Melbourne City will travel to *checks notes* AAMI Park this Thursday for a *double-checks* away game against Western United at the glorious timeslot which attracts heaps more fans than usual of 5:35pm.
City extended its unbeaten run to six games last Friday when it overcame an early Wanderers goal to run out comprehensive 4-1 winners, with a Craig Noone brace, a maiden City goal for Andrew Nabbout and a JMac thunderbastard-volley securing us the three points.
Western United last played on the 20th of March, going down 2-1 to its A-League younger brother Macarthur FC. The team currently finds itself in 10th place, just low enough to give Melbourne Victory a wave at the bottom of the table.
Nuno Reis and Stefan Colakovski return to City’s matchday squad heading into the encounter, which we’ll jump straight into the preview of now:
Going for another 6-0
Look, it’s definitely low-hanging fruit but no City vs WU preview would be complete without mentioning our record in the fixture so far.
This Thursday’s game represents an opportunity to go six wins to zip, despite what United’s deluded social team would have you believe from their comments in a match preview article earlier this week.
A 6-0 win.
A 6-0 winning-streak.
Now a 6-0 record against the ‘Wu’?
We think yes.
Eyes on the table, eyes on history
Confidence must surely be at an all-time high amongst the squad right now and if they’re in need of motivation – we doubt it – there’s a whole heap of that too.
With a win against United, Melbourne City could momentarily claim top spot on the A-League ladder and put the pressure on Central Coast Mariners and Adelaide United to win their Matchweek 15 games.
If that wasn’t reason enough to go out and belt Western on Thursday, then how about this: Only two teams have ever won more than seven consecutive games in a row. Melbourne Victory managed eight in 2006 before Western Sydney set the national league record in 2013 with 10.
If closing in on history isn’t motivation enough then we don’t know what is.
City’s ‘if it ain’t broke’ paradox…
Nuno Reis is set for a return to action after being named in City’s matchday squad earlier today, but Patrick Kisnorbo will have a selection dilemma on his hands if he’s looking to squeeze the Portuguese centre-half back into the side.
Applying the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” that City fans have regurgitated consistently throughout our winning run – and we’re not blaming you for doing it – then how do you fit Reis back into a side that just romped second-place Western Sydney 4-1?
In normal circumstances, you’d probably keep the lineup unchanged for Thursday, the issue is just that Reis had been involved in the four consecutive clean sheets prior to the Wanderers game, when the ‘if it ain’t broke…’ calls were at their loudest.
Look, if we’re being realistic and step away from the theoretical for the remainder of this argument then it’s pretty clear that Reis probably slots straight back into defence, given we did, after all, concede against the Wanderers.
The issue now is what to do with Rostyn Griffiths and which midfielder he replaces.
…We REALLY wouldn’t wanna be PK right now.
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