It was hardly surprising as the 22-year-old had netted three times in City's opening streak of four wins and was looking like one of the most improved players at the club.

But more pertinently, he said that to announce themselves as serious title aspirants and title contenders, City had to beat Sydney the following night.

That they didn't - Warren Joyce's team went down 1-0 - isn't a great surprise.

Graham Arnold's side has spent more than a year doing the same thing to every other club in the A-League, strangling the life out of the game, then being good enough to take their chances when they come along, as full-back Luke Wilkshire did on Friday night.

What Joyce admitted, and anyone watching acknowledged, was at this stage of their respective development Sydney is a much more accomplished and co-ordinated team, a squad that knows what it is doing, because it has done it so many times before, and knows how to take the sting out of a game before imposing itself on its opponents.

Very little happened in the game in the first half save for a well-worked move by City that ended with Nick Fitzgerald's shot being saved well by former City keeper Andrew Redmayne, now establishing himself as the champions' number one.

Once Sydney got their noses in front just before the hour mark they were always in control, handing City a lesson that hopefully will be learnt.

The hosts have a tight defence - that was only the second goal they have conceded this season. Losing Tim Cahill to injury wasn't ideal, forcing a reshuffle, but City didn't create enough gilt-edged chances to really threaten Sydney that much.

City captain Michael Jakobsen said the result was a check on City's progress but not something they were too despondent about.

"We are down to earth all the time, we're not getting carried away because of four victories," he said on Saturday morning. "We've been happy with the wins, but we know that we can perform better and we saw that yesterday.

"The defensive part looks strong, but there are still things to work on and we didn't look terrible at all.

"We still need to get used to each other. We've got a lot of good players in and we need to get used to how things work. It's not going to go from one to 100, it takes time. We need time to get that sorted and we'll continue that.

"I think there are a lot of good teams in the league this year and Sydney FC are up there as well. It's going to be hard work against them.

"We have a very strong squad. Everybody is working every day, so everyone wants to play. Now we can use the depth of the squad and how it performs, so it is a good issue."