After a week on the road, Melbourne City are now back home and preparing for the first Melbourne Derby of the A-League Women season.
City split its road trip with one win and one loss but comes into Sunday’s clash against Victory full of confidence following the midweek 3-0 win over Adelaide United.
Here’s what you should be keeping an eye out for at Casey Fields on Sunday!
Getting back to our best?
It’s been an interesting schedule of late for our City Women, with three games in 10 days followed by a 10-day break, before a hectic period of three games in a week.
The recent run of fixtures began with a disappointing result away to Western Sydney, going down 2-0 last Sunday.
A short turnaround was perhaps a blessing in disguise, with the squad quickly able to right its wrongs midweek and pick up all three points in Adelaide on Wednesday night.
The first half saw a 0-0 stalemate but a much improved City side took to the pitch in the second half and found the back of the net via Daniela Galic virtually straight away.
While it was able to create plenty more chances than it had earlier, it wasn’t until stoppage time when substitutes Leticia McKenna and Caitlin Karic added their names to the scoresheet to seal the win.
First Derby of the season
We’ve had to wait until Round 10, but it’s almost finally time for the first Melbourne Derby of the A-League Women season.
City has won three of its past four heading into Sunday’s clash, but its cross-town rivals are in even better form.
After a shaky start to the season, Victory quickly recovered and are now unbeaten in their last five heading into the Derby.
It is coming off the only draw of that run though, finishing 1-1 against Perth last Friday night despite firing 19 shots at goal across the contest.
Sunday will also be a clear difference in recovery times, with Victory coming off a nine-day break and City having just four days since Wednesday’s win.
Derbies provided a mixed bag last season with Victory winning two and City taking the three points one, but that win was a huge 5-1 result.
Wilkinson back on the scoresheet?
Looking back to that clash, there was a familiar theme about City’s goals… all five were scored by Hannah Wilkinson.
The Kiwi striker has now made three appearances since returning from the quad injury which ruled her out of the start of the season, but is still yet to find the back of the net.
It’s taken a little while for her teammates to adapt to a different presence in the box which is a large part of the reason why. While both Rojas and Wilkinson are quality strikers, they play in a completely different way hence why it’s taken some time to adapt.
That being said, City was creating some great chances midweek and Wilkinson can count herself unlucky not to have scored, but she’ll certainly be hungry to put the ball into the back of the net come Sunday.
