Merrick paid price for Asian fiascos

Six years later, they finally have their wish.

Merrick, who guided the A-League club to grand final wins in the 2006-2007 and 2008-2009 seasons, was dismissed on Saturday as exclusively revealed by The World Game on Friday with one year remaining on his contract.

The 57-year-old met new board chairman Anthony Di Pietro and managing director Richard Wilson on Saturday morning to be told his services were no longer required.

Merrick was the most successful coach in A-League history and the last remaining foundation coach, having held the job since the club and competition's inception in 2005.

Four finals appearances, three grand finals, two championship wins, and two Premiers Plates was the sum total of his achievements.

But it was consistent failure in a competition they've never managed to get right - the AFC Champions League - which brought out the boardroom knives for Merrick.

After two failed attempts to survive the groups stages, Victory had a horror start to this season's campaign.

For a new board seeking a new direction, and a new managing director conducting an all-encompassing review of the club, the club's 5-1 hammering by Japan's Gamba Osaka this month was the last straw.

Whispers of Merrick's demise started circling late on Thursday night, with former AFL player Brad Hardie saying on Perth radio station 6PR the Victory board was about to kill off Merrick.

By Saturday morning, the whispers had turned deafening.

Merrick was off to meet the new chairman. The club's future direction was on the agenda. He wasn't a part of it.

Victory staff knew nothing of Merrick's looming axing - and were flatly denying it would happen late Friday night. They were told early Saturday morning.

Merrick's players, many of them developed and all hand-picked by the Scottish-born coach along with football operations boss Gary Cole, were told via text message at the same time.

Unlike so many coaches who are sacked, there was no disquiet between Merrick and his players, nor those who worked under him.

So how everyone at the Victory deals with Merrick's departure from a club which he has been at the frontline of building will make for an interesting few weeks.

At a club famous for its stability, the machinations of the past 48 hours are unusual in the extreme.

In the boardroom coup that has unseated Merrick, there is a hint of the old National Soccer League.

There coaches were chopped so regularly that they'd arrive at new clubs encased in Glad-Wrap and in need of a freezer.

The sack-the-coach mentality which pervaded all clubs in that competition has been rarely sighted in the A-League.

And certainly not at its most successful club.

Sacking a coach is only a good idea if you find yourself a better one.

That is now the overriding challenge for Victory's new board, led by Di Pietro.

They would want to be as good as finding new blood as they have shown they are at spilling it.