Melbourne City head coach Aurelio Vidmar is anticipating a strong response from Wellington Phoenix when they meet on Friday night following the Nix’ 6-1 hammering in the New Zealand Derby.
Having already lost the first two instalments of the Isuzu UTE A-League’s newest derby clash, Wellington were taught a lesson by Auckland FC at Go Media Stadium in Round 20, beaten 6-1 to leave them sat 11th on the ladder and nine points outside the finals places.
On the contrary, City come into Friday night’s clash at Sky Stadium off the back of a 2-2 draw against their fiercest rivals, having locked horns with Melbourne Victory last time out.
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“Well, it’ll go either one one way or the other, you just don’t know,” said Vidmar when asked what sort of display he’s expecting to see from Wellington.
“But you would imagine that they’d be hurting after a loss like that in a derby. It’s never nice.
“But just watching that game and their last couple (of games), some of their behaviour tells me that they’re still up for the fight.
Some of the moments they have in transition, especially in the defensive transition, they’re still sprinting in the 85th minute. So they’ve still got positive behaviours, and that always tell tells you a story.”
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City head into the game sat in sixth spot on the ladder but, crucially, just three points behind second-placed Adelaide United and they know a win over Wellington will see them replace the Reds in second, albeit before their rivals have kicked a ball.
Picking up four points from their last two games, Vidmar’s side have seemingly eased any concerns over their top six credentials after enduring a three-game losing streak earlier this month.
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Furthermore, with returning Socceroos Mathew Leckie and Marco Tilio now fit and firing after injury, City will fancy their chances of inflicting more misery upon Wellington on Friday night, however their head coach has highlighted a key area in which he feels they need to improve.
“Well we’re trending in the right way in terms of our attacking play that’s for sure. It hasn’t been at the level that we require, for a number of reasons.
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“But the last couple of weeks, it’s certainly started to track in the right direction so we expect that to continue. Wellington, they’re a good defensive team, and they’re mixing it up.
“They’ve been more attacking, as I said, over the last five or six weeks. So it’s it’s always going to be a tricky game, we know that. So we’ve got to be at our very, very best. We’ve got to be concentrated for 100 minutes.
“We’ve had some lapses in the beginning of the second half, especially last week again, that we need to make sure that we get that right.
He continued: “Every individual has a responsibility to make sure that their intensity levels are at a very high level so we don’t start in a negative way.
“So we’re always still trying to fix things. We’re still trying to make things better. You know, we’re playing some decent football as well at this point. So the way we train, the way we’re trying to play. We’re always pretty positive, and I can only see us getting better on a weekly basis.”
