Mathew Leckie, Jamie Maclaren and Andrew Nabbout didn’t hit the scoreboard in their first A-League Men game together but Melbourne City coach Patrick Kisnorbo is confident the star trio will hit their straps.
The Socceroos trio started Friday’s 2-1 win over Brisbane Roar but while Leckie and Maclaren both had chances, they were unable to find the back of the net.
None of the three played in last week’s FFA Cup win over South Melbourne, while Leckie and Maclaren only arrived back in Melbourne on Thursday after the Socceroos’ World Cup qualifiers.
Leckie played more than 70 minutes across both Socceroos games, and Kisnorbo was happy with how his star recruit had backed up and started to find continuity with his fellow forwards.
“Mat had a great chance in the first half. It’s great to see that they’re able to back the game up after a 14-hour flight back home and they only had 48 hours to prepare,” he said.
“In that way it’s great to get minutes into their legs, you could see they were fatiguing towards the end but the modern-day footballer, unfortunately because we live in Australia, that’s what happens.
“It was just good to get them back, good to give them some minutes and get continuity and to play together all three of them because we haven’t had that in this season, even in the practice games, I think we’ve had one like that.
“Preparation’s been difficult in the connection in the front three, so it was great for them to all play tonight.”
City will next travel to Adelaide United, then play Hume City in the FFA Cup before enjoying a run of four consecutive home league games.
With Socceroos commitments finished for the calendar year, Kisnorbo expected Leckie, Maclaren and Nabbout to gel.
“They’ll be here until January, when the next squad gets called in,” he said.
“It just breeds continuity and rhythm where they get to train day by day, week by week, everything’s settled.
“So that helps us but international footballers, this is what they have to do.”
