Melbourne Victory striker Archie Thompson says return to winning ways must start against Newcastle Jets Melbourne Victory striker Archie Thompson says today's match against Newcastle is a must-win for his side. ARCHIE Thompson says it's best to get the poor form out of the way before the finals, but concedes the turnaround must start today at AAMI Park. Training was at a higher intensity this week, with Victory players stinging after three consecutive losses saw them slump from within touching distance of first down to fourth. Thompson has had to endure the losses from the sidelines, succumbing to injury early in that first loss against Adelaide at Hindmarsh Stadium. Throughout Victory's roller-coaster season it has maintained a solid home record - losing only to Melbourne Heart in round one and Western Sydney a fortnight ago. Thompson, whose assists (four this season) have been missed as much as his goals (seven), was yesterday declared fit to play after his final training run. With trips to Brisbane and Sydney FC in the next fortnight, he declared today's game a must-win. "We need to win, especially at home," Thompson said. I'd rather us go through what we're going through now than come finals time, but we need to get rid of the lacklustre performances from now and start building for the finals. Every team goes through a little rut, we're disappointed. The boys have been lacking a bit of confidence, but we've been working hard and if we keep doing what we're doing it will only make us better when we get to finals," Thompson said. Last week was disappointing but the one against West Sydney was the game that escaped us, when we haven't set high standards we've usually bounced back the next week, especially at home, but we didn't. Then we had a chance against Central Coast but the 6-2 loss, and a lot of players agree, was probably our worst performance since back in round two against Brisbane. The guys are still working really hard and the only way we'll get out of it is if we stick together. Thompson, 34, finds it particularly hard watching games from the sidelines. But with a month to go until A-League finals and an important World Cup qualifier coming up against Oman in Sydney on March 26, he said the break might be a blessing. "I'm disappointed I've missed these few weeks, but in another way I've got to rest the body and the plan is to be flying come finals time and hopefully the Socceroos game," he said. But he emphasised his mind is focused on the Newcastle Jets, who are resting veteran English strikers Emile Heskey and Michael Bridges. We go on the road for the next two weeks, so we want to give the supporters some hope and encouragement that we've improved and we're the team that we were before the slump. And we need to get back to that structure ... we just haven't been as disciplined as what we normally are. We've worked really hard on discipline and keeping the structure and not deterring from that.