Melbourne City will be eager to return to winning ways when they take on Western Sydney Wanderers at Bankwest Stadium on Friday night. Ahead of the Round 7 clash, we take a look at the five things we’re looking forward to.
Bounce-back ability
Having been previously undefeated, City suffered its first loss of the season in Round 6, going down 4-3 to Brisbane Roar at Dolphin Stadium.
Back-to-back games on the road gives City the perfect opportunity to bounce back in style under Friday night lights against the Wanderers in Sydney.
City’s most recent fixture against Western Sydney came two months ago in the FFA Cup, where the team ran out 3-0 winners thanks to a Craig Noone brace and Jamie Maclaren goal.
More Maclaren goals?
City striker Jamie Maclaren has been unstoppable in the early stages of the 2019/20 A-League season having already netted seven goals to take a three goal lead in the golden boot race.
He has played just the three games, missing the season opening derby while being on international duty and also missing games against Wellington and Central Coast with a hamstring injury.
On Sunday, Maclaren became just the second player in A-League history to score multiple goals in three consecutive games, with Roy Krishna also achieving the feat for Wellington last season, and also the fourth in Club history to register a hat trick.
Our first visit to Bankwest Stadium
Holding a maximum capacity of 30,000 people, Bankwest Stadium was officially opened in April of this year.
The first A-League game to be played at the stadium was played in October with the Wanderers coming from behind to defeat the Mariners 2-1 on the back of a Mitchell Duke brace. Western Sydney are yet to lose at the venue, having won the Sydney derby 1-0 in front of a crowd of 28,519 people and also playing out a goalless draw against Brisbane two weeks ago.
It’s a new stadium and a new challenge, but an exciting opportunity presents itself for us to knock off the Wanderers for the first time this season at the venue.
Continuing our good run against Western Sydney
We have matched up well against the Wanderers recently, having won four of our previous six matches in all competitions.
The best of the bunch was a win coming in a 4-3 goalfest at AAMI Park last season where Ritchie de Laet scored a double and Bart Schenkeveld headed home the winner in the 94th minute.
There has also been 21 goals scored across these six games and another high scoring game could be on the cards this weekend.
Can we cement top spot ahead of our bye?
We currently are sitting on 13 points, which is one-point ahead of Sydney FC, who are second having also lost just the one game this season.
A win will see us lock down top spot heading into our first bye of the season where our players will have the chance to refresh.
Expect a fiery clash with players putting everything on the line, having two weeks to recover before we return home to host Perth on the 6th of December.
