Melbourne City have pulled off a vital 1-0 win over the Newcastle Jets in this afternoon’s W-League action.
Tori Tumeth set the winner up with a beautiful back-post cross to Chinatsu Kira in the 42nd minute, with the Japanese forward pulling off a remarkable finish from a narrow-angle to sneak the ball in at the near post.
Here’s what we learned from today’s uplifting performance:
A vital win
Whilst there may be very little to play for with just two games left to play, this afternoon’s win over the Jets could prove crucial to avoiding a humiliating ninth-place finish.
Bottom of the table Perth Glory find themselves stuck on just a single point, now trailing City by six, though they’ve got four games still left to play.
Following that confidence-boosting win for City, securing points in either of our two games against Perth to close out the season seems a much more probable outcome, and it would be enough to guarantee at least an eighth-place finish.
The stars rediscovered their spark
We discussed the issue in our preview of the game and this afternoon our calls were answered when Alex Chidiac and Chinatsu Kira combined to dominate the Jets with their respectively superb performances.
Chidiac seemed to be winning every challenge she threw herself into and became the spearhead for countless exhilarating City counterattacks where she could play her teammates into shooting positions.
Chinatsu Kira similarly rediscovered her best form, proving impossible to deprive of the ball and playing some classy lofted through-balls to utilise the athleticism of our wing-backs who were pivotal to our victory.
We FINALLY kept another clean sheet – and with two youngsters at the back
Coming into the season it seemed that we’d at least be a defensively-sound outfit who just had attacking-half issues, given the superstar names in our backline, but the number of goals conceded and lack of clean sheets had been pretty underwhelming throughout the campaign.
After holding Brisbane Roar to a 0-0 draw in Round 1, it’s taken us nine games to secure a second clean sheet for the season, but the most pleasing aspect of the accomplishment was that we were able to do it with Naomi Chinnama (16) and Tori Tumeth (only just turned 20 last week) having big parts to play.
It’s clear that the 2021/22 W-League campaign will be a rebuild of sorts for the team as we recover from a dismal 2020/21, and locking down these exciting youngsters for next season will hold us in good stead for the future.
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