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Brebner not in mix for Victory coach job

3 minute read

Melbourne Victory interim coach Grant Brebner hasn't applied to take on the job permanently, but he's keen to make an impact at the A-League club.

Melbourne Victory interim coach Grant Brebner has not applied for the position on a permanent basis but wants to use his short stint in charge to help the A-League powerhouse find their spark.

A favourite son at Victory, Brebner was named interim coach after Carlos Salvachua returned to Spain.

He will coach the final five regular season games - plus finals if Victory scrape into the top six - alongside W-League coach and now interim assistant Jeff Hopkins.

Brebner said he had not applied for the head coach position, and considered his role for the remainder of the season a development opportunity.

"As the club's stated quite openly, they are looking to bring somebody else in and I'm fully supportive of that," Brebner said.

"This'll be a good learning opportunity for me but there's still a lot of education that I want to go through before I can step into a position like this."

Victory has dropped away this season, initially under Marco Kurz - who was sacked in January after just 13 A-League games in charge.

They languished in 10th place when the campaign was suspended by COVID-19.

Brebner said Victory had gone away from their traditional attacking style and he would look to return them to their roots during his time in charge.

"I'm talking about years of this club being built upon certain things ... (under) Ernie Merrick in the early days, Ange Postecoglou, Kevin Muscat - win, lose or draw, the foundations for our performances were attacking and entertaining football," he said.

"This is a personal point of view but I don't think that was our mantra this year - I don't think we set out as much to get that entertainment factor.

"In the short period of time that I have that's going to be our goal - to bring a little bit of entertainment back to the crowd and win some games along the way."

Victory, who are seven points outside the top six, will resume their season on July 16 against newcomers Western United at AAMI Park.

They will be without former captain Ola Toivonen who returned to Sweden to sign with Malmo FF, but Robbie Kruse is back training after battling hamstring injuries throughout the season.

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