City looking internal, not external as transfer window slams shut
As attacking reinforcements move from the treatment room to the training track, Aurelio Vidmar doesn’t envision Melbourne City doing any business in the remaining days of the transfer window.
As attacking reinforcements move from the treatment room to the training track, Aurelio Vidmar doesn’t envision Melbourne City doing any business in the remaining days of the transfer window. Instead, the focus will be on reincorporating the injured cohort – or “new players,” as Aurelio Vidmar puts it – for the remainder of the campaign, starting with bogey-side Adelaide United on Friday evening.
Beset by injuries across the opening half of the 2024-25 season, recent fixtures have finally seen the tide begin to turn for City, the return of Socceroo duo Mat Leckie and Marco Tilio providing something of a silver lining to back-to-back losses to Auckland FC and Macarthur.
Continuing to build their fitness over a bye weekend, that pair will come in line for greater roles against the Reds’ on Friday, Vidmar emphasising that it was important that the club ensured the former was “feeling good” going into games before he was considered for a start, saying that was an area they needed to improve on from his previous returns from injury.
Barring any adverse developments in their final training session on Thursday, the Adelaide contest will also see 19-year-old striker Max Caputo feature in the match-day squad for the first time this season. Envisioned as City’s starting striker this season following the departure of club-legend Jamie Maclaren, the teenager suffered a syndesmosis injury and fractured fibula early in the preseason that has kept him out of his side’s opening 14 fixtures.
Elsewhere, absent for over a month with a hamstring injury, Austrian attacker Andreas Kuen has joined most first-team training sessions over the past week as he targets a return, possibly as soon as next week’s fixture with Perth. Out all season with a knee injury, Alessandro Lopane has resumed training and will seek to build his fitness over the next three to four weeks, while Yonatan Cohen has commenced running after his MCL and is envisioned as being four of five weeks away.
“With those guys that we haven't had all year, they're new players to us anyway,” said Vidmar. “So, at this stage, I don't think we're going to do any business.
“They obviously give us a lot of strength and a lot of depth coming back. And they're generally our main guys that have been missing for the majority of the season.
“We've put ourselves in a pretty good position and now hopefully we're getting closer to our full strength. Which puts us, potentially, in a much better position. So probably not necessary to do any business in the window.”
After briefly moving to the A-League Men’s summit in January, City will take to the field tomorrow sitting seventh on the table, with back-to-back defeats against Auckland and Macarthur and their bye week costing them in the jam-packed race for positioning within the league’s finals places.
That compactness in the standings, however, also means that a win against second-placed Adelaide – the Reds the only other side in the top six they don’t have a game in hand on – will vault Vidmar’s side back up into third place on the table, just a point back of their opponents.
That, though, will be easier said than done at Hindmarsh Stadium, which has proven something of a house of horrors for the club throughout the history. They last won at the venue since December 2018, while their 32.56% winning record against Adelaide is their worst against any team in the A-League Men (barring expansion side Auckland). Their last visit to South Australia saw them suffer a 6-0 thrashing, a result that ultimately cost Rado Vidošić his job.
“Every club has, if you want to call it, a bogey team, or a place where you just generally don't get results,” said Vidmar. “A while back, I remember coaching Adelaide and all the New Zealand teams coming to Adelaide hardly ever won. So it's just one of those things. But that's just all history, and you’ve got to always try to break it.
“Although we had a down performance with the result last game against Macarthur, we're in pretty good shape and our mentality is strong. We can do a lot better in our front third, that's something that we have to get better at, and we're looking forward to the challenge.
“It’s a really, really good game to really go 100 miles an hour at them and have a good crack and see where it takes us.”