After sputtering home stand, City seeks to build on Auckland win
Melbourne City ultimately took just eight points from a potential 21 during their seven-game homestand but ending it with a comeback win over table-toppers Auckland offers hope of a turning point.
Melbourne City ultimately took just eight points from a potential 21 that were on offer during their now-concluded seven-game homestand. But the manner in which they claimed the final three of those, coming from behind to defeat league leaders Auckland FC 2-1 at AAMI Park on Friday evening, could be looked back on as key if they are to make any noise come the end of the season.
Not that coach Aurelio Vidmar was keen to entertain the notion that this game was potentially season-defining, though, quickly shooting down the notion post-game after bemoaning a first-half that, being charitable, was grim.
But despite that… less than ideal opening stanza, City ended their evening sitting third on the A-League Men table and just four points back of top spot. They’d become the first ever side to concede first against Auckland and come back to win, while Max Caputo and Medin Memeti went home knowing they’d combined to give their side just their third league game with multiple goals all season and their first since early November.
Having worn his heart on his sleeve trying to single-handedly spark his side’s attack to life in recent weeks, Aziz Behich nabbed a match-winning assist – aided in this by Michael Woud remaining rooted to his line as he broke in behind – and what should be greater recognition he’s almost nailed on for Tony Popovic’s World Cup squad. Andreas Kuen, who has been looking off the pace as he battled a knee injury over the past month, was injected off the bench and immediately provided the spark that won Caputo’s penalty that cancelled out Lachy Brook’s opener and swung momentum.
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In so many other games this year, those tuning in to watch City have seen them repeatedly bang their heads against a brick wall in this exact scenario, with the outcome invariably slumping to the floor, unconscious, and the wall before them still completely intact. Heck, that had played out the week prior, when City had plenty of shots but scant few good chances as they fell to a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle.
But on Friday, the requisite desperation was there to actually pull a rabbit out of the hat against a side that has made an art form of rabbiting and give supporters, if nothing else, something of a high point to end what has been a rather dispiriting defence of their house.
“I don’t think tonight, regardless of the result, was a season-defining game,” said Vidmar. “But we were absolutely desperate. We needed a win. It’s been quite a long time, especially at home. We’ve given our fans absolutely nothing, to be honest, over this period. We’ve had a pretty tough year, but we thought that it was great; we were going to have six or so games here at AAMI Park and give our fans a little bit of enjoyment. Unfortunately, we haven’t given our fans anything. So hopefully tonight, they can go home happy and have a nice weekend.”
The question for City now is whether they can build on this. The narrative clearly rights itself, but storylines don’t manifest reality so much as find a way to explain it.
Certainly, anything close to their opening hour against Auckland almost certainly won’t cut it. It took until the fourth minute of first-half stoppage time for Andrew Nabbout to produce their first shot of the game on Friday, and that was blocked away immediately. By the time the hour hit, the closest they’d come to scoring had come five minutes prior when Behich sent in a cross that Nando Pijnaker sliced away for a corner, but still close enough to the goal to be more threatening than City had been.
The song remained the same. Yet again, they were seeing plenty of the ball but doing very little with it. Their one saving grace had been that Steve Corica’s side weren’t exactly playing well themselves and, Socceroo bolter Brook and some nice moments from Felipe Gallegos aside, didn’t exactly look like changing that much, either.
“We were playing far too much in our own defensive half in the first half, and we couldn’t get out,” said Vidmar. “It was ridiculous. We weren’t active enough, forward-thinking enough, and very passive. Everything was slow. Even basic things like throw-ins, we always allowed the opposition to set up. Yeah, we’re good with the ball, but it makes it a lot harder when you’ve got the whole team behind the ball, and you’re trying to play through them or around them.
So we had to be a lot more positive in the second half. And a lot more aggressive too, because we know they’re a physical side, especially in midfield. Every time a ball goes into someone’s feet in midfield, there’s always body contact. There are lots of 50-50s, and we weren’t good enough in that first half. We changed that in the second half. We had a different mindset, more aggressive, more players in the forward area making forward runs, trying to play the ball in behind. And then we started to get a little bit more momentum.
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I thought the second half was very good. More like what we do. Unfortunately, it took us 45 minutes to get going.”
Now, after being unable to take proper advantage of an extended spell in Melbourne, four of City’s next five games will come on the road, starting with a trip to face a Macarthur side that has had its own issues with scoring this season, but who just added Socceroo striker Mitch Duke.
After struggling to do much of anything at AAMI Park, perhaps the chance to actually get out on the road as a unit will actually serve to bring the unit together as a group and give them momentum; this current lean run, perhaps counter-intuitively, worse than the form they displayed when they regularly had to intersperse away A-League Men games with trips across Asia for the Champions League Elite.
Given the start in his City debut after playing not a lot of football across the past six months, Ryan Teague will be better for Friday night and continue to build form as he knocks off the rust. Kai Trewin, meanwhile, was forced off after just 25 minutes against Auckland, but Vidmar was confident he hadn’t suffered any meaningful injury post-game. Elbasan Rashani, for his part, is said to be close to a return, while there is confidence at Casey Fields that Mat Leckie will be able to return by the end of the season.
“We’ve had many games like [the second half] this year,” said Vidmar. “And I always keep saying that that’s the level, that’s the level, that’s the level. And then we’ve had some inconsistencies throughout the course of these 13 or 14 rounds. We know who we are, we know when we play that type of football, as we did in the second half, that we’re a good team. That’s the level, and we need to continue to get better.”