Melbourne vs. Manchester City: Lessons Learned from Pre-Season Friendly

Manchester City's pre-season campaign stepped up a notch with a friendly fixture against sister club Melbourne City, which ended in a 1-0 win for the Premier League team.

Samir Nasri hit the only goal of the game very late on, sweeping high into the net from the edge of the penalty area. Earlier, Yaya Toure had hit the crossbar in the closest City came to scoring.

Although it's early in the summer to be drawing sweeping conclusions about any club, we've identified a few areas that stood out for the Citizens, for Manuel Pellegrini to work toward improving and continue building around.

Defensive Worries

Manchester City had plenty of issues to try to solve in their back line by the end of last season, with captain Vincent Kompany lurching from one unconvincing performance to another at times and none of their full-backs particularly outstanding either.

Tim Ireland/Associated Press

Kompany showed he needs further game time to get more than a few kinks out of his performances this summer, with some early hesitation in possession gifting a couple of chances to Melbourne City. He also struggled to get close to the forwards when turning on the edge of the box.

Stand-in 'keeper Willy Caballero almost handed an opening goal to the opposition by kicking the ball out directly at a striker, and Melbourne's Harry Novillo—the Australian side's best player in the first half—gave young City full-back Pablo Maffeo a torrid first 45 minutes.

Shooting Boots

Not particularly a problem given how early in summer it is, but the volume of relatively good chances that Manchester City spurned will have been a source of frustration to Pellegrini during the game.

Jon Super/Associated Press

Jesus Navas, Samir Nasri and Yaya Toure all missed big chances in the first half to open the scoring, while Brandon Barker went close a couple of times after cutting infield, too. Toure's free-kick that struck the crossbar was as close as City went, and for much of the first hour, they would have been tremendously irritated to not find the net at least once despite dominating play.

Nasri, scored late on, of course, but he seemed particularly hesitant at times inside the box and lacking conviction in his shots—until the unstoppable late hit he managed to strike.

At least City didn't have the worst miss of the game to blame their attackers for; that dubious honour falls to Stefan Mauk of Melbourne City, who put one over the bar from just five yards out with no 'keeper to beat.

"

33' | WHAT A CHANCE! Brilliant play from our boys as @StefanMauk misses a sitter! 0-0 #cityvcity

— Melbourne City FC (@MelbourneCity) July 18, 2015"

Barker

One particularly bright spot for Manchester City was the performance of Brandon Barker. The attacking midfielder was quick to attack the space in off the left channel and drive at the defence, combining passes with Samir Nasri and Yaya Toure at times and getting a few efforts from range away.

Until Enes Unal replaced him for the final quarter of an hour, Barker was arguably City's top player from the many young starlets who took to the field. The 18-year-old once again highlighted his impressive capacity to play, following on from a good performance in the FA Youth Cup final at the end of last season.

Jon Super/Associated Press

Of course, following the arrivals of the likes of Fabian Delph—announced via the club website on Friday—and Raheem Sterling, it will be tougher than ever for any of the young players to break through. But while given the chance in pre-season, all the younger players can do is train hard, play well and try to catch the manager's eye.

With his performance against Melbourne City, Barker should have done just that.

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