Despite a frustrating day at the office against Western Sydney Wanderers, Melbourne City interim coach Rado Vidosic will continue to back his top-of-the-table side with the freedom to “express themselves” on the park.
After scoring a combined seven goals in wins over Wellington Phoenix and Western United in the preceding two weeks, a generally free-scoring City outfit ran into a red and black brick wall in their 1-1 draw with Western Sydney Wanderers in sweltering conditions in Sydney’s west last Sunday.
Taking an early lead through Brandon Borello, coach Marko Rudan’s side, potentially the most defensively sound unit in the A-League Men, was able to sit back in a low block and allow waves and waves of City attacks to crash over them as a result of that early breakthrough – the defending champions only able to break through via a singular moment of magic by Richard van der Venne.
Image Credit: Melbourne City
By the end of the 90 minutes, the visitors, per FotMob, had retained control of possession for a full two-thirds of the contest, accumulated 31 shots to their opponent’s two, hit the frame of the goal, and mustered 2.37 expected goals (xG) to their foe’s 0.38.
However, the tenacity of the host’s defensive efforts meant that despite this outright domination of the possession and shot counts, City was restricted to just three shots on target compared to 18 shots that were blocked away by a defender and, with the conditions no doubt playing a factor, they produced almost 50% less xG in the second stanza compared to the first.
The result ultimately snapped a three-game winning streak for City, and despite providing the assist for the goal Jamie Maclaren also saw his record-breaking ten-game scoring streak come to an end.
Nonetheless, Vidosic was hardly crestfallen about his side’s inability to find a winner on Friday morning; not just because his side’s handy control of the ball meant that they had been able to run fewer kilometres than usual in the oppressive heat.
Instead, the City interim said that the contest was by and large reflective of how City wanted to play and that while on this occasion none bar van der Venne’s effort was able to find a way through, it was all part of the process of giving his side’s players more creative scope.
“That’s the way that we would like to play. We would like to keep the ball more in the opponent’s half,” he said. “We would like to have a very high line once we’re in the opponent’s half and we would like to keep the ball for longer periods of time until we can create some really good openings.
“Sometimes, opponents drop off and play deeper, which then suits us. But also, we are working quite a lot on fast movements and fast penetration so, depending on how opponents set themselves up, we believe we can have more than one way of penetrating and creating goal-scoring opportunities.
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“If [Marco] Tilio’s [10th minute] header goes in, we are 1-0 up and the game completely changes. Every decision that players make changes the game. If there’s a corner and it’s given or not given, it changes everything. From that moment, it’s a new stream of the way that things will go.
“You can’t compare one game to the other just because you’re playing the same opponent, you can’t look at the same game and think about what would have happened if something happened. Maybe you score a goal first and you lose 3-1. Or you score first and you win 4-0.
“Most decisions that change a game are decisions that players make. We are trying to kind of show them the way to make those decisions and give them the freedom to express themselves.
“Like Tilio and Jordy Bos, the younger boys have been extremely exciting to watch. A lot of boys have been able to express themselves in the games and I believe that giving them that freedom can only benefit us in the next few games.”
City’s next challenge will come in Queensland, where they will take on Brisbane Roar – another of the ALM’s most defensively sound sides – on Saturday evening.
Vidosic’s side defeated the Roar at AAMI Park in round two of the season, Maclaren scoring both goals, but this time will need to get a result against Warren Moon’s side without the services of breakout left-back Bos, who has been rendered unavailable by concussion protocols.
The youngster, who has been widely tipped as a future Socceroo thanks to his star-making run to start the season, has already re-joined training but will be replaced in the starting lineup on Saturday by City captain Scott Jamieson. Vidosic said rest of City’s squad, after an extra day off following the Western Sydney game, was looking in good form and available for selection.
“If we can create as many chances as we created against Western Sydney, if we can have 31 or 30 plus shots on goal, you’re probably going to win the game,” the coach said of the Roar.
“We just need to be aware of their transition moments. They’ve got some very fast players in that front line. And they don’t hesitate to play the ball over the top, so they’re going to be trying to exploit that part of the game.
“We just need to be relentless and dominant in their half when we have the ball and our rest defence has to be spot on so we can avoid those moments where they can hit us on the counterattack.”
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