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Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat has raved about his side's performance at Perth Glory that revived their hopes of winning the A-League premiers' plate.
Champions Melbourne Victory have breathed life into the A-League premiers' plate race with a win at pacesetters Perth Glory that coch Kevin Muscat described as "organised and disciplined."
Victory's title defence received a boost with the 2-0 victory in front of a record A-League crowd at HBF Park following on from their home win over Brisbane Roar - in their previous four games they had taken just two points.
While Victory remain third, they are one point behind second-placed Sydney FC and seven behind Glory with four rounds remaining.
Victory went ahead in the first half with a cracking free-kick from Ola Toivonen before a Keisuke Honda penalty extended the margin after halftime.
From there, Victory withstood Glory's onslaught and held a clean sheet despite 19 shots, which Muscat believes his team deserves credit for.
"One thing it has done is it certainly has opened it up in terms of excitement. We are pleased with the way we played and naturally pleased with the result," he said.
"With Sydney winning as well and this result meaning Perth lost, it's set up nicely for the run in.
"But from our perspective, the team that is wanting to attack and press high never gets labelled as organised or disciplined.
"The team that sits back and is reactive, like we were in the second half, gets labelled that so maybe this will be one of the first times we are described with the adjectives of organised and disciplined.
"I'm really happy to be organised and disciplined for a change."
Victory's hopes of finishing the regular season in the top two can take another significant leap on Saturday night when they take on Sydney at the SCG.
Muscat is looking forward to what the run home has in store with Victory to host Central Coast and play away to Adelaide and Western Sydney, in between Asian Champions League clashes with Guangzhou.
"Sydney have still got to play Perth in Sydney so there's still a lot of twists and turns hopefully," Muscat said.
"We'll get back, recover well and this was another opportunity to get some good minutes into a lot of the players.
"With the way we set up in particularly in the second half after we got that second half, it was with those considerations in mind so it was a pleasing night."
