Melbourne Victory assistant coach Aaron Healey is confident Carlos Hernandez can improve his game even further this season.

The Costa Rican midfielder is way down on output compared to his stellar 2009/10 campaign which netted him both the A-League Player of the Year and tribalfootball.com Player of the Year awards but the fact he is involved as much as ever indicates he has some improving to do.

Healey says that the influence of Hernandez is significant in helping the Victory climb the table and feels he can get the job done despite his wayward actions at times in this campaign.

"There have been times when he's had a shot but he should have passed, and there have been some times he's passed and should have shot," Healey said yesterday

"But forget about his movement and things like that. He's a pivotal player for us, and he creates so much.

"He's played some good football in the last month.

"He can certainly get better and that's our challenge to him, to improve in the last half of the season. Teams can't look after him for 90 minutes."

The Victory will be hoping Hernandez is at his best when the club hosts the Newcastle Jets on Monday, December 27 - kick-off is at 6:00pm.