The traditional festive fixture promises to be an edge-of-the-seat spectacle as City sit second on the table while Victory are one point behind in third, with a game in hand.

City have defeated Victory twice this season already, the first encounter in round two was a 4-1 thumping followed by a 2-0 FFA Cup semi-final win 10 days later.

The City Football Group, which took over Melbourne Heart in 2014, is looking to disrupt Victory's reputation as the biggest club in the A-League, but Cahill said he isn't interested in a war of words.

“Talking about it is not something we’re all about, we’re not in a sparring battle to upset teams verbally and getting into this melee of ‘we’re better’,” Cahill said.

“Our emphasis is on our football, what we produce and that's the only way we can change that tide.

“We’ve proved we can mix it with the best and teams love playing against us. They show up, want to play their best, be physical and want to put on their best performance because they want to beat us. For us that’s a massive compliment and we accept that with open arms.

“The thing is our football is doing the talking and also with that trophy it helps massively for where we want to be and how we want to progress.

“For us, first phase of the year, we’re into 10 games with a trophy in the cabinet and sitting second on the table.”

City is undefeated in six games which included the 1-0 FFA Cup Final win over Sydney FC, but three 1-1 draws were accumulated in the process.

Cahill lamented last week’s draw to the Sky Blues and believed it was not a positive performance after managing the final 10 minutes at ANZ Stadium.

“We come back into this week and we question ourselves, we go away to Sydney, we didn’t really play well and we’d be disappointed in our performance yet we drew,” he said.

“The best thing about our group of players is we question ourselves first, we don’t question the other elements that come with the game. We don’t question Sydney FC, we look at ourselves like we’ve done all season and we fix it.”

Adter the recent controversy about City's physicality, the Socceroo legend defended their tactics.

“The way we play is high tempo in closing down teams up high, our intention is never to go in with intent to hurt players,” he said.

“As you’ve seen this year, it’s a good physical battle, whatever league you play in you need it to be competitive and fair and I suppose that’s the style now we want to progress with and also the league.”

City midfielder Luke Brattan was frustrated with the draw to the Sky Blues, but said it was a sign the club was not getting complacent.

“I wasn’t happy, that’s credit to the club, any team (in the A-League) would be happy to go to Sydney away and draw 1-1,” Brattan said.

“I think it just proves our mentality and where we’re at as a club, to be disappointed with a draw in Sydney, it’s unbelievable.”