Melbourne City coach Rado Vidošić admits that the abandoned Christmas Derby has been the subject of discussion during the lead into this Saturday’s meeting with Melbourne Victory. But just the first 22 minutes. None of the nonsense that followed that.
City and Victory will meet at AAMI Park on Saturday evening for the first time since their ill-fated meeting last December, which was abandoned less than halfway through the first half after fans of the latter stormed the pitch and injured five people, including City keeper Tom Glover and referee Alex King.
After an investigation by Football Australia in its role as regulator, Victory was handed significant sanctions as a result of the incident, and the game itself was ordered to be restarted at the point of its suspension later in the season, with City leading 1-0 thanks to an Aiden O’Neill goal.
Somewhat lost in the shuffle of everything that followed, understandably, that strike from O’Neill was one of the better goals produced in the A-League Men this season and is representative of the reflections Vidošić is focusing on.
“We are not going to talk about the ‘memorable’ things,” he said. “We will show some of the clips from the game, some of our attacking combination play. We scored a beautiful goal. We had several other good opportunities in the first 20 minutes.
“But also, Victory had a couple of chances as well. It’s a derby, the form and position on the table never really make a big difference. It’s going to be who does better on the day. They are a top team, they’ve got top players. They are now recruiting more players from overseas. They are changing slightly. It’s going to be a tough game, 100%.”
After missing City’s breaching of Fortress Macedonia Park in their 4-2 win over Perth Glory last weekend, central defender Curtis Good is in contention to return for the Derby, giving Vidošić a headache at the selection table.
With Jordy Bos having made the left-back position his own amidst a breakout season, club captain Scott Jamieson shifted inside to cover the absence of his fellow left-footer against the Glory, with nominal centreback Nuno Reis once again preferred on the right flank over traditional wingbacks Scott Galloway and Callum Talbot.
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The addition of the defensively-minded Portuguese into the right side of the defence has added a new dimension to City’s play, with Bos able to roam forward with more freedom with the knowledge that Reis is quite content tucking inside and providing extra cover as part of a back three in possession.
“It was trying to get players some game time,” Vidošić said of recent tinkering. “Obviously, we had a couple of centrebacks that did really well for us leading into Curtis missing last weekend. Then we tried different things with Nuno.
“It’s just rotating them a little bit, refreshing them a little bit. And trying to put the best possible players out there to play the best possible game. We are blessed to have so many good players and they all deserve to get game time. That’s something we are looking to do.”
Up the other end of the park, Vidošić will have a full contingent to choose from against a Victory side he insists is much more talented than their position on the table suggests, Marco Tilio in contention to start after being rotated out for Andrew Nabbout against the Glory.
Frustrated in back-to-back games against Western Sydney and Brisbane Roar in mid-January, City’s attack has exploded into life across their past three games with 13 goals, seemingly beginning to find its footing and a level of comfort with Vidošić’s moves to add more licence for creativity and improvisation within the framework of the existing system in place at the club.
This goalscoring bounty, however, has also seen six goals shipped up the other end, something the coach wants to address against a Victory side that has hardly proven itself an attacking dynamo in 2022/23; their 16 goals scored this season the second-fewest in the league.
“In the last three games, our finishing was excellent,” said the veteran coach. “We had different opponents, obviously. Different challenges. But we’ve managed to score goals.
“We were pushed against Adelaide, we had a bit of an easy game against Macarthur but then Perth was another tough game. But to go through those games and score as many goals as we did tells me we’re are clicking in that front third, we are dominating the games, from a creating chances and scoring goals point of view.
“Now we just need to tighten up, we conceded six goals in three games, we need to tidy that up a bit more and hopefully we’ll have a clean sheet against Victory.”
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