The Sky Blues found themselves a goal down in the third minute through an Oriol Riera header before Brendan Hamill doubled the lead at the half hour mark from an Alvaro Cejudo ball.

Arnold’s team fought back with a controversial Bobo penalty goal and a Josh Brillante equaliser as the Sydney boss put it down to the mentality which won them the Championship last season.

“The signs of a champion team and a team with great character is to fight back from 2-0 down,” Arnold said.

“We conceded two sloppy goals. Something I need to address is our start in games. It’s not the first time we’ve started like that, to show the character we did was fantastic.”

Arnold also said the Sky Blues should have won the game.

“The first goal was a freakish header, it was sloppy marking, to concede like that from a set-piece was not good enough,” he said.

“It made it a bit harder for us but at the end of the day, the belief within the team, the atmosphere at half-time was very positive.

“In the dressing it’s disappointment. We had to work hard for our goals. We had much better of the second-half, 70th minute onwards we just couldn’t capitalise on our opportunities.

“The boys believed they could come back and I thought in the second-half there was only one team in it.”