A-League Betting: Sydney FC the Handicap bet to make it three from three at Wellington Phoenix

Recommended bet: Sydney FC -0.5 Asian Handicap @ 1/1 (2.00) with bet365

It’s still very early days in the new Hyundai A-League football season, but Wellington Phoenix play host to Sydney FC in what is a bottom versus top clash at the Westpac Stadium on Sunday.

This is also a match-up between a side that has yet to score in their two matches to date and one that has yet to concede, so something needs to change if Wellington Phoenix are to have any hope of registering a first win of the campaign here.

Following on from their opening 1-0 loss at home to Melbourne City (where they played against 10-men for over half-an-hour following the dismissal of visiting veteran goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen), Phoenix went down 2-0 away to Perth Glory.  For Sydney it’s been back-to-back 4-0 victories, with an opening win at Western Sydney Wanderers followed up with an equally comprehensive drubbing of Central Coast Mariners.

Filip Holosko, Bobo and Alex Brosque have scored seven of the Sky Blues’ eight goals between them to date, although it was Serbian playmaker Milos Ninkovic who really pulled the strings against the Mariners.

Phoenix had the better of last season’s three league meetings, drawing the first two before coming away from Sydney’s Allianz Stadium with a 3-1 victory in March.  It has to be remembered that Sydney underperformed badly last season, particularly in the latter half of the campaign.

Confidence is clearly high for the visitors going into this match, whereas Phoenix are on a six-match losing streak dating back to last season in the league.  If things are to change for the New Zealand team, they need the likes of Kosta Barbarouses, Roy Krishna and Gui Finkler to step-up.

Everything points to another Sydney victory here and the even money available with bet365 for them -0.5 on the Asian Handicap looks the way to go.

In reality Sydney to win the match and Sydney -0.5 on the Asian Handicap should be exactly the same price, but bet365 have got their prices slightly out at the time of writing. With this Asian Handicap bet, basically if Sydney win so does your bet.  If they fail to win, the bet loses.