Lachlan Avil 
Preseason has been invaluable for Aurelio Vidmar's side. Photo: Provided by Melbourne City.
With a first full preseason under his belt as Melbourne City head coach, Aurelio Vidmar says his team have shown encouraging signs heading into the new campaign, whilst under no illusions about the expectiations for success that come with being a part of the City Football Group.
“Everyone in the country knows the expectations of the Melbourne City Football Club, so that hasn’t changed,” Vidmar asserted.
“There’s always an expectation that we want to deliver, first of all, top performances to win and playing an attacking type of football.
“And with that, it should bring success. That hasn’t changed and it hasn’t changed since I’ve been here, and it won’t change when I leave.”
With teams up North going all out with a pair of big name signing in Douglas Costa and Juan Mata, questions have been asked as to why one of the league’s most well-resourced clubs have not followed suit.
But Vidmar says that whilst the signings are very exciting for the league as a whole, it is all about finding the right people and profiles for your club.
“Every club is doing their own business their own way. We’re doing our business our own way and getting players that we think are going to fulfill the roles and responsibilities on the pitch here,” he said.
“We probably don’t have a ‘Douglas Costa’ or ‘Juan Mata’ name here, but that doesn’t matter. At the end, it’s how the players that we have here work within the group, and so far we’ve been really pleased with the guys that we’ve brought in.”
Vidmar never got the opportunity to extract the value of the long A-League off season last time around, a key difference in this campaign.
“Preseason is extremely important. I came in [after] round two I think it was last year, after a preseason. So, it’s very difficult to change things,” Vidmar said ahead of City’s opener against the Jets on Saturday afternoon.
“So the beauty of having these last four months, we’ve been able to do a hell of a lot of technical work, get structures right, expectations, behaviours, all these sorts of things that we instilled at the beginning of the preseason. So it’s been really encouraging.
“Everyone’s really itching to get out there and show what they can do.”
Whilst bringing in the likes of Nathaniel Atkinson a month before the start of the season, and some import players who have to build up their conditioning has been a challenge, Vidmar is pleased about the mindset of his playing group over the winter.
“They really have taken it on board. They’re really lapping it up, they’ve been taking in information,” Vidmar said.
“Whatever work we’re doing, on the track, whatever work we’re doing in the gym … the way we do our recovery sessions, they’ve really taken it on board. So we’ve been pretty pleased with the preseason so far.
“We’re in really good shape, the mindset is excellent … we have not missed a beat in terms of expectations and our attitude towards training sessions.”
The squad will be tested straight away, as City come into the new campaign with a couple of key names on the injury list.
Max Caputo still has a month and a half to go for his leg and ankle to recover, whilst Mathew Leckie – who would be one of the options to fill the central attacking role – is a couple of weeks away from match fitness after a quad injury sustained nearly a month ago, but has returned to training in a modified capacity.
Filling that hole up front is the key question for Vidmar to ponder during the first few weeks.
“We’ve got a couple of option up there, between Andy Nabbout, Arion Sulemani played there through the preseason, and young boy Medin Memeti has also played there throughout the preseason,” he said.
“Obviously the latter two are quite young and inexperienced, so Andy’s probably going to be our best option there at the moment, but when Lecks (Mathew Leckie) comes back, Lecks has got the opportunity to play there as well.
“Yonatan Cohen can also play there, so that central role, we’ve got a fair bit of cover until Max gets himself 100 per cent fit again.”
Looking ahead to City’s first game of the season away to Newcastle, Vidmar rejects the common perception that the Jets may not be in a position to compete this season.
“What we saw last year, anyone can beat anyone, and I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen again this year,” he said.
“The tactical elements of the game, which we started to see last year, is even going to be greater this year. Coaches are smarter, they’re working differently, they’re bringing up new systems, new concepts, so I think it’s exciting.
“Newcastle are very, very well coached with Robbie Stanton. Yes, it’s his second year as a senior coach, but you can see what he was doing last year. Him having another preseason under his belt, he’s going to make them stronger.
“It’s never been an easy game in Newcastle … our job is to make sure that we go in there with the right frame of mind.”
Melbourne City open their A-League Men’s campaign at 5pm AEDT on Saturday afternoon away to the Newcastle Jets.