Vidmar sees more to come from Tilio as Ugarkovic and Cohen return for Bulls visit

Steven Ugarkovic and Yonatan Cohen will become latest returnees to an increasingly healthy Melbourne City against Macarthur, with Aurelio Vidmar tipping more to come from Socceroo winger Marco Tilio.

Ever so slowly, Melbourne City is starting to look like the unit they thought they would be at the start of the A-League Men season, with coach Aurelio Vidmar expecting to welcome Steven Ugarkovic and Yonatan Cohen back into his squad for Friday evening’s clash with Macarthur.

For much of the season, City’s dressing room increasingly resembled something of a casualty ward, especially when it came to the nominally fearsome collection of attacking talent stockpiled. Socceroos Mat Leckie, Marco Tilio, James Jeggo, and Andrew Nabbout have all missed extended time this season, in addition to Ugarkovic, Alessandro Lopane, Max Caputo and international signings Cohen and Andreas Kuen.

In their absence, however, the youth that Vidmar was forced to turn to has performed above expectation, even briefly firing City atop the league table at one point. And now, with the season entering its home stretch and City part of the logjam in which second-placed Western United is just three points clear of seventh-placed Sydney FC, several of that cohort are increasingly being re-introduced into their matchday plans.

Leckie, Caputo, and Tilio have all featured in City’s last four fixtures, while Kuen returned from his eight-week layoff against Melbourne Victory a fortnight ago. Lopane will be given another week with City’s VPL1 squad but should come into contention soon, while Jeggo has been forecast to return before the end of the regular season from an Achilles injury. Ugarkovic, meanwhile, will return from a two-week hamstring enforced absence against the Bulls, while Cohen will return for the first time in 2025 after suffering an MCL injury in a New Year’s Eve draw with Central Coast.

“We've almost just got just about everyone back,” said Vidmar. “It's a massive headache for me but a good one. There's a lot of competition for places, so that's healthy.

“We've got a short turnaround to Newcastle on the Wednesday before the international break. So all we can do is prepare well and come in, come into this game with the right mentality, with the right attitude, and that always will give us the best chance of getting a good result.”

One player, in particular, that looms large for City in the final weeks of the campaign is Tilio, who made it goals in back-to-back games when he netted the only goal of the game in a 1-0 win away to Wellington last weekend.

Playing a full 90 minutes in addition to that strike, the win in the New Zealand capital marked the first time that the 23-year-old had started and gotten through straight games unscathed since the end of the 2022-23 season, during City’s run to the grand final.

Successive hamstring injuries have robbed one of Australia’s most exciting young attacking prospects of almost two years of football since then, but, as he starts to put some football together, Vidmar envisions the on-loan Celtic winger making a big impact towards the end of the campaign.

“He had a really good start to the preseason and then he had a little bit of a hiccup,” said the coach. “He got injured and sort of set him back a bit. But because he had a really solid block early, that sort of gave him a nice foundation.

“He's worked hard. He's put himself in a position [to contribute]. He's an explosive player. He's not a guy that can just run non-stop for 90 minutes. He makes a couple of explosive actions and needs a little rest, and then he's ready to go again.

“We've all seen what he can do over the last couple of weeks. He still, for me, has a lot of upside. Touchwood he remains healthy, because he's going to be very, very valuable for us.”

Just a point back of second-place on the table – a slot that, with New Zealand-based Auckland FC atop the table, carries with it Asian Champions League Elite qualification – the equation for City against Macarthur on Friday is a familiar one. Take as many points as possible, keep the pressure on your rivals and, potentially, vault clear of a few of them if other results go their way. For the Bulls, however, the fixture shapes as something of a make-or-break moment.

Ariath Piol, Oliver Jones, and Jed Drew all sold to overseas clubs during the January transfer window, netting the club more than AUD 1m in reported fees, the Australia Cup champions were dealt a hammer blow soon after when lost skipper Valère Germain just days after the window ended, the Frenchman citing A-League Men referring standards as contributing to his desire to mutually terminate his deal and join J1 League side Sanfrecce Hiroshima.

Losing three of their last four, it means Mile Sterjovski’s side hasn’t won since they defeated City in Campbelltown back on January 25 and will start the round in eighth, five points back of sixth-placed Melbourne Victory. A win, therefore, is of critical importance for the Bulls if they’re to keep their hopes of a finals berth alive.

“They're still scoring a team that scores a lot of goals,” said Vidmar. “So they're always very dangerous. With the Germain, Piol gone they've lost a little bit of that dynamism. But they've still got a very, very deep squad -- guys that have come in and done well. And they've got a lot of handy players around the park.

“It's always a difficult game. Since I've been here, we haven't beaten them in three attempts. So that's something that we're looking to reverse.”