CITY REWARDED IN ODD WAY   

Melbourne City dominated the match leading in every statistical category. They looked in control of the game and the sure winner of three points.

Yet, during the majority of the game City was either down or tied up with Canberra United. 

The clock was ticking away and it looked like City would earn their second tie in so many games which funny enough would tie their club record for most ties in a season. 

City has as much talent as every other club in the league, if not more than most. This is a team that should be winning games handily. 

They had to rely on a 90+4 minute penalty from Emily van Egmond to ensure they would walk away victorious. And even the penalty was almost stopped by Sham Khamis who got a hand to the ball but could not knock it away from the goal.

Melbourne City deserved the win, but at the same time by not converting the majority of their chances in the run of play it seems like they don’t deserve the win.

Regardless of if they deserved or didn’t deserve the win they got one today. But if they want to get on a win streak they are going to have to be better in front of goal and converting more of their shots.

The W-League is too good of a league now for a team to just rely on talent alone.

PATIENCE IS KEY

For a good portion of this match Canberra was busy trying to get the ball out of their defensive half.

City was sending attack after attack their way. Even with the constant bombardment Canberra remained composed, creating chances here and there.

It would have been easy for Canberra to panic or even feel frustrated, but they weathered the storm waiting for their chance to attack. 

Canberra was able to get on the scoresheet first in the 59th minute and they scored their goal just like they played the whole game, with patience.

Camila rocketed a shot that just hit the post, normally a heartbreaking sound for the attacking team. Luckily, the ball rebounded right to Katie Stengel who collected the ball and made sure to bury it into the net.

No matter how lopsided the game looked at times, Canberra stuck to their game plan. They were able to hold City to one goal in the run of play despite their 20 shots. 

Goalkeeper Sham Khanis had a spectacular game for Canberra which was a key reason they stayed in the match. She made plenty of stops that otherwise would have blown this game wide open.

CAN YOU HAVE TOO MANY OPTIONS?

You’re on the break and you have Emily van Egmond and Kyah Simon alongside you as well as Ellie Carpenter and Steph Catley running down the flanks, so who do you pass the ball to?

You can’t decide, we can’t decide and sometimes Melbourne City can’t decide either. 

When teams only have one true offensive option they become too predictable and easily stopped.

But the problem for Melbourne City may be that they have too many options. There were times in today’s match against Canberra where Melbourne’s passes in the final third fell between two players with no single target in mind. 

They had beautiful passes during the game, but there would be one or two extra passes which allowed Canberra’s defence to catch up.

Obviously they don’t need to remove their top players, they just need to figure out how they all fit together. 

City was superior tonight and had more offensive chances, but they were not able to capitalize enough and take advantage of all of their offensive firepower.

To have the above mentioned players as well as other quality players and only have two goals from the run of play in two games is alarming.

If City want to avenge last season where they missed postseason they need to start scoring more goals.