Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat was pleased with the way his side won differently against Adelaide United on Saturday evening.
Victory romped to a 4-0 success against Western Sydney Wanderers in Round 6, doing as they pleased to make it four Hyundai A-League wins on the trot.
But they had to be patient and disciplined on this occasion to break down a stubborn United side, with Kosta Barbarouses and Ola Toivonen scoring second-half goals in a 2-0 win for the Champions.
REPORT: Toivonen and Barbarouses terrorise Adelaide
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Asked for his reaction afterwards, Muscat said: “Obviously pleased. It was a different game for us today, it was a different style that we come up against.
“I thought we had to be really patient and we were. We dominated a lot of territory. At half time, the focus was to move the ball a little bit quicker and raise the tempo.
“I thought the game was slowed down at every opportunity in the first half.
“When we can control things, we want it to be played at a higher speed, a higher tempo and that started from Leigh [Broxham], Lawrence [Thomas] and Thomas [Deng] because they had a lot of possession today.
“In the end, I thought we were good value, very good value for the three points.”
While Toivonen’s well-taken goal and deft touches won plenty of plaudits, Muscat was full of praise for the “outstanding” Terry Antonis for his creative work in the final third.
“It was a good goal and Ola will be the first to say, the build-up … the pass from Terry for his goal was outstanding,” he said.
“Ola gets the opportunity to perform the way he does because [of] the people around him, because of his teammates. That’s how it should be.
"That’s what we continue to work on.
“His finish was exceptional, he caused problems all evening for them and I thought Terry was outstanding.”
Adelaide boss Marco Kurz bemoaned his side’s profligacy in front of goal but said he was happy with the way they performed.
“I think we played a very good game. The only mistake we did was we didn’t score a goal,” Kurz said.
“I think we played well. The difference today was the quality from the offensive lines.
“Victory play with a World Cup striker [Toivonen]. I play with an under-19 player. He played well for his age but that’s the difference.
“If you want to win a game, you must score goals. And we have, I think, more than four or five big chances.
“In the second half we have two one-against-one chances against the goalkeeper and then you have to score a goal if you want to pick up the points away. But the game was good from our side.”
