Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat was delighted with his team’s performance after their 3-1 Westfield FFA Cup quarter final win over Adelaide United on Tuesday night.
United's defence of the Cup came to an end in the form of a 3-1 loss away to fierce foes Victory in the quarter-finals at AAMI Park.
First-half goals from Guilherme Finkler and Kosta Barbarouses earned Muscat's side a comfortable lead going into the break against the Reds.
Adelaide got one back courtesy of a Marcelo Carrusca penalty in the 79th minute, only for Victory to put the result beyond doubt thanks to a spot-kick of their own, converted by Besart Berisha with eight minutes remaining.
Muscat told Fox Sports after the game that the performance satisfied him and the effort and work-rate was what he wanted from his charges.
Dazzling Victory surge into FFA Cup semi finals
“A good result but more pleased with the performance. I thought we dominated and pressed in high areas taking some risks," he said.
“We got rewards for those risks in the first half. And it’s nice to be still in the hat [for the semi finals].”
Muscat, however, was not impressed by referee Peter Green who he felt should’ve taken more control early door of this at-times fiery clash.
“If some incidents early on were dealt with he might not have been so busy,” said Muscat.
“A reckless challenge on Fahid [Ben Khalfallah] with the goalkeeper to beat I suppose if you take action there, there aren’t so many ordinary challenges after it. It’s just disappointing.”
Muscat added new signing, Socceroo Oliver Bozanic, still had a lot more to give with match fitness key to his progress.
“He’s still fighting fatigue because he’s working pretty hard [in training]. But we had to take him off to look after him and the risk increases the more fatigue you’ve got.
“But I thought he was very good tonight."
However, the Victory coach was concerned when pressed on the sight of club legend Archie Thompson being stretchered off the park after coming on as a second half substitute.
“It’s too early but he’s obviously in a bit of pain ... we’ll wait and see in the next couple of days,” said a subdued Muscat.
