Melbourne City have leapt to the top of the A-League Men table, with Marco Tilio lighting up AAMI Park in the reigning champions’ 3-0 win over Newcastle.
Wearing the captain’s armband in Scott Jamieson’s injury-enforced absence on Friday, Jamie Maclaren brilliantly volleyed City in front two minutes into first-half stoppage time.
In the second half, Tilio stole the show as a No.10, weaving his way through a swathe of defenders to tee up Mathew Leckie for City’s second, then 12 minutes later, assisting Carl Jenkinson for the third.
But coach Patrick Kisnorbo was measured on Tilio’s eye-catching performance.
“Marco’s a player that obviously needs games to improve. That’s reality: he’s only young,” coach Patrick Kisnorbo said.
“A performance like this, it helps.
“One thing that I’ll never do is guarantee people to play. So even though Marco went off in the first half (with calf tightness) last week, I decided to stick with him because it worked with what we needed to do.
“I thought he was good at times, I thought sometimes he was a bit sloppy but that’s part of the learning.
“Part of my job is… to help him and learn things in different areas and today, saw some good things and also some things that he can improve on.”
Newcastle dominated much of the first half, despite conceding late, and Maclaren told Paramount Plus post-match the first 45 had prompted some “honest truths” from Kisnorbo.
“Maybe my voice went up a few decibels. That’s sports and that’s football. I was really happy with the reaction that they gave,” Kisnorbo said.
“Sometimes things need changing and I’m not talking about personnel or formation, but I needed to get a reaction from the players and I thought we did that tonight.”
Jets coach Arthur Papas was left to lament a lack of clinical edge in the final third, before Leckie’s goal and Taylor Regan’s send-off for a second yellow card two minutes later changed the game.
“First half, probably our best half since we returned from the break,” Papas said.
“Our football was very good up until the last third … Then you concede on halftime, probably against the run of play, should defend better in the box.
“Then the game changes in two moments in the second half (with Leckie’s goal and the red card).
“Ten men, when you’re playing Melbourne City, doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, they’re obviously going to put us to the sword.”
Bsten
Guest
Why is ch10 showing melv v vs cc? U showed the same teams 3 weeks ago , show adel vs mac no wonder this league is becoming a joke, aus players won't beat Vietnam in 3 yrs, this game is a bore and I love football, c10 showing game yourube yest to cut at half time wtf paramount I want u 2 succees but your not making it easy
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Interesting game watching it live last night. Very, very even for first 45 minutes, and then a last minute combo of Berenguer to McLaren sees City go in at HT with a 1-0 lead. From that point, it was all City. Early 2nd half, and to that point, Tilio had been just ok, all of a sudden, he's setting up goals left, right and centre. Game over. City just toy with the Jets for last 20 minutes, once they had their 3-0 lead and Jets were down a man. The other interesting bit is that the City had had just a 3 day break, by rights, the Jets should have been much fresher, but they didn't look like it. For much of that 2nd half, even before they went down to 10 men, they looked slow and tired.
Midfielder
Roar Guru
Jerks look good in the first half. Tilo has a lot of promise as does Medcalf.
NoMates
Roar Rookie
Once again Jets look lost, whats going on with them?
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Tilio worked great against Newcastle because the space they offer when they all go forward. To me Newcastle are cashing cheques they cant pay if you want to play high energy attack with a lot of movement and then high press then you need great fitness and tracking back, their fitness that seemed to be building up before Christmas dissapeared and looks to be getting worse with injuries.Decent effort in parts of the first half but it tired them out. I though Marques effort and movement was a lot better than the previous matches so maybe he can improve they need more in the midfield. The coach needs to find a whole set of young players and keep the subs rolling as well, this is an exhausting style. He doesn't seem to be capable of picking out a youth player using them to rotate the squad. The haltime commentary slagging off Tilio was ridiculous even before half time he did well enough, and looked a threat. Elsey was he expecting the goal keeper to take that cross did not even go for it just turned and looked around and gave Mclaren an easy view it of coming in, even if you cant get to a cross by going for it you can block the view of the striker.