Soccer: Knights suffer brutal fall from grace

The Knights' Michael White is tackled by a Melbourne defender. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Melbourne 3 Knights 0

Expect changes to the New Zealand Knights team after they crashed to the Melbourne Victory at a sodden North Harbour Stadium yesterday.

Coach Paul Nevin was refreshingly honest. "The players have shown they can do a lot more than they did today and it wasn't just one or two. It was five or six. Any team with five or six not performing is going to get the end product we got.

"If players perform and the team performs, there's no need to change it. But we've lost 3-0 and there were some poor performances in that. So we might need a change."

One forced change will be for midfielder Jonas Salley, stretchered off with an ankle ligament injury after a clash with Steve Pantelidis in the 14th minute. He is almost certain to miss Friday's game with the Queensland Roar in Brisbane.

It was a steep and brutal fall from grace for a Knights team that celebrated their first home win a week ago and could have been second on the table with a win.

Melbourne are now deservedly top of the A-League. The visitors, with the advantage of a brisk breeze in the first half, were quicker, better organised and handled the treacherous surface far better than the Knights.

They spoiled the two-game clean sheet of the home defence as early as the ninth minute when Daniel Allsopp made the most of a pass from Archie Thompson.

Thirteen minutes later Thompson scored himself when goalkeeper Danny Milosevic appeared to misjudge his grab for a loose ball in the penalty area. Captain Kevin Muscat made it 3-0 in the 36th minute with an unopposed header from a free kick by Kristian Sarkies.

The Knights, who barely threatened in the first spell, were better after the break but Melbourne came close to scoring when Allsopp shot just wide after Thompson had carved up the defence.

Thompson was a class act with his speed off the mark and his close control. The 27-year-old, who has played in Belgium and Holland, was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia as an infant.

Melbourne coach Ernie Merrick was impressed that in conditions where goals usually come from opposition mistakes, his team scored their first two from great pieces of play.

But he still rated the Knights as a difficult team to break down.

As Nevin said, the Knights weren't the best team in the world after winning 1-0 last week and they aren't the worst after yesterday's disappointing loss. But they have some way to go if they are to compete at the top level of the A-League.

In other third-round matches, Adelaide thumped Newcastle 5-1 and Central Coast and Queensland fought out a scoreless draw in atrocious conditions at Gosford.