Perth Glory’s A-League Men’s winless streak has been extended to five matches after they went down 1-0 to an underwhelming Melbourne City at AAMI Park.

Lawrence Wong’s exceptional first-half strike gave City the lead and it was all his side needed while the Glory had chances, but no sustained strong passages to really take the game to the hosts.

The impact of Adam Taggart and Lachie Wales faded as the game wore on, with Perth’s midfield — missing Nicholas Pennington through a calf issue — struggled to get their two best forwards involved in the game.

City, for their part, were not much better; save for the occasional flash of inspiration from Marco Tilio or Kavian Rahmani, it was not a performance to write home about other than it achieved their goal of a first three points in four games.

Played in a library-like atmosphere, with the numerous empty green seats of AAMI Park seemingly sapping any electricity in the air, the lack of energy in the crowd imposed itself on the game itself, which felt more akin to a game of walking football at times.

A sleepy start was somewhat stirred when city goalkeeper Patrick Beach produced a one-handed save to deny Wales after the ball fell kindly to him in the 16th minute.

Given a reprieve despite his error which gifted Central Coast a point last week, Perth ‘keeper Oli Sail was forced into action twice by Rahmani – the first an attempt he saved with his feet, the second a curled effort which was beaten away.

Moments later, Perth had a pair of chances to take the lead when Taras Gomulka’s hesitation following an errant Beach clearance cost him a shot on target, but from the resultant corner, Tomi Mrcela’s header was kept out only by the crossbar.

Perth’s lack of clinical finishing in front of goal returned to haunt them in the 37th minute when Tilio worked his way into the middle of the pitch and the ball rolled to Wong, whose first-time effort beat Sail all ends up.

The Glory were caught on the hop again almost straight away when Max Caputo tapped in after a breakaway, but he was correctly deemed offside.

Still, they should have gone into half-time level when Anas Hamzaoui’s dinked ball to the back post was not cleared by the hosts, only for Will Freney to dispatch the loose ball over the bar.

If the first half felt tired at times, the second one felt like it had nodded off altogether as both sides struggled to test the goalkeeper or swing the pendulum in their favour as passes went astray and chances dried up almost completely.

Nikola Mileusnic, starting his first Glory game all season, was afforded time and space in the middle of the park as he raced towards the goal, but while his shot was on target, it failed to really test Beach.

Trent Ostler had a similar attempt about 20 minutes later, in the final quarter-hour of the game, which in itself spoke volumes about Perth’s chance creation, before City substitute Mikey Ghossaini missed a simple finish up the other end late in a fitting end to the match.