Melbourne City head to AAMI Park this Saturday for an 'away' fixture against Western United.
Off the back of an impressive 3-1 away win against Central Coast Mariners last week, City will look to continue building confidence and winning momentum with sights set on solidifying first place in the Izuzu UTE A-League competition.
Here are three talking points heading into this important mid-season game:
Strength in numbers
With key players absent due to Socceroos duty, this game will require Patrick Kisnorbo to dip into the depth of the extended player squad. Filling the shoes of the likes of Jamie Maclaren, Marco Tilio, Mathew Leckie and Connor Metcalfe will be no easy feat. Promisingly, strength in depth and the opportunity for youth to be relied upon makes for interesting squad selection. Will Patrick Kisnorbo rely on familiar faces to fill these gaps or will we see additional opportunities for youngsters to make a start?
The choice of squad may give an indication of where players are situated in the bigger picture:
- Will Pucciarelli get his first start of the season?
- Surely, you must be thinking, Colakovski is due after success last season!
- Will Club Captain, Scott Jamieson, step back into the left-back position after the match-winning performance by Jordan Bos last week?
Keep your eye on who makes the cut – if Kisnorbo is keen on continuing to win, he will have to choose those who he perceives as 'in form' over status or stature. We will get a good indication of this upon seeing the squad when it is named.
Youth
How fortunate we are to have witnessed some amazing young players' ascensions into professional football over the years at City.
Off the back of a Player of the Match performance, Jordan Bos stepped into the left-back role with enthusiasm and comfort.
Often youth footballers are ones for the future, but clearly we have a player in Bos who is ready to make the step up to regular men’s competition. Driving forward with aggression and dominance and defending with assuredness, Bos clearly went above and beyond contributing to the success on the night and is one to keep an eye on as the season progresses.
On the back of that performance, he surely deserves to be starting on Saturday night.
Building winning momentum
Our last encounter against Western United ended in an underwhelming and disappointing 1-0 less than two months ago. Despite the dominance in statistics, including a frustrating 21 shots compared with Western United’s six, a 20th-minute sucker-punch by Dylan Wenzel-Halls was enough to see United take all three points.
Since then, Western United have dropped off in form and have battled ongoing interruptions and COVID cases within their squad. In the past four games alone they have scored four goals, losing their last two games.
In comparison, City have scored 11 goals in the same period taking nine points from the last five games. On the back of an excellent game last week, City will be looking to take all three points from United, having the opportunity to experiment with the backline (including a possible start for Carl Jenkinson and the return of either Curtis Good or Nuno Reis) to continue focusing on ensuring a clean sheet is kept whilst giving a range of regular and fringe players the opportunity to find the back of the net.
Whilst this game may not be season-defining, it has the opportunity to test the quality and depth of our team and we may very well see the early iterations of the squad that plays in the Asian Cup and the seasons to come.
Prediction
Western United 1 – Melbourne City 3
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