The second match in the 9th round of A-League tomorrow will see Melbourne City playing against Melbourne Victory in a city derby, which has no clear historic winner in their H2H matches thus far.
Melbourne City are currently 4th in the league with 13 points and a 4-1-3 record. In the last 5 games, they have won 3; Phoenix (2:0), Jets (3:0), United (0:2) and lost 2 games against Roar (2:0), Perth Glory (1:0). In their most recent match against Adelaide, Melbourne CIty has won with 2 goals which they scored from a total of 6 goal attempts and with 48% ball posession. Adelaide, on the other hand, had 52% of the ball possession, 7 goal attempts but failed to score a goal of their own. The opener was scored in 25th minute, which was officially an auto goal scored by Elsey. The second goal was scored only 5 minutes into the 2nd half by Brattan which gave Victory a 2 goal lead. The match then proceeded for the remaining 40 minutes without any goals despite a total of 9 goal attempts from both teams combined. Final score: 0:2. With a win behind them, City will be looking to extend start a winning streak against VIctory, however, they have some problems on their hand. After the following match, the City’s support group will retire due to lack of support. This will be a huge blow to this Melbourne team. Some may think that it was the “Fornaroli issue” that was the cause of that decision, however, the supporters did state it had nothing to do with it.
Melbourne Victory are currently 2nd in the league with an overall record of 6-0-2 and are currently enjoying a 6 game winning streak after a poor start of the season. In their most recent match, they have completely dominated Brisbane Roar (2:4), who had to play without a player from the 15th minute. That surely did make Victory job easier, but the dominance in the 2nd half, which saw Roar with only 19% ball possession can’t be justified with a sending off. All in all, Victory could have easily played a draw against Roar, as their performance as a whole was not impressive. We must mention Roar did come into the match after losing 2 consecutive matches and an early red card surely lowered their morale which was clearly seen in the 2nd half.
Past derbies between City and Victory do not show us any favourite as they both won 2 times in the last 4 games they played. As with all derbies, this one should be an entertaining one from the start until the final whistle like it always was. Victory is on a 6 game winning streak, but the odds offered on City are far too high. They have been playing well in recent matches and we could argue they have been performing better without Forniroli, with other players stepping up and scoring goals of their own. Don’t let the high odds on City confuse you, they are more than capable of upsetting Melbourne Victory and winning it and I do believe they will do so in hopes to convince their supporters to stay.
Prediction: Melbourne City +0.25 Asian Handicap
Odds: 2.01 Pinnacle
