Back Melbourne City with home advantage against Perth Glory

Recommended Bet: Melbourne City to win at Evens (2.00) with William Hill

With the regular A-League season finished we are now at the Elimination Finals stage, featuring the teams that ended the campaign between 3rd and 6th in the table.

Both of these teams will be feeling that they missed an opportunity over the last weekend of the regular season.  Melbourne City topped the table after 25 of 27 rounds, but lost 2-0 at home to Adelaide United in their final game of the regular season when a win would have seen them secure automatic qualification to the semi-finals of the Finals series and a place in the 2017 AFC Champions League.

For Perth Glory, kicking-off a couple of days after Melbourne City’s defeat, they knew that a win at a Sydney FC team that were winless in 11 A-League games would have given them home advantage against City (a team they beat 3-2 at their nib Stadium just a week earlier) in this tie.  They went to Sydney on the back of 10 wins in their last 11 games, but went down to a disastrous 4-0 defeat and so now face a trip to City’s AAMI Park.  

Perth won three of their last five matches against City in all competitions, with City winning just one of the last seven between the two.  Where City will take some comfort is that their solitary victory during that run was the last meeting between the two teams at AAMI Park in November, where they ran out comprehensive 5-1 winners.  They’ve also not lost at home to Perth in any of their last six encounters and won nine of 13 matches at home in the regular season.

These were the two highest scoring teams in the regular season (City scoring an impressive 63 goals whilst Perth, along with Brisbane Roar, managed 49).  City’s Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli has weighed in with 23 goals this season, while creator-in-chief Aaron Mooy also has an eye for goal.  On the downside, forward Harry Novillo is suspended for this game.

The three A-League meetings between these teams this term produced 15 goals but, unsurprisingly given what’s at stake, Elimination Finals tend to be more low-scoring affairs.  Rather than backing any goals markets, it might pay to simply bank on home advantage.