscat is seeking incremental improvement with each game.
''It’s a lot of change. If you watched last year, this year it’s a lot of change in formation, tactics and personnel, there’s been a big change as well.
''It took a little bit of time for everyone, because obviously you’ve got to buy into it as an individual and then try and implement what Kevin wants to do. As you can see and we can feel as well … it’s really starting to click.''
But, he added: ''I think there’s always things to work on, I think to critique things now, it’s probably a good time to learn because it’s easy to just cloud over that haven’t done that well when you’re winning.
''We met this morning [Wednesday] and Kevin’s still pointing out lots of things that can be better for longer throughout a game so I think that’s fair. There’s a lot of these things that we can work on but all in all that’s [the match against Sydney] a game we might have let slip in previous years and we’ve gone on and won the game so you’ve got to take the positives from that.''
Broxham is delighted with the contribution made in his first start by Swedish World Cup striker Ola Toivonen.
''He’s one from one now. What can you say? He’s a great finisher of the ball as you can see in training. I think he’ll build into games and be able to finish games off in the near future.
''He’s an intelligent player, you can see the runs he makes and the positions that he takes up to take chances. Obviously he didn’t do a lot of training in the pre-season and because he’s been unavailable since the season started. An assist in the Central Coast game as well so he’ll be big for us this year.
''He’s kind of the big man up top for us, isn’t he? He’s up there to score goals for us. He played at the point on the weekend.
''You win one game and it's sort of amazing what it does for a changeroom. You can analyse all the games you want and point out how great we played and lost, then you can come in and play crap and win one game and it’s kind of, it’s just … it takes the pressure off and it definitely makes the environment a lot easier to be in as well. Compared to last year the feelings are chalk and cheese because we’ve won a lot more.''
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