​More Than A Quarter Of Melbourne City's Squad Are Now Suspended

The A-League's so-called glamour club, Melbourne City, continued to cover themselves in shame with yet another round of suspensions following their spiteful 2-1 loss to cross-city rivals, Melbourne Victory, in Saturday night's Melbourne Derby.

They are now staring down the barrel of being without an unprecedented seven players through suspension for their crucial upcoming home game against the third-placed, Brisbane Roar this weekend.

Among them will be Tim Cahill who was red carded for dissent before even entering the field. With six minutes remaining, the Socceroos legend approached the stripe and let rip an outburst that was heard by officials and saw him immediately shown red (he labelled a decision "a f**king disgrace.")

City goalkeeper, Dean Bouzanis, meanwhile, could miss up to five matches for a racial slur directed at Melbourne Victory captain, Besart Berisha. Bouzanis called the Albanian-native "a f**king gypsy" — a slur favourited among many rival fan groups when they take on the Melbourne Victory — during one of a dozen or more heated exchanges between the two sides. The slur was picked up on the match broadcast and will see Bouzanis undergo an 'education course' regardless of whether the Match Review Panel decides to suspend him.

Melbourne City released a statement on the incident, saying:

"Melbourne City offered an immediate apology to Melbourne Victory for the player's actions and will make a formal apology to Melbourne Victory and the player today.

"Bouzanis admitted making the remarks out of ignorance; however, has since understood the seriousness of his comments.

"Once informed of the gravity of his actions, Bouzanis committed to redressing the offence at the earliest opportunity.

"As such, he will issue a formal and personal apology to the player and begin an appropriate educational course to rectify the gaps in his understanding.

"The club regrets the incident and any offence caused."

The five other players suspended for City's next game, due to an accumulation of yellow cards, are Bruno Fornaroli, Fernando Brandan, Luke Brattan, Manny Muscat and Osama Malik. They will also likely be without key defender, Michael Jakobsen, who limped off at halftime with a recurring calf complaint.

Speaking on Fox Sports, former A-League coach and Football Federation Australia hall-of-famer, John Kosmina labelled the City squad "spoiled brats."

"They're behaving like a bunch of spoiled brats. They're like spoiled little rich kids who expect everything to happen for them and when it's not, look at the behaviour," he said.

"They've been involved in diving incidents, they've been involved in all sorts of problems, the abuse of opposition benches. There's been lots of controversy around the club. Maybe its time they learned a bit of a lesson (and) they just go into the game with a little bit of humiltiiy and settle down and go an play good football which they're capable of," he said.