Soccer-'We've got to become more clinical,' says Victory's Popovic after draw

Unbeaten four games into the season, the draw was the second in a row for Victory, who opened the campaign with back-to-back wins as Popovic looks to turn the club into title challengers after a poor showing last year. "We've got to become more clinical in our decisions, a bit more ruthless in the box," said Popovic.

Melbourne Victory coach Tony Popovic wants his players to turn their dominance into points after his team were held to a 1-1 draw by Wellington Phoenix in the A-League on Friday. Unbeaten four games into the season, the draw was the second in a row for Victory, who opened the campaign with back-to-back wins as Popovic looks to turn the club into title challengers after a poor showing last year.

"We've got to become more clinical in our decisions, a bit more ruthless in the box," said Popovic. "I feel our game's getting better, I feel we got in the box even easier than last week but we lacked the final touch. "We needed to score again in the first half, we were so dominant."

Victory had taken the lead through Ryan Teague's close-range finish in the 14th minute but an own goal by Damian da Silva earned Wellington a point despite the side from New Zealand not registering a shot on goal throughout the 90 minutes. The result leaves both teams level on eight points at the top of the standings, although they could be replaced by any one of the three sides below them during the course of the weekend.

"The team's progressing well," said Popovic of his team's development. "I'd much rather be here sitting talking about (how) we're improving our game, we're dominating the ball, we're controlling games better, limiting the opponent to very little.

"We don't want the boys going home tonight - myself included, and all of us at Melbourne Victory - saying we're playing good. We should be disappointed. "We're happy with the progress, the football that we're playing, but we're not happy when we don't win and there should be a feeling of that as well.

"We're in the right direction and there are many areas to improve and to keep evolving."