With 20 rounds of A-League behind us, these two teams will meet each other in their 21st game of the season at AAMI Park in Melbourne, where they already met in January.
Melbourne City will come into this match as the 5th team in the league with an overall record of 8-5-7 and a 0-2-3 record in the last 5 games played. In other words, Melbourne City will come into this match without a win in their last 5 games. Looking at the most recent match against Melbourne Victory, Melbourne City were just terrible. While the match did indeed end with a draw (1:1), there is one “small” detail that made this match into a poor performance from City. That is a red card Melbourne Victory player received in the 15th minute. However, despite playing without 1 player, Melbourne Victory still managed to score a goal in 50th minute, thus tie-ing the match. Not only did Melbourne City fail to win a match with 1 player advantage, but they also had 13 goal attempts and… *drum roll*… 1 shot on goal! I don’t know what else to say but; this was a disastrous performance from City, who had a great chance to bounce back after 4 straight games without a win.
Perth Glory on the other side are enjoying the 1st place in the league where they sit with 8 point lead in front of 2nd placed Sydney. With only 1 defeat in the season (14-5-1), Perth have proven they are here to win the league this season and they are doing a good job achieving that. Looking at their last match against WS Wanderers, Perth were far from impressive…Well, they were not that bad either. Despite the fact I expected them to finish the game with a high win, Perth Glory did hold on to a goal lead from 23rd minute, up until 90th minute…when they conceded an equalizer with only a few seconds left in the match. While it was a disappointing result, Perth are still so high up the leaderboards, the draw against Wanderers was not as impactful as it might be for other teams.
With all the issues Melbourne City has in the team alongside fans dissatisfaction with their coach, I believe their morale is fairly low heading into this match. The last time these two sides met, the match ended in a draw (0:0) with only 2 shots on goal from Perth and 0 shots on goal from Melbourne City. This time, I do not expect City to be any better, while Perth will look for 3 more points to increase the gap between themselves and Sydney. If we take into consideration City terrible form and chemistry issues on one side, and Perth hunger for more points on the other, this match should end in Perth Glory’s favour. And while a 0:1 win would be enough, I don’t believe Perth will risk losing 3 points due to the last minute goal like in the last match again, which is why I believe Perth will come into this match with all of their guns blazing.
Prediction: Perth Glory to win
Odds: 2.45 Pinnacle
