After four weeks on the road and looking to bounce back from their 2-nil defeat to the hands of the Mariners on Monday night, Ante Milicic opted to give an A-League starting debut to 18-year-old Michael Ruhs.
It was tough going for the Bulls in the opening 20 minutes with City dominating 70% time in opposition half.
Macarthur’s best chance of the first half came from a Beñat free kick on the edge of the box, however the Spaniard couldn’t keep the shot down, narrowly flying over the crossbar.
In the 25th minute, an impressive & white hot City outfit took 2 minutes & 8 seconds to blow the game wide open, with a brace to the leagues leading goal scorer Jamie Maclaren.
While a stunned Bulls outfit tried to comprehend what had just happened, City kept the pressure on, capitalising on some unforced Macarthur errors. 9 minutes later they added a third with Craig Noone finishing a delightful long midfield ball from Andrew Nabbout.
The injection of Lachie Rose at half time almost paid off for the visitors, with a craft cross narrowly missing Tommy Oar sliding in near the back post in the opening minutes of the second stanza.
A seemly different team to the first period, the Bulls looked threating, urgent, and hungrier for the ball, yet to no avail.
The final score would remain 3-nil.
Suffering back to back defeats for the first time in the club’s history, head coach Ante Milicic said post-match:
“I thought we started well enough. To conceded first goal was disappointing and took a little out of us, but to immediately conceded the second was too much.”
“We were punished in transition.”
“Their speed and movement, we just couldn’t deal with it.” Milicic said.
“They’re a confident team at the moment, we needed to keep ball for longer spells. They forced us into simple errors and when they break, they are very dangerous.”
After the opening 12 weeks of the competition Milicic claimed:
“They’re (City) the benchmark in this competition.”
“It’s been a bad night for us, we’ll cop it on the chin. We need to get back to the football we’re capable of.”
The Bulls return home on Saturday 20th March against Western United.
Kick off 5:05pm – Tickets on sale now!
