Melbourne City suffered a costly 1-0 defeat at the hands of Wellington Phoenix on Saturday night at the Eden Park, with David Ball scoring the only goal of the encounter just two minutes shy of the hour mark.
The visitors knew it was a game they needed to get something out of if they were going to keep their opponents at bay, with six points separating the two teams before kick-off.
On the other end, Ufuk Talay instructed his defenders to keep the attacking threat of Jamie Maclaren, Adrien Luna and Marko Susaeta at bay if they wanted to stay alive in the encounter.
The game began cautiously by both teams, with the home side holding on to the ball but not really creating many chances, while City looked deadly on the break.
Maclaren had two great opportunities to break the deadlock before the half hour mark, but couldn’t find the target. City continued to miss chances as Wellington slowly came out of their shell.
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In one of their rare opportunities, British duo Gary Hooper and David Ball combined, with the former providing the assist to the latter, who pushed the ball passed Tom Glover to score what would turn out to be the only goal of the evening.
Despite their efforts and nine shots on target, the citizens simply couldn’t get past Stefan Marinovic, who had seven saves in the encounter.
Thanks to this win the ‘Nix can keep their hopes of finishing in second place alive, as now they’re only three points away from their Saturday night opponents, while City will have to say goodbye to their chances to the Premiership as they struggle to maintain hold of their position.
Meanwhile, Adelaide United are on equal points with Wellington, after a comfortable 2-0 win against the Mariners, in a game that was marked by the goal of 15-year-old prodigy Mohamed Toure.
Wellington Phoenix-Melbourne City 1-0 (58′ Ball)
Adelaide United-Central Coast Mariners 2-0 (82′ Blackwook, 84’ M. Toure)