Eight points ahead of their only rival for the sixth and final play-off spot Brisbane Roar, it will take a collapse of dramatic proportions for John van 't Schip's side not to meet the most basic of criteria demanded by new owners, Manchester City: a place in the A-League finals.

Yes, Brisbane have a game in hand on City but at this stage it looks academic. Even if Frans Thijssen's team were to win it, they would still be five points adrift of the Victorian side.

Roar have a horrendous fixture pile-up - they must still travel to China and South Korea for Asian Champions League games between their remaining A-League fixtures - so it is long odds against the defending champions getting to the finals this time, even if they were to win that game in hand.

City, of course, can take nothing for granted while mathematical possibilities exist for their rivals.

But van 't Schip's men travel north to take on another team deeply engaged in the ACL - last season's Asian champions Western Sydney Wanderers - on Good Friday with their tails up.

A team that is a byword for flakiness seems, in the past few weeks, to have discovered a hitherto unknown resolve.

When they crashed in succession to out-of-contention Wanderers and Central Coast it looked as though City had blown their chances.

The stupid sending off of young centre back Connor Chapman for manhandling the referee late in the Wanderers game seemed symptomatic of their frustration. Chapman got a three-match ban, and many felt he was lucky for it to be that short.

But far from collapse inwards when it might have been easy to do so,  City galvanised themselves for a last-gasp effort.

Despite their long injury list and the loss of their best player, Aaron Mooy, to the Socceroos for the Brisbane game, they have now put together three wins on the spin. In so doing they have made the rest of the competition, if not sit up quaking in fear, then at least take notice.

The 1-0 triumph  over Brisbane was typically City. They got their noses in front early, calmed their nerves and should have gone on to make sure of the points with relative ease against a tired team (missing many key men of its own) backing up for its third match in six days.

Instead, as City so often do, they made life hard for themselves. It wasn't all their own fault: Brisbane showed character, conviction and the sort of skill and fighting temperament that saw them to the title last season,  to wrest control of the match for long periods.

Their coach, Thijssen, thought they were the best team. They dominated possession against a City side that surrendered the initiative and sat too deep, but without the likes of Brazilian forward Henrique and German midfielder Thomas Broich they lacked a cutting edge. Still, had they gone home with a point and kept the finals race more alive than it currently looks, few bar the most ardent City fans would have complained.

Still, the result, as van 't Schip said after the game, was all that mattered in the context of this particular fixture and the season as a whole.

City have seen off Brisbane three times this campaign, and the win on Saturday night built on a home victory over the struggling Newcastle Jets and a surprising away win against title-chasing Sydney FC eight days earlier.

The Dutch coach will hope that Josh Kennedy, the towering Socceroo frontman who has been part of the squad for the past couple of months, stays injury free and builds his fitness up for the finals assault

Kennedy has straightened City up, given them a genuine target up front - not just in the air, as the 1.94m Kennedy is also adept at holding the ball up on the ground - and made them a bit more direct. It has worked well: Kennedy's fifth-minute header on Saturday night led to the only goal of the game, as Roar keeper Jamie Young could only parry the ball out and City's Argentine midfielder Jonatan Germano swept home the rebound.

There are concerns over the fate of the injury-prone James Brown, who limped off again with another problem just after the half-hour mark against the Roar. Brown had only come back into the team a week earlier, after an absence of several months, when he had scored the only goal of the game against Sydney, so he has been cursed by some terrible luck. But even if he is out of action it is unlikely to be a huge burden: City have done without him for most of the season, so they can probably manage now if they have to.

And they will soon regain the services of another even more important player in youngster Jacob Melling. The dynamic midfielder with the combative edge has been out of action for several weeks but is expected to be available soon. His toughness and grunt will be a big plus come the cut-throat finals games.

Van 't Schip has singled out marquee man Robbie Koren as a key player for the finals, and the former Slovenian international captain, dropping into a deeper midfield role in Mooy's absence, had one of his more influential games. He set up the goal with a cross from the left for Kennedy, but more than that he ran, organised and tried to set the tempo for his team.

His coach admits that sometimes Koren's versatility means fans don't always appreciate the role he plays for the team.

"You lose a lot in helping the team. He was very important with the goal and the cross. He is very important for us in this situation because he is very versatile, he can play as a striker, in midfield or on the left. It's helping us as a team, although I am not saying it's helping Robbie Koren as a player. He will be very important for the team as the season goes on and the finals come."