City lost their first ever Grand Final (0:1 vs. Sydney FC), but despite that late disappointment the season can be classed as major step forward. The Citizens played some very attractive attacking football all throughout and the Golden Boot winner Mclaren was simply unstoppable, he broke several scoring records.
City ended up reaching both the A-League final and the FFA Cup final, lost both finals, which combined with the highest ever finish of regular season (2nd) definitely shows massive steps forward made by coach Mombaerts and his players.
The forward actions were by far the main strength and all of the forward players performed very well. Noone was not scoring much, but he was key to free spaces for Mclaren and the unselfishness of his teammates allowed the latter to be on the scoresheet in almost every game.
Defensively things were problematic at times, though, with City conceding 2 goals or more in 12 of the 26 rounds during the regular season. This poor record directly related to the fact that several times during the campaign the back line was crippled due to injuries and bans.
The outlook for next season is great with City having the squad, the money and the manager to definitely mount very serious challenge in the search of first title.
