Melbourne City FC kicked-off its UK pre-season with a 2-2 draw with English League Two side Bury FC.
Melbourne City FC kicked-off its UK pre-season with a 2-2 draw with English League Two side Bury FC on Tuesday afternoon.
Goals from James Brown and triallist James Poole had put the Hyundai A-League outfit ahead twice, but John van’t Schip’s side failed to hold on to their lead and were forced to settle for a share of the spoils at Manchester City’s training ground, Carrington.
Melbourne started the brighter of the two sides, controlling possession well and building from the back, carving the Bury defence open on number of occasions.
Melbourne City’s first effort of the afternoon came from Iain Ramsay, who struck from long-range into the goalkeeper’s arms on eight minutes.
Just three minutes later, Melbourne opened the scoring when – having been denied by a defender on the line – Mate Dugandzic squared for Brown to tap home from close range.
Bury responded well to falling behind and Andrew Redmayne was called into action within minutes, tipping a shot over the crossbar.
Heeding the warning, Melbourne pushed forward in search of a second goal. Dugandzic was thwarted on 20 minutes after good work down the right from Jason Hoffman, before Brown, Aaron Mooy and Jason Hoffman tried their luck from distance to no avail.
The second half brought a number of changes to the line-up, with trialists George Evans, Tom King, Chris Chantler and Poole entering the fray.
Possibly disrupted by the shake-up, Melbourne struggled to continue where they left off and conceded a soft goal from a corner just before the hour mark.
David Williams then spurned a fine chance to regain the lead, rounding the goalkeeper before firing over.
Just four minutes later though, Melbourne City did net their second as Poole turned his defender before stretching to poke the ball past the goalkeeper and into the back of the net.
Once again though, Bury reacted and almost found an immediate equaliser, striking the crossbar.
Seven minutes later, the ‘Shakers’ did draw level, crossing to the back-post and smashing the ball into the bottom corner.
From then on, the focus for both sides appeared to be to avoid defeat. Bury kept 11 men behind the ball in fear of conceding, so aside from Poole’s low effort that was pushed wide, little was created in terms of chances to win the game.
Next up, Melbourne City FC face Oldham Althetic at Boundary Park on Saturday, kicking-off at 3pm BST.
