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As Ross McCormack settles back into life in Birmingham, he’ll no doubt stave off the biting English chill with warm memories of Melbourne.
Perhaps he’ll indulge himself, as he gazes at his freshly repaired garden gate, by rolling through the thuddingly pleasing echoes of his goals in the 2017-18 A-League season.
His departure has blunted Melbourne City’s attack considerably, and he has also taken with him any sense of competition in this year’s Golden Boot race.
The Scot’s current goals tally, 14 plundered in just 17 appearances, would have earned him equal fifth place in last season’s race, second place in the 14-15, 13-14 and the 11-12 seasons, and it would have won it for him in 08-09.
McCormack would have left the A-League leading the race this year if not for another foreign striker, who happens to be constructing the greatest goal-scoring season in league history.
Bobo, perhaps the most quietly consistent of all of Sydney FC’s stars over the past two seasons, has 18 goals in 18 league games this term – more than double that of Besart Berisha, now his nearest Golden Boot rival.
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When Bruno Fornaroli scored 26 goals back in 2015-16, he smashed through the 20-goal ceiling, a new apex for an A-League striker. Fornaroli played the full 90 minutes in all but one of City’s 27 regular season matches, and two finals games that year – in the exception he played 85 minutes.
That’s 2605 minutes, and he scored a goal, on average, every 100 minutes. Seven times he bagged a brace, including in the key victory over Perth in the finals. He also had one hat-trick, scoring all three in a 3-0 win over Sydney FC. City lost nine times that season, and four of those losses coincided with Fornaroli going scoreless.
The Uruguayan was like a neon stiletto that year; he was the central issue for every opposition gameplan, a glowing threat that would not be dimmed. He was fouled more times than any other player in the league, and could easily have snatched the Johnny Warren Medal from Diego Castro. How we’ve missed him this year.
Bruno Fornaroli on the attack. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Bobo, admittedly with less flair and flash, is bettering Fornaroli’s 15-16 efforts this season.
On average, he plays slightly fewer minutes per game than Fornaroli did, has once started on the bench, and has been subbed off seven times. He has two hat-tricks, two braces, and has already registered more assists than Fornaroli did. He has nine more regular season games – plus however many finals games Graham Arnold’s side end up playing – to score nine more goals and beat Fornaroli’s record for goals in a season.
Currently, Bobo is scoring a goal every 84 minutes, a better per-minute strikerate than Harry Kane in the Premier League and Edinson Cavani in Ligue 1.
He ought to get to 27, especially if he plunders in savage numbers against Wellington – who are bottom, with the second worst defence in the league – this weekend.
Bobo’s success can’t be attributed solely to him, not by a long shot. The Brazilian has prospered on the fertile service provided by Mierzejewski and Milos Ninkovic, and the numbers behind the 18 goals indicate as much. He has taken 70 shots this season, a total that leads the league by some distance. Six of his goals have been from the penalty spot, and he’s personally won half of those.
Of his 70 shots, 33 have been on target, or 47 per cent. McCormack led the league in that regard, with a startlingly accurate on-target percentage of 64 per cent, but Bobo’s is still excellent; shooting at such a high volume can often imply impulsive, wasteful shooting, but not in Bobo’s case. Again, Mierzejewski and Ninkovic, both inside the top ten for shot-assists, have clearly contributed to the quality of Bobo’s shooting opportunities.
Bobo (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
Bobo has been found offside just ten times this season, a vastly better total than, say, Berisha or Andrew Nabbout (both seen straying 22 times so far this season), the result one might generously attribute in equal part to well-timed running on Bobo’s behalf, and well-timed passing on the part of his teammates.
And is this how Bobo’s been largely fed, along the ground or chipped over the top to run onto? Well, while Sydney have attempted the most through-balls in the league, the Brazilian has also contested more aerial duels (155) than any player – including defenders – so he’s being tasked with the graft traditionally expected of starting strikers. To compare, McCormack contested just 24 aerial duels over his 17 appearances.
Essentially, while the Sky Blues tend to create more in attack than most teams, Bobo’s is not a role into which you could place a league-average striker and expect the same results. His finishing and movement is elite, and he can score in so many different ways.
Aged 33, he’s at the point in his career where he can still compete physically, while being in the thick of his mental prime; decision-making, technique, intuition, chemistry, all of these elements are peaking. The fact that he’s been with the team for a year and a half helps as well.
It’s a varied style, it’s industrious, and it’s potent to a degree we’ve never seen. Mierzejewski and Ninkovic sparkle weekly, and rightly catch and keep the attention. Josh Brillante and Brandon O’Neill are given deserved praise too, as young, prospering Australians playing in our young, prospering league.
But the Brazilian’s brilliance is also glinting through, and if Sydney power on to retain the Premiership-Championship double, it will be thanks to Bobo’s goals, each one a vital hunk of coal shovelled into the Sydney engine.