After two draws against competitive sides it was with a feeling of newly bristled competitiveness that Melbourne City ventured up to NSW to take on the Macarthur Bulls – but hopes were somewhat dashed with news that Leckie and Tilio hadn’t travelled and a familiar starting eleven was announced.

Lightning threatened to derail the whole affair, and some may wish it had after a disappointing 2-0 loss took place on the stormy Friday night.

Given how familiar last night’s display felt (and as my paragraphs blew out anyway), the learning points came down to two things as we now find ourselves in a somewhat unfamiliar position:

Old Is New Again

After the match was delayed by 40 minutes due to a storm around the cow paddock that was Campbelltown Stadium, you’d be forgiven for thinking the broadcaster had begun showing a replay of an older game to fill the time as City took to the field with Natel and Jakolis on the wings and Tolgay Arslan in the midfield. Alas, this misplaced sense of deja vu was reality as recent bright sparks Marco Tilio and Mathew Leckie were omitted from the squad due to minor knocks, and along with them went our hopes of a rejuvenated team with a few new tricks up their sleeves.

So it was back to our old starting eleven from a month or more ago, with of course the additions of Jeggo and Fernandez, the latter of whom provided the bright sparks that began many of our promising moves. And there was plenty of promise in the first half as this familiar line-up resettled into their old ways with surprising comfortability, this old chemistry – chemistry that had really only been in its infancy before being disrupted by injury and returning players – led to some surprisingly slick and agile team moves. But even this newfound confidence had a sense of oldness about it as the liquid football moments led to disappointment, with the sense of deja vu strengthening. We failed to properly penetrate the box, and on the rare occasion that we fashioned a decent opportunity, we failed to finish our chances.

Entering half-time with only one shot on target, it was clear for City fans to see how this would unfold, we’d seen this script before.

By A Thread
There’s something about watching a football team in free fall, and for the first time in a long time, City fans are remembering what that feels like.
In fact, this is the lowest points tally at this stage of the season since the CFG takeover, and without a win in our last five matches, you have to go back to the dark days of Warren Joyce to have experienced that.
In my preview article, I questioned what it is that we play for at this stage of the season in the form we’re in and with our position on the ladder. Yes, we can aim for Finals, but who would hold hope for a result there? Our Premiership success has conditioned us as City fans to hold that achievement higher than the title of “Champions”, rendering that potential victory as rather short-sighted. If we are to focus instead on our play style and our identity as a team, some may say it was hard to judge during last night’s match without Tilio and Leckie, and to that I would say there’s not much we can glean for our future from the impact of a loanee and a player so late in his career that he’s missing more matches than he’s playing this season.
What do we have to look forward to as football fans then? We have our football team, week in and week out, no matter what. We don’t have relegation to worry about yet, though some of us may secretly wish that threat was hanging over the side, if not to inject some fear into the team, then to at least give us a little fearful excitement during this dire stage of the season.