Two of the A-League’s top strikers will be in action on Saturday night when City returns to AAMI Park for the first time since March last year to host Western United.
Jamie Maclaren finished the 2019/20 season with his second A-League Golden Boot after netting 23 goals and not far behind him in third place was Western United’s Besart Berisha.
City had the wood over Western last season, winning all four of the meetings between teams in what was United’s debut A-League season.
Maclaren particularly enjoyed playing those fixtures, scoring a total of seven goals while Berisha found the back of the net three times.
City’s star striker appeared in 25 matches last season, starting all of them while Berisha also started on 25 occasions but had two additional appearances off of the bench.
The experienced Berisha passed the ball the better of the two with an accuracy of 81.8% compared to Maclaren’s 69.5%.
Berisha also had 25 successful dribbles compared to Maclaren’s two, highlighting the different playing styles of the two strikers.
Of Maclaren’s 23 goals, 16 came with his preferred right foot, four were with his opposite and three were headers while penalties accounted for five of those goals.
Genreau 🍟 Maclaren 💥
📹 @FOXFOOTBALL #WUNvMCY #ForeverCity pic.twitter.com/Z3KoLjun1W
— Melbourne City FC (@MelbourneCity) October 27, 2019
From Berisha’s 19 goals, 8 came from his left boot, six on the right, three headers and two with his body while he slotted home four penalties.
Both players showed they are able to create for their teammates as well as scoring, with Berisha making 24 key passes and Maclaren 13, but that number also did include four assists unlike his Western United counterpart.
Neither player caused too many issues for the referees as both only went into the book on one occasion throughout the course of last season.
