Melbourne City will be looking to build some momentum and make it back-to-back A-League Men’s wins on Sunday.
After a disappointing result in the AFC Champions League midweek, your City boys will quickly have the chance to put that behind them when they return to the pitch against Macarthur.
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Here are a few of the key talking points heading into Sunday afternoon.
Building some domestic form
After a slow start to the season, your City boys recorded their first league win of the new campaign last Friday night against Sydney FC.
New Head Coach, Aurelio Vidmar, took charge for the first time and oversaw a 2-0 result which saw goals coming virtually either side of half time.
Steven Ugarkovic – who played one of his best matches in a City shirt – rocketed a strike into the bottom left corner just moments before the break to give us the advantage.
We then needed less than 30 seconds to double our lead following the second half kicking off. A perfectly timed no-look pass from Tolgay Arslan in midfield found the run of Marin Jakolis, the City winger coolly finding Jamie Maclaren alone in the box who made no mistake.
Now with as few extra sessions spent with his team on the training pitch, City fans will be hoping Vidmar has been able to begin to make his imprint on the playing squad.
Moving on from a disappointing ACL result
It’s been a busy week at City as we gear up to head to AAMI Park for the third time in just ten days.
Unfortunately last time out we didn’t get the result we were after.
It was a hard-fought contest against Buriram United on Wednesday night and we twice had the ball in the back of the net in the first half, only for both goals to be ruled out for offside in the buildup.
On his first City start, Leo Natel had a chance to equalise early in the second half but saw his shot go just the wrong side of the post.
Ultimately it would end up being our best chance of the second half, with a late penalty to the visitors seeing them take all three points.
Our busy schedule now perhaps comes as a blessing in disguise, with a chance to quickly put that result to the back of our minds and return to winning ways.
With no Men’s City football for two weeks after Sunday due to the international break, three points would be massive as Vidmar then will get an extended period to work with his team.
Maintaining our great record against Macarthur
We’ve played Macarthur seven times since their inception to the league in the 2020/21 season, with plenty of positive memories coming from those matches.
So far, we’re yet to taste defeat against the Bulls, with five wins and two draws coming from those previous meetings.
The record gets even better when you drill further down to just fixtures at AAMI Park too.
The four times we’ve played have all ended in City wins and we’ve conceded just twice while scoring 14 goals ourselves at an average of close to four goals a game.
City fans will no doubt be hoping to see another strong performance with plenty of goals, but it won’t be easy against a Macarthur team that has begun the season strongly, sitting undefeated with two wins and a draw from their first three outings.
Most recently they took care of Western United 1-0 at home, leaving it late with young striker Ali Auglah coming off the bench to score in stoppage time.
Match Details
A-League Men: Round 4
Melbourne City FC v Macarthur FC
Sunday 12 November, 3:00pm KO
AAMI Park
