When Melbourne City were last on a run of form this strong, Patrick Kisnorbo was lining up in the starting 11.
Now, the City boss is gunning for a club-record sixth straight win to overcome the bar set by the club during his playing days in the 2013/14 A-League campaign, in a massive home fixture against Western Sydney Wanderers at AAMI Park on Friday night.
City – known as Melbourne Heart in the 2013/14 season – won five games in a row between the last day of January and the first day of March in 2014. The five results came off the back of a dismal start to the campaign which produced six draws, nine losses and one win throughout the opening 16 games of the season.
Kisnorbo went on to play every minute bar three of his side’s five-game resurgence which garnered wins against Sydney FC, Perth Glory, Wellington Phoenix, Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory, equalling the club’s consecutive wins record initially set in the 2011/12 A-League season.
MATCH PREVIEW: Melbourne City v Western Sydney Wanderers
Fast-forward to March of 2021 – seven years after Kisnorbo equalled the club’s best-ever winning streak as a player – and the 40-year-old has done it once more, now as the head coach of a City outfit on an all-out rampage in 2020/21.
Five wins on the bounce have produced four consecutive clean sheets, 16 goals for and two against, as City have left a poor start to the campaign in their dust on a surge up the A-League table.
Early in the season, Kisnorbo was under pressure to explain where it was going wrong for his side after the first six games of the 2020/21 campaign produced two wins and four losses, including three on the bounce in the lead-up to their current winning run.
The last loss before the dramatic turnaround came in the Hunter, as City lost 1-0 to Newcastle Jets. The situation, at that stage, seemed dire. But Kisnorbo was adamant even then that things would turn around for the 2019/20 Grand Finallists.
“In professional sports, the hardest thing is to lose,” Kisnorbo said, after falling to the Jets on Sunday, February 7.
“But they are positive in there. I said keep your heads up, because you did really well today and you did enough to get something out of the game.
“The mentality is great from the group, they were positive. We believe in positivity and we’ll move towards our next game.
Kisnorbo continued: “if you see some goals that are scored, sometimes they just go in. At the moment, we haven’t got that.
But we have belief in our group that if we keep doing what we need to do, and we keep the same processes, that eventually it turns.
“When it turns, I don’t know, but we’re working hard to do that.”
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The turnaround was not only imminent, but it was executed with fierce tenacity.
While Curtis Good has led the effective effort to shore up City’s defence, City spearhead Jamie Maclaren has started to fill his boots. Eight of his 11 goals for the season have come on the five-game streak as the Socceroos star surged into outright lead in the race for the Golden Boot.
His form has coincided with the return of Andrew Nabbout from a hamstring injury succumbed in Matchweek 1. Nabbout has notched three assists and created 17 chances since returning to face Sydney FC in Matchweek 9 – the first of City’s five wins on the trot.
Adding Craig Noone’s consistently sparkling performances on the opposite flank into the mix, Kisnorbo has unleashed a lethal strike force on the league which no side has managed to quell on the five-game stretch.
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But as it did for Kisnorbo and Melbourne Heart in 2013/14, could a six-game winning streak prove too far a reach for City in 2020/21?
The bar was set in the 2011/12 campaign, and has since proved impossible for a City side to overcome. And with second-placed Western Sydney Wanderers coming to town, the task won’t get any easier for Kisnorbo’s side.
Wanderers can draw level on points with Central Coast Mariners on top of the A-League table by beating City on Friday night. Carl Robinson’s side won 3-0 against Perth in Matchweek 13, a result that extended Western Sydney’s own winning run to three ahead of the clash at AAMI Park.
If Kisnorbo could mastermind a club-record sixth successive win, his side would leapfrog the Wanderers into second, one point behind the Mariners with a game in hand. It would put City in the drivers seat to take the ascendancy in the race for the Premiers Plate, which would be sure to bring joy to a coach who admits he is not the easiest man to please.
I got him to smile.. despite another super impressive display @MelbourneCity coach Patrick Kisnorbo said there was still a lot of work to do. So I had to ask him, what actually makes him happy!.. pic.twitter.com/FO0Yd7OkVf
— Michael Zappone (@Michael_Zappone) March 24, 2021
Match details
Melbourne City v Western Sydney Wanderers
Friday, 26 March 2021
Venue: AAMI Park
Kick-off: 7:05pm
Broadcast: Fox Sports 505
Stream: MyFootball Live App, Kayo Sports
Match Centre
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