MELBOURNE FACE JEONBUK

Melbourne Victory will be taking on Jeonbuk Motors in the Asian Champions League on Wednesday night. Ahead of this match, the Australian club’s defender Nick Ansell says that it is important that the club maintain discipline in order to get a good result. Jeonbuk Motors are one of the top teams in Korean football and they will provide a stern test for Melbourne Victory. Ansell says that the players should be extremely careful about picking bookings over the course of the match and they aim to do this by improving the overall discipline of the team.

Melbourne Victory had a hard lesson from the recent 4-2 defeat at the hands of Chinese outfit Guangzhou ­Evergrande. They managed to bring an end to 2 consecutive defeats after the 3-1 win over Central Coast during the weekend. This win helped them stay just one point behind Western Sydney Wanderers in the table. Ansell has been one of the consistent players for the club this campaign. He only recently turned 20 years of age. He also spoke about the need for three points given that this is the first home match of this Champions League campaign.

Melbourne Victory have a defensive crisis with a couple of defenders suspended. This puts the pressure on young Ansell, who is hoping to fill the boots of experienced players.

“Guangzhou was a good ­experience for us and definitely a lot different playing Asian teams compared to the A-League. Just the way they control the game, keep the ball and use their strikers and wingers on quick counter-attacks, their precision long balls. It’s a good competition and definitely a challenging one. The atmosphere was unbelievable and it was played at a high intensity, especially in the second half,” said Ansell.

A win will also help erase memories of the 4-0 thrashing against Melbourne Hearts.