City defeated Melbourne Victory 2-1 in the season’s third and final Melbourne Derby last Friday, with Florin Berenguer supplying the opening goal in just the eighth minute before providing a sublime backheel assist to set up Jamie Maclaren’s follow-up strike in the 71st.

Content to sit back, allow their opponents to have the ball and look to break on the counter, City were relatively comfortable winners of the contest. Victory’s first shot on target didn't arrive until Robbie Kruse fired in a tepid long-range effort in the second half.

The only blemish on their copybook came via a calamitous error from goalkeeper Tom Glover, who blundered a relatively straight-forward save of an Ola Toivonen free-kick.

Beyond the importance of a derby win, however, the win looms large for City in serving as an occasion when they finally, after falling short every other time of asking in 2019/20, were able to take three points from a high-stakes fixture.  

“First, we were all happy to win this game,” Mombaerts said today. “It was a good emotion to win this game, it was a derby and we wanted to win this game.

“After that, we only had two days after the game we just have a review, what we have done well and we analyse our performance. Then the most important thing is to prepare for the next game and to confirm the good things that we have done.

“We can’t stay with good emotions too long; we have to prepare.”

City are set to fly out tomorrow afternoon to New Zealand ahead of a Saturday afternoon meeting with Wellington Phoenix.

After going nine-games unbeaten at one point during the season, Phoenix have lost two of their past four games, going down 4-2 to Perth Glory last week and down 1-0 to Brisbane Roar in round 15.

“They can score goals, but they also don’t concede a lot,” Mombaerts said.

“But it’s their style, the style is clear – It’s Sydney FC style. I’m not surprised by the style, they play all the games in the same shape, the same philosophy, so that’s why we prepare our game well.

“Against this team, we have to find a balance because it’s a team that’s good offensively, with good combined movement, but they have a weakness when they lose the ball.”

Aiding in City’s quest to counter the ‘Nix will be the continued incorporation of Markel Susaeta into their line-up. 

The Athletic Bilbao veteran made his third successive start for his new club in the win over Victory, taking up a position on the wing and playing a full 90 minutes for the first time in Australia.

“He’s getting better physically every week,” City’s gaffer said. “He’s really a good player, very smart, very mobile – he is a perfect player in our style of play.

“Maybe in the future, he will change position, maybe he is more interesting to have this player in the middle future.”

“With [his] talent and his experience, I think [he can be the best player in the league when fully fit]. Not too many players have played more than 500 games in La Liga.

“He’s adapted well to our style of play.

“I want to congratulate him because he hasn’t had much time to prepare, he started to play very early.

“[He’s been] amazing, because he didn’t have too many sessions with us.

“We’ll see. I’m sure we haven’t seen the real Markel Susaeta yet.”