Melbourne City midfielder Stefan Mauk believes the past two weeks have built an important foundation for his side to start a run up the Hyundai A-League ladder.
Mauk has had his stand-out season so far, netting three times in his opening eight appearances for the Club, and the 20-year-old believes this weekend’s match could be the perfect chance to write the wrongs from their last contest with the Jets before heading into the Melbourne Derby.
“We just have to learn from that match,” Mauk said.
“We have to go out there and play a positive brand of football, just like we did in the first half (against Newcastle) and worry about ourselves.
“Regardless of the score, we just have to make sure we are doing the things we’ve been doing in training (and in matches) over the past month, which has been getting us results.
“We know football changes very quickly so we needed to be stronger as a group and I think over the last month we’ve talked about that and realised that we need to improve defensively.
Although City are still searching for their first clean sheet of the season, their past two matches have seen them concede preventable goals and Mauk feels that the side is close to their defensive target.
“Whenever you’re winning and scoring it’s always enjoyable for everyone but we need to focus on being defensively strong,” he said.
“We conceded against both of those sides and we shouldn’t have on both occasions.
“We’ve got Newcastle this week then the Derby so I think we need to keep backing up the performances and go on a run to consolidate those two wins.”
City take on Newcastle Jets this Sunday at Hunter Stadium with our Women’s side playing in the curtain raiser against the Jets Women.
Our round 9 Westfield W-League match kicks-off at 2pm and is live on Fox Sports 505 and ABC while our round 10 Hyundai A-League clash begins at 5pm live on Fox Sports 505.
