Coach Rado Vidosic has urged his Melbourne City charges not to look over their shoulder at Adelaide United as they attempt to seal the Isuzu UTE A-League premiership.
Teen striker Max Caputo was 10-man City’s unlikely saviour on Sunday, scoring an equaliser at the death to earn a 1-1 draw with Newcastle.
But failing to take away all three points keeps the door well and truly ajar in the race for the premiers plate.
City top the table on 42 points but just two points ahead of in-form Adelaide, while eighth-placed Newcastle (26 points) are two points outside the finals.
“We’ve got a good squad, we’ve got good players and it is in our hands,” Vidosic told reporters.
“We don’t need to worry about Adelaide, we need to worry about ourselves
“Adelaide is still behind us and if we win our games and they win their games we are (premiers).
“So we don’t need to worry about anyone else, we just need to worry about ourselves.”
City appeared poised for a shock defeat when the Jets took the advantage via Beka Mikeltadze’s spot-kick in the 31st minute after Andrew Nabbout was harshly penalised for handball.
Things got harder when Scott Jamieson was sent off for receiving his second yellow card in the 41st minute.
The City skipper went in for a 50-50 challenge with Mikeltadze, getting to the ball just before the Newcastle striker.
But as he attempted to kick the ball, he missed and landed on the striker’s foot.
Jamieson was aghast when shown his second yellow after Morgan consulted with fourth official Jonathan Barreiro and both Vidosic and Jets counterpart Arthur Papas said it was a “50-50” challenge.
Newcastle’s Kosta Grozos spurned a couple of good chances early in the second half.
City earned a share of the points when 17-year-old Caputo, in his third game, rose highest to head home a wonderful corner from Florin Berenguer just two minutes after entering the fray.
It is the second time in as many matches the Jets have coughed up a late lead after gifting Perth a 97th-minute equaliser in their 2-2 draw.
“It’s like a case of deja vu,” Papas said.
“In the second half in the first 10 minutes we had the two chances to finish the game off and I think it would have made it probably one step too far for them.
“We didn’t take our chances. They put us under a lot of pressure after that and we weren’t good enough in every single area.
“It definitely feels like two points dropped.”
City centre-back Nuno Reis (groin) hobbled off in the 21st minute.
