Full disclosure: we called our family cat Bruno.

Not in honour of the singer Bruno Mars or the preposterously effete Sacha Baron Cohen character.

Bruno is a nod to one of the most optimistic chapters in the A-League's chequered history when Melbourne City's brilliant Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli was scoring for fun — both his and ours.

Fornaroli's sublime finishing was symbolic of what the FFA hoped Melbourne City's vastly wealthy Abu Dhabi owners would bring to the A-League when they bought and instantly re-branded Melbourne Heart in 2014 (besides a truck load of cash).

Selected by the City Group's vast talent identification network and implanted in its Australian franchise, Fornaroli elevated both the club and the competition.

Bruno was an A-League identity. Not merely another big name import like David Villa who turned up for a few hamstring stretching appearances before relocating to the City Groups more glamorous and rewarding franchise in New York.

Then there was the "state of the art" facility Melbourne City built at their Bundoora headquarters which gave the impression City Group money could buy happiness — or at least a much better lap pool than Sydney FC or Brisbane Roar.

So when we called them Melbourne $ity, it wasn't a sledge. It was an attempt to embrace the one significant identifying feature and practical advantage Melbourne's second team had over cross-town rivals Victory and the rest of the competition — guaranteed financial solidarity.

Back then it seemed only a matter of time before the good times rolled. Even a gormless 10-year-old could sense it.

Remember that clever advertising campaign when Yoshi, the A-League Every Child, was given a tour of all the clubs before announcing he had chosen to follow — drum roll — Melbourne City?

So how has that worked out for Yoshi?

Just a month after his decision Yoshi celebrated City's 2016 FFA Cup victory and you were worried he might become the kind of bandwagon-jumping football-spoiled brat who followed Liverpool or Arsenal in their glory days.

But yesterday as Melbourne City coughed up a 2-0 lead and drew 2-2 with league leaders Perth Glory at AAMI Park, you wondered if Yoshi was watching or on the PlayStation.

Fornaroli's predicament symbolic of Melbourne City's current plight

Cash-rich City replaced the hipsters' favourite Melbourne Heart, but promised success hasn't really materialised yet. ( AAP: Julian Smith )

Before the game it was Fornaroli's sad, drawn-out departure that seemed most symbolic of the current Melbourne City status.

The Uruguayan had emptied his locker during the week after losing a long battle of wills with manager Warren Joyce who, from the little we have been told, was not enraptured by the star striker's work habits.

In justifying Fornaroli's expulsion, Joyce said: "Culture is non-negotiable."

But what is Melbourne City's culture? Why does it even exist? To produce players to send up the City Group chain of command to clubs in foreign leagues or sell for a handy profit?

Former Melbourne City star Aaron Mooy's $10 million transfer to Huddersfield Town recouped most of the $12 million licence fee.

Assuming Melbourne City youth product Daniel Arzani recovers from a serious knee injury, his transfer might pay for the next centre of excellence or add a few lanes to the lap pool. He might even star with Manchester City.

This is good for City Group business. But it is a bloodless existence for those Melbourne City fans craving long-term engagement with stars or, at least, a visible match-day benefit from these transactions.

It also totally misunderstands, you might even say betrays, the initial Melbourne Heart fan base.

Why does my Heart feel so bad?

The reward for joining the City group was supposed to be entertaining football and virtually guaranteed success. ( AP: Rui Vieira )

Without a specific geographical location or ethnic base, Heart's crowds included a large element of what you might called football purists and counter-culture types.

Some of these supporters had embraced Melbourne Heart simply because it was not Melbourne Victory as a coffee snob might embrace a local coffee shop because it wasn't Starbucks.

To these fans the takeover of Heart by the City Group and its politically dubious oil sheikh owners wasn't nearly as exciting as it was to the FFA which was elated to find an owner whose cheques didn't bounce like a super ball on a trampoline. (Although the FFA was perhaps less elated a couple of years later when the City Group's local representatives helped weaken its hold on the A-League.)

If Heart fans were to rent their football souls and embrace the Abu Dhabi franchise model, the reward was supposed to be entertaining football and virtually guaranteed success.

Thus they stroked their hipster beards and fantasised about a club that would reinvent Australian football under the brooding tutelage of a suave pony-tailed Armani-clad European coach.

Instead they find themselves enduring the almost comically pragmatic style of the Englishman Joyce whose matchday wardrobe is High St leisurewear and whose tactics come straight from the Harry Redknapp relegation survival playbook.

After Sunday's achingly predictable come-from-ahead draw against Glory, City's remaining redeeming feature is the A-League's generous finals systems that means the fifth placed team in a 10 team league is a notional title contender instead of suffering mid-table mediocrity as it would be in almost any other nation.

That and the five goals in four games (including two against Glory) scored by Socceroo Jamie Maclaren, now the only regular reminder of $ity's powerful connections and initial promise.

But such is the generosity of Australian football's championships system that if Maclaren's form continues into the play-offs we might yet be checking to see if you can change a cat's name by deed poll.

Offsiders with Kelli Underwood airs on ABC TV Sundays at 10:00am.