With finals on the horizon both teams were looking to find some form.  With Adelaide’s new owners looking on anonymously like shadowy overlords the home players were keen to impress and dominated the first 15 minutes.

The player movements between these clubs has given this fixture a bit of fire recently and tonight’s game was no exception. Melbourne City were able to weather the storm and launch attacks of their own. One of these resulted in a missed penalty and Adelaide took the lead in first half stoppage time.

Melbourne City managed to draw level early in the second half and from there the game petered out into a stalemate.  

Adelaide United

Paul Izzo – 7.5

He did his homework on Bruno Fornaroli and it paid off with a strong penalty save. However, he won’t want to see replays of Stefan Mauk’s goal.

Michael Marrone – 5.5

Another right fullback who will have nightmares about Daniel Arzani. It was a tough night for Marrone but he made the effort to close down Arzani further away from the box and this gave him a lot more ground to concede to the youngster.  

Ersam Gulum – 6.5

Another strong performance from the big centre half. If he hadn’t have traitorously defected to Turkey, he might be in Socceroo contention.

Jordan Elsey – 4

He’s made some excellent tackles this season but tonight he made some shockers. Gave away the penalty and nearly was reckless on Arzani. He was a little lucky to still be on the pitch.

Ben Garuccio – 6

Was involved in a few good overlapping plays particularly in the first 15 minutes. But like a lot of the players who stood out in the first half he didn’t maintain those high standards.