Melbourne Victory 0, Newcastle Jets 1
THE SUMMARY:
Newcastle Jets produced one of the biggest upsets in Hyundai A-League history on Friday, Phil Stubbins’ side toppling the table-topping, Premiers Plate hunting Melbourne Victory 1-0 at AAMI Park.
Unfancied by all pundits leading into the match, the Jets showed plenty of passion and pride throughout the encounter and were rewarded for their effort and enterprise in the 55th minute when Edson Montaño scored his fourth goal of the campaign.
The Ecuadorian attacker’s goal came after strong work by Enver Alivodić, who was outstanding on the night. Alivodić swung a ball into the box which wasn’t cleared by Victory defender Nick Ansell. Montaño latched on to the opportunity and prodded past Lawrence Thomas, who was deputising for the injured Nathan Coe, from close range.
There were chances at both ends throughout the first 45 – veteran attacker Archie Thompson spurning Victory’s best by pushing his shot wide of Ben Kennedy’s right post when in a one-on-one position with the Jets custodian in the 34th minute.
Newcastle had two fantastic opportunities to open the scoring shortly before half time when Alivodić headed Andrew Hoole’s inch-perfect cross into the area millimetres wide of goal. The miss from the six-yard box was the only blight on what was a superb display from the Serbian attacking midfielder in the Victorian capital.
A minute after his miss, Alivodić’s deflected cross to Mitch Cooper was struck over the bar.
Newcastle took the lead ten minutes after the restart through Montaño and despite Melbourne’s best advances would not relinquish their lead. Indeed, the closest Victory came to restoring parity to the contest came five minutes from time when Kosta Barbarouses burst into the box following Besart Berisha’s pass, only to drag his strike wide.
Kevin Muscat’s men had plenty of set-piece opportunities in the second stanza, but Kennedy was in fine form between the sticks for his hometown Club, producing a series of punches clear and marshalling the men in front of him to keep his third clean sheet of the campaign.
THE SCOREBOARD:
Melbourne Victory 0
Newcastle Jets 1 (Montaño 55’)
Venue: AAMI Park, Melbourne
Referee: Peter O’Leary
Attendance: 19,277
THE REACTION:
“Did we believe that we could come to Melbourne and win? Yes, of course we did. We set ourselves up to win every game, and we prepared very well for this match. It’s a credit to everyone involved that we’ve come to AAMI Park and stamped our mark on the game. The win wasn’t a fluke, we had great periods throughout the match and importantly managed to keep a clean sheet which is a credit to everyone involved.” – Phil Stubbins
“It’s a credit to Kevin Muscat and Melbourne Victory that coming to AAMI Park is so hard. For our boys to defeat them when there was so much at stake for them is an accomplishment in itself. We made some tough decisions through this season which has led to us now having a rather youthful squad. But what we have now is a young and vibrant team champing at the bit to represent Newcastle. Our last four games have been very tactically organised, and while we lost two of them any objective analyst will say that we performed admirably in all of them. Tonight was just a fantastic win away from home.” – Phil Stubbins
THE TEAMS:
Newcastle Jets: 3. Taylor REGAN, 7. Enver ALIVODIĆ, 11. Andrew HOOLE (31. Max BURGESS 69’), 13. Edson MONTAÑO, 16. Jacob PEPPER (C), 18 Allan WELSH, 19. Mitch COOPER (29. Michael KANTAROVSKI 86’), 20. Ben KENNEDY (Gk), 21. Daniel MULLEN, 22. LEE Ki-je, 26. Nicholas COWBURN
Substitutes not used: 12. Sam GALLAGHER, 27. Radovan PAVICEVIC, 30. John SOLARI (Gk)
Yellow cards: Cowburn, Alivodić
Red cards: Nil
Melbourne Victory: 4. Nicholas ANSELL, 5. Mark MILLIGAN (C), 6. Leigh BROXHAM, 7. Gui FINKLER, 8. Besart BERISHA, 10. Archie THOMPSON (9. Kosta BARBAROUSES 62’), 14. Fahid BEN KHALFALLAH, 15. Daniel GEORGIEVSKI, 17. Mathieu DELPIERRE, 20. Lawrence THOMAS (Gk), 21. Carl VALERI (22. Jesse MAKAROUNAS 77’)
Substitutes not used: 2. Jason GERIA, 16. Rashid MAHAZI, 42. Lucas SPINELLA (Gk)
Yellow cards: Nil
Red cards: Nil
