Jamie Maclaren became the first player in A-Leagues history to reach 150 career goals, firing home a hat-trick in Melbourne City’s 8-1 demolition of Brisbane Roar in a record setting night at AAMI Park.
Maclaren was back to his brilliant best on Thursday night, scoring a first-half brace – after Curtis Good’s opener – to reach the milestone in the 34th minute.
Leo Natel added two of his own in the second-half, either side of Maclaren completing his hat-trick with his 151st A-Leagues goal and 100th league goal in a City jersey, before Tolgay Arslan and Ben Mazzeo added one apiece to wrap up the victory.
16-year-old Rylan Brownlie pulled one back for the visitors amid City’s second-half rampage, but his first Roar goal was merely a consolation as Brisbane fell to their first defeat under interim coach Luciano Trani and the largest in their club’s history.
City’s win is also the equal largest winning margin in Isuzu UTE A-League history, joining their 7-0 demolition of Melbourne Victory in April 2021, and Adelaide United’s 8-1 victory over North Queensland Fury (January 2011) and the Reds’ 7-0 win against Newcastle Jets (January 2015).
Maclaren’s latest achievements is the newest in a long list of A-Leagues accolades for the City marksman, who became the all-time leading goalscorer in April to go with four Isuzu UTE A-League Golden Boots – including the last three in succession.
Overall, it was a super impressive performance from City and arguably their best of the campaign so far. Aurelio Vidmar’s side carved through Brisbane with ease in transition, with the likes of Aziz Behich, Tolgay Arslan and Marin Jakolis providing brilliant support for the City star.
The win sends City into fourth on the standings, sitting only goal difference behind third placed Western Sydney Wanderers.
Meanwhile, it was a rough start to life without former head coach Ross Aloisi for Brisbane, who now sit on the edge of falling out of the top six after their third defeat in succession.
Trani made a bold choice by replacing usual first choice goalkeeper Macklin Freke with Matt Acton who made his first league appearance since returning to the club in the off-season.
Roar started brightly and almost took the lead immediately after Jez Lofthouse teed up former City midfielder Taras Gomulka who rocketed his long range effort against the post.
The visitors’ bright start would be short lived as City gained ascendancy in the ensuing minutes. Arslan’s tremendous through-ball found Leo Natel, forcing a smart save from Acton, but from ensuing corner Good rose highest to nod home Hamza Sakhi’s set piece.
Four minutes later, City doubled their lead, following a swift transition led once again by Arslan. The former Udinese man fed through Jakolis with a lovely pass, who put it on a platter for Maclaren at the back post to slide the ball into the back of the net.
The Maclaren show was far from over through, timing his run to perfection to get on the end of Behich’s tremendous long pass, and sliding the ball between the legs of Acton to seal the win.
Roar came close twice to pulling a much-needed goal back on the brink of half-time, firstly through Kai Trewin whose deflected header from a Jay O’Shea corner hit the bar, before Lofthouse hit the post only moments later.
City, however, put the foot down once more after half-time, adding a fourth shortly following the restart.
Jakolis’ brilliant cross-field pass found Arslan in space on the left-hand side of the penalty box, who did well to intelligently find Natel at the edge of the box with a back heel. The Brazilian then cut inside and fired a wicked effort into the bottom corner.
10 minutes later, the lead was five, after quickly taken free-kick played through Jakolis, who dinked it over the top to an unmarked Maclaren who completed his hat-trick and reached yet another milestone in the same contest.
Despite the scoreline, Roar fans were left with something to cheer about when Nikola Mileusnic broke down the left-flank in transition and teed up Brownlie, who did well to bring it under control and poke it past Young for his first goal in Brisbane colours.
But City were still not done inflicting the hurt on the visitors, as Arslan broke in behind and fed Natel to smash home his second of the contest.
Arslan’s brilliant performance would finally be rewarded with a goal, smashing home City’s seventh in the 77th minute after being fed through by substitute Terry Antonis, before substitute Mazzeo added their eighth goal of the contest.
The talking point
Jamie Maclaren sent records tumbling in a history making night at AAMI Park.
Maclaren broke not one, but two records in the same night. First, he became the first player in A-Leagues history to reach 150 goals in his career, but his third goal of the night was also his 100th in City colours in the league.
His 151 goals throughout his league career, have him sitting in second on the all-time national league goalscorer charts behind Damian Mori – who still sits 89 goals clear on 240 goals.
“I’m proud, no one in A-Leagues history has reached 150 (goals),” he said on Paramount +.
“I remember my first. I’m just a boy from Sunbury who had a dream to score one goal in the league, and I stand here with 150. I’m grateful for all the people around me and the support, and this group of players that have been a little bit patient with me, so it’s been great.
“It’s five now (hat-tricks) with Melbourne City and eight in total in the A-League. Two hat-tricks this season, some people said I was finished.”
Overall, the City star’s performance was a statement, coming only a week after he himself revealed he wouldn’t be going to the AFC Asian Cup with the Socceroos.
His hat-trick now has him sitting equal-second in the Golden Boot standings alongside Newcastle’s Apostolos Stamatelopoulos and five behind Melbourne Victory star Bruno Fornaroli – as he begins to shrug off an ankle injury that curtailed his start to the season.
“This is the week where I’m starting to feel 100%,” he said.
“I’m starting to get over that hump now.”
His coach Aurelio Vidmar praised his performance against Brisbane and his mentality after a difficult start to the season.
“He’s had a bit of a tough time over the last month or so, but he’s pretty headstrong and continues to believe,” he said.
“We try to keep things simple for him and just [say] run towards the goal. No, but I’m serious. It’s that simple.
“We’ve got guys who can deliver the ball, instead of running away from the goal, you’re actually running towards the goal, and that’s what he did and that’s how he got his goal.
“Aziz (Behich) played a couple of cracker balls from the left hand side and also Marin gave him an assist as well, just by doing that, just running towards the goal.
“Everyone knows Jamie that’s he’s that type of player that anywhere around the goal, he’s dangerous, so [I’m] pleased for him.”
The star
Jamie Maclaren deserves all the plaudits for his performance on Thursday night, but his partner in crime, Tolgay Arslan was just as damaging at AAMI Park.
Arslan was everywhere against Brisbane, tallying two assists and playing a role in a number of City’s forarys forward, along with adding one of his own to make it 7-1 in the second-half.
The former Udinese man is beginning to really hit his straps after an injury plagued start to the season of his own, putting together a string of super impressive performances. He now has four goals to go with four assists in the league, along with two goals in the AFC Champions League and another four in the Australia Cup.
Vidmar spoke about his quality post-game, describing Arslan as one of the best players in the competition, after he was asked where he sits among the best foreigners that have played in the A-Leagues.
“Probably at a different level,” he said when asked about his quality in comparison to the best foreigners the league has seen.
“He’s a quality player. You can see that.
“I think he showed glimpses previously and since I’ve been here, but actually he started the season reasonably well and then obviously had that foot injury, which we had to manage his time.
“Now he’s been able to knock back a couple of 90 minute games, and I think you see the quality, he sees a pass that probably a lot of players don’t see, even in tight areas when he plays that little flick behind his back, like, OK, where’d that come from?
“To be honest, he should be the best player in the league, in my opinion and I reckon he’ll go pretty close if he keeps up that form.”
What they said
The other huge talking point out of the game was the sheer magnitude of the result, as Melbourne City became the fourth team in Isuzu UTE A-League history to win a game by a margin of seven goals.
City boss Aurelio Vidmar reflected on the performance in his post-game press conference.
“It was pretty good, to be honest. It was a bit of a crazy game,” he said.
“They hit the post before we scored. It probably could have been anything. It could have been probably 12, 13-4 or something like that. So it was one of those games.
“We were consistent. We spoke about being consistent in our performances.
“That really started last week because we’ve had some games where we’ve done well first half and sort of dropped off in the second half. Last week was more of a consistent 90 minute performance, and certainly today, that was the message about backing up and performing over the 90 minutes.
“On top of that, get some goals and play some really nice football. So I’m really happy for the players, because they they’ve put in a fair bit of work, in terms of the travel and all the games that we’ve had recently and yeah things clicked for us really well tonight.”
Meanwhile, it was a baptism of fire for Roar interim boss Luciano Trani in his first game in charge, as Brisbane their worst defeat in club history.
“I’m just trying to take in the result,” Trani said.
“It’s still raw in terms of what happened out there and trying to dissect it into a few words. It’s difficult, but I think from it’s been a challenging week, I’ll be honest.
“Unfortunately for us, it’s an acceptable performance, to lose 8-1. For us, it’s just can’t happen.
“It’s result that we can’t recognise in the context of where we are, so it’s disappointing, and we’re in a process at the moment. I think we have to work through the challenges that we have at the club and the club doesn’t want to hide away from the reality of where we are, but we are prepared to do what we can to improve our situation on and off the field.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work and that’s just the honest truth.”
Brisbane still sit inside the top six by virtue of their solid start to the season, but have lost their last three games, shipping 13 goals and scoring only two goals during this patch. The club have also had to deal with a plethora of defensive injuries to the likes of Scott Neville, Corey Brown and Antonee Burke-Gilroy, which have compounded their recent woes.
However, Trani was steadfast in his opinion that they will stick with their current brand of football and be prepared to take risks.
“We’ve had some opening results which have been bright and we’ve played football that at times can take a risk,” he said.
“But we have made a conscious decision that we’re going to continue to play this way, so whether it’s hardheaded or whether it’s wrong or whether it’s right, we believe that if we want to get a football team that wants to enjoy football, we have to be on the front foot, so I don’t know how you want to describe it and how you want to put it.
“It’s going to take people that need to be presented in a way that [say] ‘you know what I’m up for it’ and it’s going to be on the edge, but that’s the way it’s going to have to be.
“Players have to know that they have to put in the work to be able to achieve that, following up from that because obviously you look at the circumstances now it’s three games in a row.”
What this means
Melbourne City are into fourth place on the standings for the time being, and will be looking to continue their solid form heading into the new year after ending 2023 by going unbeaten in seven straight games in all competitions. Up next, is a clash against Western United next Sunday at AAMI Park, a side they’d be keen to get a measure of revenge against after their Round 1 defeat.
Meanwhile, it’s back to the drawing board for Brisbane, who welcome Newcastle Jets to town next Saturday night.
