Moore captained Aston Villa’s youth team when it won the 2002 FA Youth Cup, and has been very highly rated. According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, “Moore was rated by many as a better prospect than Wayne Rooney.”

But it never quite happened for Moore. After a series of loans, he eventually moved to Queens Park Rangers in 2005. So just a few months after Nick Ward left QPR behind, he may be joined in Melbourne by a former team mate.

Of course, if Melbourne does sign Moore, that means that two of its current visa players will be left out of the mix for the Asian Champions League. Last week, indications were that Leandro Love would be one of the three. But with another striker on board (as well as Nathan Elasi), Love may once again be pushed out of the squad.

Frankly, I thought the Brazilian was on his way out, but Ernie Merrick has decided to keep Love on hand:

“We need to keep as many attacking players in the squad as we can. We’ve really got no shortage of defensive or midfield players.”

Ernie Merrick (Herald Sun)

Carlos Hernández appears a certain selection for the Asian Champions League, leaving either Grant Brebner or Joe Keenan to get the drop. While Keenan has not managed to work his way into Merrick’s favourite eleven, Brebner hasn’t started since December. Both have struggled with injury.

Of course, Merrick could leave them both out and sign some fresh foreign talent instead – but considering the club’s current inability to attract new Australian players, this appears unlikely.

Coaches have to get their 30-player squad lists in by the 11th of February. One of the stipulations is that each team can only have three foreign players.

This means that one of Melbourne’s four internationals is going to miss out on the Champions League.

Our international players are:

• Carlos Hernandez
• Grant Brebner
• Joe Keenan
• Leandro Love

Who should Merrick leave out?

Vote in the sidebar and leave your comments below.

What a difference six weeks makes.

Leandro Love has now started for the Melbourne Victory three times. His performances have been promising – to say the least. Most telling of all, he was instrumental in three of the last four goals Melbourne scored, setting up Archie Thompson on two occasions and winning a penalty against Queensland.

For a back-up striker, Leandro is certainly starting to give Ernie Merrick some selection headaches. On Friday, we already saw him use a three-pronged attack, with little success. It wasn’t until Adrian Caceres replaced Danny Allsopp that the Victory sprang to life.

Is Leandro the new Fred, as David suggested earlier this week? Personally, I doubt it. Leandro may well contribute as much to the Victory as Fred did last year, but his style is markedly different. Frankly, Leandro doesn’t move as much. Fred tended to run into space; Leandro runs into players. To be sure, he fails often enough. But when it does work, Leandro provides plenty of problems for opposition defences.

At 21, Leandro is a young, developing player. He is at Melbourne on a one year loan from Vissel Kobe, where he is yet to feature. If he continues to defy expectations, as he has done so far, this could be a defining moment in his career.

Read more about Leandro Love:

• Leandro Love on Wikipedia
• Leandro profile on MelbourneVictory.com.au
• A sub to Love

But alas, the good news today is that all the necessary red tape has been completed. Gary Cole sounds relieved and frustrated about the whole debacle:

“The notification has come through. Bloody unbelievable. As long as you keep working hard, things eventually come through.”

This is, of course, good to hear. But with hardly any game time under his belt in the past month, you have to wonder how Leandro is going to fare come Sunday. It’s hard to imagine him starting against Wellington, but will Archie’s injury concern force Merrick to throw Leandro into the deep end?

While it is not likely that Leandro will feature prominently for the team, he is a much needed addition to the squad, which has been desperately lacking a third striker. With both Thompson and Allsopp now on the Socceroo’s radar, Melbourne would be in deep trouble if schedules conflicted during the season and, if nothing else, Leandro provides some peace of mind. But to write him off as nothing more than a back-up would be underplaying his role. A quality third striker can prove vitally important in dead-locked matches or matches where the team is down by a goal. Who could forget the role James Robinson played in last season’s semi-final?

While we still know very little about this player, Merrick seems to be underplaying his quality with comments like this: “The third striker really has to know he’s a back-up striker, so that’s why we’ve gone for a 21-year-old who’s . . . pretty fit and ready to go.” Certainly not the glowing words that Merrick has reserved for some of the other signings. That said, Leandro does seem a reasonable prospect at least, apparently having scored 4 goals during his stint at Brazilian state team Rio Branco in the Paulista State Championships. Here’s one of his goals (against Palmeiras) I managed to dig up on YouTube. It’s the second goal:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATUF5ZXruzE[/youtube]