Tomorrow morning, we will see Melbourne City hosting Newcastle Jets at AAMI Park in the 11th round of A-League, where City has not lost a match in the last 3 games and will hope to continue with their impressive record.
Melbourne City is currently 4th in the A-League with 17 points and an overall record of 5-2-3. In their last 5 games, Melbourne City has lost against Perth Glory (1:0), played a draw against Melbourne Victory (1:1) and won the remaining 3 games; against Newcastle Jets (3:0), Adelaide United (0:2) and most recently against WS Wanderers (0:2). Looking at the match against Wanderers, City was considered a slight underdog but managed to win with a 2 goal margin despite playing with only 10 players since the 56th minute, when Griffiths received his 2nd yellow card. The first half saw Melbourne City with a 62% ball possession, 7 goal attempts and 2 shots on goal, while WS Wanderers had 38% ball possession, 7 goal attempts and 2 shots on goal. Each team shot the ball towards the goal twice, but it was Melbourne City who managed to utilize both of their shots while WS Wanderers failed to do the same. City scored the opening goal in 35th minute, to which they added another one only 2 minutes later (37th minute). The second half saw WS Wanderers completely dominating City, with 58% ball possession, 10 goal attempts and 4 shots on goal, while City had 42% ball possession, 2 goal attempts and 0 shots on goal. Despite Wanderers having more attempts, they failed to score a single goal. They were awarded a penalty kick in 86th minute, but even that was not converted into a goal. With that, the match ended 0:2 for Melbourne City who managed to defeat WS Wanderers at home. This was the 3rd consecutive defeat for WS Wanderers at ANZ Stadium, which was also the first time they lost 3 consecutive matches at home.
The visiting side today, Newcastle Jets are currently 7th in the league with an overall record of 3-3-5 and a 2-1-2 in the last 5 games. In the course of their last 5 games, Jets have been defeated by Perth Glory (0:2), Adelaide United (1:2), won against Brisbane Roar (2:0) and Central Coast Mariners (1:2) while they drew their most recent match against Brisbane Roar (2:2). In their most recent match against Brisbane Roar, Newcastle Jets have scored a goal in the 5th minute, which gave them an early lead. Despite 16 goal attempts and 7 shots on goal in the 1st half, that was the only goal Jets managed to produce. The second half was in Brisbane Roar favour, who had 57% ball possession, 12 goal attempts and 5 shots on goal, while Jets had 43% ball possession, 11 goal attempts and only 1 shot on goal. With 12 goal attempts, it does not come off as a surprise, Brisbane Roar managed to equalize the match in 65th minute, however, they suffered yet another goal only 2 minutes later. With 23 minutes left in the match, Brisbane Roar pushed for another goal and they got it in the 87th minute when Bautheac managed to score his 1st goal of the season. The match ended with a final score of 2:2, which was a good result for Brisbane Roar and not so much for Jets who were considered a favourite.
These two teams faced off against each other once before this season, in fact, it was not that long ago. Their last match happened on 2nd of December when Melbourne City won with 3 goals (3:0). From what we have seen from these two teams in recent matches I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the same result tonight. At home, City is undefeated in the last 3 matches, where they scored 6 goals and only conceded 1, while Jets are 2-1 in their last 3 away games, in the course of which they scored 4 goals and conceded 3. The fact that Jets only barely managed to defeat Central Coast Mariners in their most recent away match makes me wonder if they are prepared to face off against Melbourne City and in my opinion, they are not. Expect Melbourne City to win their 2nd match against the Jets.
Prediction: Melbourne City to win
Odds: 2.23 Pinnacle
