Melbourne City 0-0 Adelaide United
by Alyce Collett (18/3/26)
Above: Karly Roestbakken (blue uniform front) battles it out with Erin Healy (red uniform front) during this afternoon’s clash between Melbourne City and Adelaide United. Photo: via the A-Leagues.
Melbourne City and Adelaide United have played out a potentially very consequential 0 all draw in a mid week top of the table catch up game. It was a fiery game at times – with plenty of physical aggression from both sides – but despite the lack of goals both sides came away from the match with plenty to think about.
This result keeps the race for the minor premiership well and truly alive, with Adelaide now only four points behind its rivals in the title race with a game in hand.
In the first half both sides chose to use very different methods to try and get to goal but both ran into problems.
Melbourne City found themselves with a problem of an outnumbered Bryleeh Henry on more than one occasion, while Adelaide was getting some dangerous crosses in, but just could not get the ball on the heads of their tall targets like it normally would. Emily Condon and Karly Roestbakken were also proving very helpful – albeit playing very different roles – in their respective sides’ pushes into attack.
What was not helping Adelaide was that one of those usual targets in Erin Healy was doing a lot more defensive work than usual, and so was not in the usual prominent positions on the field in attacking play like she normally would be.
Interestingly though Adelaide did dominate possession (62% to 38%) and final third entries (43 to 19) but both sides only managed to get two shots away in the first half, and no one got a shot on target.
City did lift in the second half – evening out possession, getting plenty of shots away and actually getting some shots on target unlike their visitors – but at times they struggled to get close get meaningful shots away. Henry and Aideen Keane continued to try and really get things going for the home side, but the very experienced centre back pair from Adelaide – Ella Tonkin and Matilda McNamara – never let the rising pressure get to them, and defended well to not concede.
Teams: MELBOURNE CITY (3-5-2): Mieres, Turner, Otto, Stott, Roestbakken, Davidson, McMahon, Mckenna, Henry, Jackson, Keane. Substitutes: Barbieri, Apostolakis,Butrus, Hughes, Jugovic, Uchendu.
ADELAIDE UNITED (4-3-3): Melegh, Tolland, McNamara, Tonkin, E. Hodgson, Morgan, Condon, M. Taranto, A. Taranto, Healy, Dawber. Substitutes: Holmes, I. Hodgson, Jenkins, Rossi, Zois, Gooch.
Referee: Caitlin Williams.
Attendance: TBC.
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