Melbourne City youngster Stefan Mauk says their recent 5-1 victories against Perth Glory and Central Coast prove nothing, as they came against “two lower teams”.
Mauk said City must use those wins as building blocks and mount a case against the higher-ranked clubs with testing fixtures on the horizon.
“It’s always positive getting the result but two 5-1 results against two lower teams doesn’t prove anything,” Mauk said.
“We’ve got to beat the higher teams. We’ve got Newcastle followed by the (Melbourne) Derby.
“I think we just need to keep backing the performances up and whether you win two games … it’s a long season and it’s very tight so we need to go on a bit of a run and consolidate those two wins with hopefully another couple of wins.
The midfielder said City’s focus has turned to solidifying at the back.
“It’s good to score, but we need to focus on defensively being strong.
“We conceded one against both those sides (Perth and Central Coast) when I don’t think we should have conceded against either of them … it’s now just about focusing on defending as a team.”
Ahead of City’s trip to Newcastle, Mauk reflected on their 3-2 home loss against the Jets, saying the team needs to learn its lesson after suffering from “complacency”.
City led 2-0 at half time only to be overrun in the second 45.
“Maybe it was complacency. We were very confident going into half time. We thought the game was over because they were very average in the the first half.
“The first half was very good, the second half was not so good.
“We just have to learn from that and play a positive brand of football like in the first half and worry about ourselves.”
City take on the Newcastle Jets at Hunter Stadium on Sunday afternoon with Mauk expected to maintain his position in the starting XI after scoring against Central Coast.
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