Warren Joyce has hailed Melbourne City match-winner Ross McCormack, admitting he wasn’t surprised by the Scotsman scorching free-kick which sunk Wellington Phoenix on Saturday.
A tight clash looked headed for a goalless draw at AAMI Park until McCormack produced a bit of brilliance.
The classy attacker, on an injury replacement deal at the club for the absent Bruno Fornaroli, smashed in a free-kick from almost 30 yards out to hand City a 1-0 win.
“It’s not a surprise seeing him [McCormack] score a free-kick like that. He’s actually scored a lot from that kind of range, it was no surprise to me when it flew in,” Joyce said.
“Some people have a range when taking free kicks and that range is his.
“I’m pleased for him to get off the mark and score and obviously win us the game with a goal.”
The win means City is the last team in the Hyundai A-League with a 100% record with three victories from the first three games.
While they did enough to see-off a brave Phoenix side, Joyce wasn’t happy with all aspects of his side’s display.
“I thought we were poor tonight in possession, there’s no beating around the bush and we can do better than that,” the Englishman said.
“The fact that we showed a lot of grit and determination and kept another clean sheet, including the two friendly matches before round one, we’ve now kept four out of five clean sheets recently.
“The way that the defenders put their bodies on the line and the way the players in front of them want to work, that’s just the base map and we need to do that every day at training and every single game.
“If you ask people to do a job and they’ve done a job to the best of their ability and they’ve done the things you’ve asked them to do well I think I think you should have every right to be in the starting line-up.”
City will get a huge test of their perfect start to the season when they travel to Adelaide to play the unbeaten Reds next Saturday night.
