Melbourne City manager Warren Joyce admitted that his side had “gifted” cross-town rivals Melbourne Victory a goal on derby day.
Kevin Muscat’s men looked the more promising side for most of the game, with a particularly flair filled combination between Ola Toivonen and James Troisi in the first half that the latter failed to capitalise on.
However, the second period saw the towering Swede score whilst being unmarked in front of goal.
“[It was a] poor goal to concede, really,” Joyce said.
“We’ve looked and worked on things this week about the big fella [Toivonen] isolating himself at the back post and drifting there.
“We’ve also worked on stopping crosses but we were poor…and gifted them a goal, really.”
Despite going a goal down in the second half, City clawed their way back and eventually levelled during stoppage time to steal a point from the encounter.
The former Wigan Athletic boss added: “I thought [we] showed tremendous spirit, the way we drove the game relentlessly to get something right at the death.”
City travel to New South Wales next to take on Western Sydney Wanderers on New Year’s Day.
