The last time Perth came to Melbourne they thoroughly outclassed City on their way to a comfortable 3-0 win. Taking the lead after Bruno Fornaroli outmuscled Harrison Delbridge – who played his worst game in an otherwise excellent season on the night – and fired home in the 27th minute, Glory were able to masterfully shut down the game and cruise to victory.

It was a perfect example of just how Perth, who have won six straight games heading into Saturday's contest, go about their business, with one Melbourne City player after the game glumly admitting to FTBL that once Glory went 1-0 up the result was a fait accompli.

The result kickstarted a lean run of form that also featured defeats against Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC, reinvigorating discussions around City’s longstanding fragility in big games.

City have only defeated Perth once in their past 11 meetings; their lone triumph arriving back in round 15 of the 2017/18 season thanks to a Ross McCormack brace. Making matters worse, Perth haven’t tasted defeat against City at AAMI Park in their last seven meetings, winning four games and drawing three.

“First we have to do more and better than we have done before,” Mombaerts said on Perth.

“We have the experience of the first game, and I think that we are improving also. We are finding some other solutions to break down their well organised defensive block.

“We started well enough in the first game. If you remember we conceded the first goal was a big mistake of ours. After that it’s not a good scenario, not a good situation to beat. Why? Because they control the game with their defensive block and can play on the counter.

“They scored one goal on a set pieces and in the second half as they dropped back it was more difficult to break through their defensive block.

“To beat this team, it’s better to be a good scenario. A scenario where you start well and try to score one.

“But also, we have experience of this first game and we know what we have to do to be stronger now.”

Working in Mombaerts’s favour is that his side has welcomed in reinforcements in the wake of their 3-0 defeat against Glory.

Javier Cabrera has departed the club and former Athletic Bilbao stalwart Markel Susaeta brought in his place, while Celtic winger Jack Hendry has been brought in as cover for the oft-injured Richard Windbichler.

“For sure they will be in our squad,” Mombaerts said of his new signings. “We will see [how much they can play] tomorrow, we practised a few options.

“But Jack started to train only on Tuesday. He is fit but yes we need to see about our game principles, if he is okay with them.

"For Markel, it’s a bit different. he is improving day by day physically. I’m not sure he can start but maybe he has more time to play than the last game.”

Glory are sweating on the fitness of two impact players of their own heading into Saturday night’s fixture, with Chris Ikonomidis (knee) and Ivan Franjic (calf) both under fitness clouds heading into the contest after missing last week’s win over Western Sydney Wanderers.

"[Ikonomidis] is feeling better," Glory boss Tony Popovic said yesterday.

"He trained a little with the group yesterday, and we expect him to do the session today. We'll make an assessment after consulting with him to see how he feels.

"We know he's a lot more positive, but we need him to be able to go at 100 per cent in the game. If he can, he'll travel. But if he can't, we'll wrap him up and hopefully, it will be next week.

"[Franjic is] similar to Chris. They did a part of the session yesterday, a very short probably 30 minutes together the two of them."