Wanderers on alert as Melbourne City’s Jamie Maclaren runs hot

There’s making a mockery of A-League defences. Then there’s Jamie Maclaren.

Melbourne City striker Jamie Maclaren scores against Western United at GMHBA Stadium last month. Picture: Getty Images

There’s making a mockery of A-League defences. Then there’s Jamie Maclaren.

No player is currently crueller to the back of opposition nets than the Melbourne City striker, already on course to crack Bobo’s all-time single-season record of 27 goals in 27 games and out to wreak more havoc on Western Sydney on Friday night.

If Maclaren’s seven goals from three games are a forerunner, the 26-year-old will go past the former Sydney FC marquee Brazilian by the end of January.

In other words, brace yourself Daniel Lopar.

The new Wanderers goalkeeper wasn’t around when Maclaren terrorised his club to the tune of 10 goals from 11 meetings, including three braces in 2015-16.

But the entire Western Sydney defensive line will be on high alert to stop the penalty-box predator slipping off the shoulder and into the area that’s proved so fruitful. On Sunday, against old club Brisbane, he became the second A-League player after Roy Krishna to score multiple times in three successive games.

Maclaren’s hat-trick was his fourth, drawing him level with Shane Smeltz and one shy of Besart Berisha’s record five. And he’s reached the seven-goal mark two games faster than any player in the competition’s history.

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That followed six goals from four FFA Cup appearances and four from two for the Socceroos in recent World Cup qualifying matches. Which all begs the question: is it an anomaly? A purple patch unlikely to endure?

Or, considering he bagged a golden boot-sharing 19 from 26 games three seasons ago for the Roar, is he simply getting better?

“His game has certainly matured,” said Craig Moore, Brisbane’s technical director during Maclaren’s two seasons in orange. “At this level he’s a fantastic goalscorer. He’s on the shoulders, he’s got fantastic movement, and he knows where to be in the box.

“He has that art of knowing where the ball is going to drop and maybe getting that little headstart on a defender.”

Before Maclaren left Brisbane for second-division German outfit Darmstadt in 2017, Moore tried to persuade the then 23-year-old to spend another season in the A-League.

Now he believes that goal-dry, game-barren spell in Germany armed Maclaren with the resilience required to bounce back on loan with Scottish side Hibernian, score a maiden international goal at the Asian Cup and become a consistent Socceroos contributor. “At Hibs he probably found his love for the game again,” said Moore.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH