After a week off due to the international break, Melbourne City will return to A-League Women’s action this Sunday.
Our City Women started the season strongly with back-to-back wins and are now faced with a trip down the highway to Caroline Springs to face Western United.
Here are a few of the key talking points heading into Sunday!
Another Pollicina party?
City went into the international break on a high note after recording a 2-1 win over Canberra on an afternoon that could’ve seen plenty more goals after a dominant display.
Rhianna Pollicina, last season’s top-scorer, put in an impressive shift in the middle of the park to lead City to the win.
Our vice-captain found the opener in the 26th minute with a well-struck volley to tuck home Daniela Galic’s deflected cross.
She had her second of the afternoon almost immediately after the break when Holly McNamara won a penalty from kick-off, which Pollicina coolly converted.
Now in her third season with City, she’ll be looking to put in another big performance to help make it a third consecutive win to start the season.
Getting one back over Western
Our match-ups against Western United in their debut season won’t bring back the best memories for City fans as our new cross-town rivals were able to get the better of us on both occasions.
That being said, we did put in two of our best performances of the season against the eventual Grand Finalists and could count ourselves extremely unlucky not to come away with anything from those 180 minutes.
The first time around the scoreline blew out to 3-1 thanks to a Chloe Logarzo penalty with virtually the last kick of the game, after Pollicina saw her penalty earlier in the half saved that would’ve made it 2-2.
A couple of months later it was a similar story with City able to create plenty of great chances across the fixture and dominate all the key stats, but an 86th-minute goal to Western meant a 2-1 defeat.
Full of confidence heading into Sunday’s clash, City will be looking to finally secure our first win over Western.
Staying perfect
While it’s still of course very early on in the season, our record remains perfect after wins over Wellington away and Canberra at home.
We sit third on the table heading into the weekend, joined by Perth and Brisbane in not having dropped a point in the first fortnight of the season.
It’s a longer season than ever before but three points are all worth the same no matter what point of the campaign you pick them up, so Dario Vidosic will be hoping we can continue our strong start and bank another win come Sunday.
Match Details
A-League Women’s: Round 3
Western United v Melbourne City FC
Sunday 5 November, 4pm
City Vista Reserve, Caroline Springs
