Bruno Fornaroli’s spectacular hat-trick ensured Melbourne City moved to within four points of the A-League summit with a 3-0 win over Sydney FC.
The division’s top scorer opened City’s account on 41 minutes and ended his own personal sequence of two matches without a goal. The 28-year-old added two more superb efforts in the second half to get his side back to winning ways.
The one real contentious moment of the match saw Patrick Kisnorbo escape a red card, with replays suggesting the correct decision was made, for hauling down Filip Holosko during a Sydney FC breakaway. Sydney’s argument was that the City captain had denied Holosko a clear goalscoring opportunity. However, referee Chris Beath, after consulting his assistant on the touchline, adjudged that Alex Wilkinson was adequate cover and opted for a yellow card.
READ MORE: A-League – What We Learned – Melbourne City 3 Sydney FC 0
Formations
The depth available to John van’t Schip allows him to freely switch between his most favoured 4-3-3 and 3-5-2.
While City’s team sheet suggested 3-5-2, this was evidently not the case. There was talk of City’s formation switching whether they had the ball or not, but Osama Malik was carefully stationed ahead of the back line as a traditional holder.
As a result, Ivan Franjic and Ben Garuccio, who operated in the wide areas for City, were afforded more attacking freedom and less defensive responsibility with the protection of Kisnorbo and Wilkinson at the centre of defence and Malik playing a withdrawn midfield role.
Harry Novillo replaced Nick Fitzgerald in the starting XI, and played in tandem with Fornaroli, albeit less advanced in a positional sense than his strike partner.
For the visitors, Graham Arnold’s task of juggling an extra competition forced his hand once again to ring in the changes in the favoured 4-3-3 system, which is modified to a 4-5-1 when Sydney are pinned back defensively.
Aaron Calver, impressive as a right-sided full-back towards the end of the 2014-15, season started there along with Zac Anderson and the ever-present Matt Jurman, with Ali Abbas occupying the left full-back role.
Brandon O’Neill, Milos Dimitrijevic and Milos Ninkovic occupied the centre of the park for Sydney, with the industrious O’Neill doing much of the dirty work, with that concept aimed at allowing his Serbian midfield partners to get forward without the danger of being caught out defensively.
Matt Simon operated as a centre-forward with Andrew Hoole and Holosko occupying the outside channels respectively.
Ali Abbas gets forward early to state Sydney’s intent
The naturalised Australian pushed his case for a consistent starting berth with a strong display in the opening stages.
The 29-year-old delivered three crosses before being substituted in the second half, and spent much of his time in the attacking half of the pitch.
His inch-perfect cross from deep created Sydney’s best chance of the contest – which saw Filip Holosko’s header hit the upright just before half time.
Mooy drops deeper – City wake up after half an hour
City’s talisman struggled to influence the contest in the early stages, eventually dropping deeper to make use of his wide range of passing. This, however, isolated Fornaroli and Novillo further, while Caceres was unable to find space in between the lines of Sydney’s defence and midfield on the rare occasion City were on the front foot.
Regardless of the general run of play, City’s quality in transition is second to none in the A-League. Novillo’s hooked clearance from inside his own area found Fornaroli, who was simply too good for Calver to find Mooy. The star midfielder amassed his 19th assist for the season in teeing up Fornaroli for his 18th goal of the season.
City went ahead, but were being outnumbered in midfield as Mooy’s role allows him to hunt for the ball and leave City outnumbered in the centre. As seen in the above passing map, Mooy’s desire to pick up possession anywhere across the midfield line, but this is a positive risk that City have and will continue to take.
The brilliance of El Tuna and Novillo’s clever movement
Are there any superlatives that have been left unsaid about Fornaroli? Scoreless in his past two matches, he showed the kind of ultra efficiency that is expected of Europe’s elite, let alone the A-League.
His exploits decided the contest, as illustrated by his shot map graphic.
From Fornaroli’s five efforts at goal, three ended in the back of Vedran Janjetovic’s net, while the other two efforts were blocked and saved respectively.
Like Mooy, Fornaroli does not confine himself to any one position on the pitch and was seen to be trying his luck against either full-back or central defender, depending on the phase of play. However, when Fornaroli does pull wide, Novillo’s intelligence sees him either drop in front of the central defenders or into the midfield to ensure City can keep attacks going.
Melbourne City conclusion
While there is still a clear over-reliance on Fornaroli, City are arguably the best side in the division when their star striker, as well as Mooy, are able to push forward with reckless abandon.
This side only knows one way – forward, a far cry from the much criticised conservative approach that van’t Schip has shown at times in recent seasons. Although, this may have been down to the fact that City has never possessed this level of attacking prowess as the present.
The half time introduction of Nick Fitzgerald helped to stretch Sydney, and eventually, the hosts submitted.
One concern for the Dutch manager is the lack of influence that Caceres is having on matches. Substituted with 20 minutes to play for Michael Zullo, City looked a far more dangerous prospect when the wide areas were the genesis of attacks.
Sydney FC conclusion
What now for Arnold’s men? Rarely out-battled, but regularly out-gunned in the 2014-15 season. Arnold’s decision to pack the midfield was not a new ploy, yet yielded a similar result.
The club’s decision not to re-sign Marc Janko and simply make do with veterans Shane Smeltz and Simon as centre-forwards is looking like one of season 11’s great oversights. The forward line, beside the influence of Holosko, lacks guile, and a threat in behind the defence after the injury to Alex Brosque. Huff and puff as this Sydney side did last night, it lacked the quality in forward areas to capitalise.
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